Reporters Without Borders shocked by 11-year prison sentence on journalist

  Reporters Without Borders expressed shock today at the jailing for 11 years of 71-year-old Iranian journalist Siamak Pourzand (see photo) and said it was very concerned about his plight since it was not known where he was being held. "The Iranian authorities are once more showing their very great contempt for human rights," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard. "This complete lack of information about such an elderly journalist, who is also very ill, is unacceptable. The authorities must say where he is being held." Iran has the dubious title of being the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East, with 11 imprisoned. In the past month, four jail sentences have been imposed on journalists. RSF, which has called for their immediate release, has put Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Guide of the Islamic Revolution and the country's supreme spiritual leader, on its worldwide list of predators of press freedom. Judge Jafar Sabri, of Court 1610, told the daily newspaper Iran in an interview published on 15 May that Pourzand had been jailed for 11 years, not eight, as had previously been reported. Pourzand was convicted on 3 May of having "undermined state security through having links with monarchists and counter-revolutionaries."" His court-appointed lawyer filed an appeal. The head of the Iranian prison system, Morteza Bakhtiari, said the journalist was not being held in any of the country's prisons. Iranian officials have made no comment in the wake of the many protests by international human rights organisations and very few reformist newspapers have mentioned Pourzand's plight. His family has had no news since his sister visited him at the Amaken detention centre, near Teheran, in early March, when he seemed very ill. His sister was recently refused permission to visit by the authorities, who said he was too ill. Pourzand was seized by security police on 29 November last year and held in a secret place for four months without access to a lawyer or a doctor. The authorities said nothing about his disappearance. He was head of Teheran's artistic and cultural centre and also a cultural commentator for several reformist newspapers that have since been shut down.