NCPDA Statement
Contact: 202-487-6989
The National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates
March 9, 2004
Iran continues to be the largest prison for the media reporters.
Reports of arrest and harassment of the press reporters and writers have become a common news in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
ISNA news: Circuit court 26 has sentences Mr. Saeed Madani, a writer for Iran Farda, to 20 years imprisonments and 10 years deprivation of social benefits, for the articles he wrote prior to 1992. Iraj Jamshidi, the editor-in-chief of the Asia, is still in prison for publishing a picture of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi. He was secretely put on trial on March 23, 2004 in Evin prison without his attorney’s presence. According to Sharq newspaper on April 5, 2004, the managing editor of the weekly “Gorgan Emrooz” was imprisoned right before March 21 (before the Iranian new year).
ISNA, April 4, 2004: Ensaf Ali Hedayat, a reporter for the newspapers in Tabreez, will be prosecuted on Tuesday in a Revolutionary Court, for attending an opposition meeting outside Iran.
The NCPDA warns about the gross violation of human rights and the widespread repression in Iran and asks all member countries of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva to monitor the situation there.
The NCPDA condemns the arrests and harassment of the relatives of the reporters and asks the UN and human rights organizations and intellectuals to express support for the political prisoners in Iran and asks the UN Commission on Human Rights to designate a special representative to monitor the situation in Iran.
