Online journalist freed but two others still held

Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the release on 21 September of Iranian online journalist Babak Ghafori Azar, detained for two weeks for allegedly writing for the news website Rouydad, but said two others arrested around the same time are still being held and urged bloggers and other Internet users and to send e-mail messages of support. The organisation said the messages, which senders may compose in their own words, should be sent to [email protected] , from where they will be forwarded to the families of the imprisoned journalists and posted on the Farsi-language section of the Reporters Without Borders website: http://oufhjezmsy.tudasnich.de/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=256 The community of Iranian bloggers has been organising for several days to show its opposition to the censorship of Emrooz, Rouydad and Baamdad, websites that support Iran's main reform party. Dozens of Farsi-language blog pages have been renamed Emrooz and are displaying articles taken from the Emrooz site. Background Azar, who also works for the business daily Hayat-e now, was arrested at his home on 7 September after it was searched by the police. Shahram Rafihzadeh, the editor of the culture section of the newspaper Etemad, was arrested the same day, probably by the vice police, a section of the Tehran police thought to be linked to the intelligence services. Hanif Mazroi, a journalist who used to work for several reformist newspapers, was arrested the following day when he complied with a summons to report to the ninth section of the Tehran prosecutor's office. Rafihzadeh and Mazroi are probably being held in connection with the blocking of the Rouydad news site (www.rouydad.info) since 21 August on the orders of the Tehran prosecutor's office.