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Crackdown on Kurdish press following
clashes in Kurdistan-Iran
6.8.2005
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Reporters Without
Borders today condemned a wave of harassment of
Kurdish journalists by local authorities in Iranian
Kurdistan, which has been hit by clashes in recent
weeks, and the closure of the daily Achti and the
weekly Asou at the behest of the ministry of culture
and Islamic guidance.
"We condemn this crackdown on the Kurdish press
because Iranian Kurdistan has more need than ever of
its journalists in these times of great tension,"
the press freedom organisation said. "We call on the
authorities to stop the harassment of Kurdish
journalists and to lift the suspension of Achti and
Asou."
Asou, which is published in both Kurdish and Farsi,
was closed by judicial officials in Sanandaj (the
capital of Kurdistan) on 3 August, probably because
of its editorial line and its coverage of the events
shaking the region.
The closure of Achti followed, probably for the same
reasons. Published in Tehran in Kurdish, it had
recently received permission to change from a weekly
to a daily. The source of the orders for the closure
of both newspapers was the ministry of culture and
Islamic guidance.
Several journalists are known to have been arrested
but, given the many arrests that have taken place in
the region, many more are probably being held. Roya
Tolou, the editor of the newspaper Resan, was
detained by police in Sanandaj on 2 August. Ejlal
Ghavami, a journalist with the weekly Payam-e mardom-e
Kurdestan, was also arrested the same day.
Other journalists have been summoned to appear
before local authorities for reasons that are
unknown but probably related to reports published in
the past few weeks.
Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand, Payam-e mardom-e
Kurdestan's editor, was asked to appear before a
court in Sanandaj yesterday. He did appear but
without his lawyer, who is none other than
Abdolfattah Soltani, who was arrested on the orders
of Tehran prosecutor Said Mortazavi on 30 July.
This is not the first time Kabovand has been
harassed by local judicial officials. He was
arrested and taken before a court in Sanandaj on 15
June 2004 for "spreading separatist ideas and
publishing false reports" and the court ordered the
closure of his newspaper two weeks later.
www.rsf.org
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