The Committee to Protect Journalists reported earlier this week that two prominent journalists, Hengameh Shahidi and Saeed Laylaz were sentenced to extended prison terms of up to six yeas and three months, and no less than 9 years respectively, after being arrested earlier this year.
Shahidi, who is an adviser to defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi, a blogger and contributing writer to several Iranian reformist newspapers, was arrested on June 30 and subsequently placed in solitary confinement for 50 days. The CPJ states that “She was officially charged with mutiny through attending riots, activities against the Islamic Republic of Iran through conducting interviews with the ‘anti-revolutionary’ BBC, insulting the President, and disruption of public order.” Laylaz, the editor of the now-banned daily business journal Sarmayeh and a vocal critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s economic policies, was also placed in solitary confinement for more than three months before eventually being moved to a group cell. Like Shahidi, he was charged with “congregation and mutiny against national security, propagation against the regime, disrupting public order, and keeping classified documents.”
Read the full CPJ article here
The sentencing of both Shahidi and Laylaz comes during a massive crackdown on journalistic freedom in Iran, which is the world’s second-worst jailer next to China. There are currently 23 journalists imprisoned in Iran, the majority of which are online freelancers. The crackdown on free speech and journalism was largely fueled by the recent post – election dissent that resulted in massive protests and rioting, and marks a low point in the history of the burgeoning Farsi blogosphere. In Iran, the battle for press freedom has largely shifted to an online paradigm, as web based reporting offers new opportunities to increasing numbers of journalists who have found themselves out of work after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad closed many of the country’s newspapers. What is particularly alarming about these cases is that as freelancers, imprisioned journalists are on their own to fight the battle for press freedom and for individual freedom. It is thus essential to continue to fight for the release of these imprisoned journalists and for the rights of journalists imprisoned worldwide.
