Iran jails 2 reporters over banned rallies
Reuters)10 June 2007
TEHERAN - An Iranian court has sentenced two journalists who covered banned protest rallies in a Kurdish area to up to three years in jail, their lawyer was quoted as saying on Sunday.
The court in the town of Sanandaj in northwestern Kurdistan province jailed Jalal Ghavami for three years and Saeed Saedi to two and a half years for attending two illegal rallies in 2005 in front of the governor’s office, ISNA news agency reported.
The verdict said they had been ‘acting against the system and national security by participating in illegal gatherings ... (and) propaganda activity against the system,’ ISNA said.
Ghavami was also sentenced for ‘insulting’ officials.
But their lawyer Nemat Ahmadi said his clients only went to the demonstrations to report on them, ISNA said, without specifying which media they worked for.
‘My clients attended the gatherings as reporters and just for reporting,’ Ahmadi said.
Last month, the court in Sanandaj sentenced a woman activist to six years in jail for attending the same two banned protests.
In an appeal about their cases last year, Amnesty International said Saedi and Ghavami were arrested in August, 2005, after they helped organise a rally against the killing of a Kurdish man that sparked protests in Iranian Kurdistan.
‘If imprisoned, Amnesty International believes both men would be prisoners of conscience, imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and movement,’ the London-based group said in July.
Rights groups often complain that Iran jails pro-reform writers, activists, journalists and intellectuals without due legal process. Iran routinely dismisses accusations that it violates human rights.
Iran’s 70 million population includes about 6 million Kurds, many of whom live in the mountainous northwest bordering Iraq and Turkey. Kurdish leaders in Iran have in the past complained of discriminatory treatment of their people.