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Iran: Appeals court upholds jail sentence
of Kurdish journalist
16.9.2006
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New York,
September 15, 2006, -- The Committee to Protect
Journalists is alarmed by the ruling of an Iranian
appeals court upholding a one-year prison sentence
against Kurdish journalist and human rights activist
Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand.
The court of appeals in the northwestern province of
Kurdistan ordered him to serve the suspended jail
term, the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA)
reported. Kabudvand, managing editor of the
bilingual Kurdish and Farsi weekly Payam Mardom
Kordestan, was summoned by authorities in the
western city of Sanandaj on September 13 to begin
his sentence, ILNA said. The court also upheld a
five-year ban on his practicing journalism.
Kabudvand plans to appeal to Iran’s Supreme Court.
He was convicted last October of “inciting the
population to rebel against the central state” and
creating racial and tribal tensions.
He had published articles about torture in Iranian
jails, and advocated a federal system of government
for the Islamic republic. Payam Mardom Kordestan was
banned on June 27, 2004, after 13 issues, according
to news reports.
Kabudvand was appointed secretary of the Kurdistan
Organization for the Defense of Human Rights in
April 2005.
“The decision to uphold the conviction of Mohammad
Sadiq Kabudvand represents yet another blatant
violation of press freedom in Iran,” CPJ Executive
Director Joel Simon said. “We call on Iran’s State
Supreme Court to hear his appeal quickly and
overturn this conviction.”
The jailing of Kabudvand is part of ongoing
repression of critical media in Iran.
On August 28, Issa Saharkhiz, the managing editor of
the now-defunct critical monthly magazine Aftab,
received a four-year prison sentence and a five-year
ban on practicing journalism from a court of first
instance in Tehran, according to the Iran Student
News Agency.
The court revoked the monthly’s publishing license,
which had already been suspended. Saharkhiz was
convicted of disseminating false information in
articles he published several years ago that
criticized Iran’s human rights record, particularly
conditions in the country’s notorious prisons.
Saharkhiz has 20 days to appeal.
On August 19, Saghi Baghernia, publisher of the
daily economic newspaper Asia, received a six-month
jail sentence from a Tehran court for “insulting the
regime,” according to CPJ sources. On July 5, 2003,
she published a photograph of Paris-based Iranian
opposition leader Maryam Rajavi smiling after her
release from a French prison on terrorism charges.
Rajavi is the wife of Massoud Rajavi, leader of
Mujahedeen Khalq, a group that the United States
considers a terrorist organization, and which is
dedicated to the overthrow of the government in
Tehran.
Baghernia’s husband Iraj Jamshidi, editor of Asia,
was sentenced in July 2003 and served a year in
prison also for publishing the photo. Baghernia was
convicted as the license holder of Asia. She is not
in jail, but maybe summoned anytime to serve her
sentence, according to CPJ sources.
cpj org
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