Journalist jailed for six months and paper suspended

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières - RSF) protested today against a six-month prison sentence passed on Mohsen Mirdamadi, along with a four-year ban on him holding "a senior position" on a publication and a six-month suspension of the reformist daily newspaper Nowrooz, which he edits. "In the past month, four journalists have been sentenced to prison terms and Iranian courts have stepped up their harsh intimidation of the reformist media," said RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard in a letter to the head of the country's conservative judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Sharudi. "We demand that these convictions be annulled and that all journalists in jail be released," he said. Eleven journalists are currently imprisoned in Iran and eight publications have been suspended since the beginning of this year. Mirdamadi, who is also chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security commission, was given the three sentences by the Teheran press court on 8 May, as well as a fine of two billion rials (about 250,000 euros). He was convicted on the basis of 200 formal complaints that included "insulting senior figures" and "publishing lies," although no details were given of the charges. He has 20 days to appeal before he going to prison. Nowrooz, the organ of the country's main reformist party, appeared normally on 9 May despite the six-month suspension order.