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Iran's press regroups amid
crackdown
By Ramin Mostaghim
TEHRAN -
Dissident bookseller Ardeshir Masali explained his point
of view with candor. "The Iranian Islamic system is run
by a regime suffering from a deep-rooted paranoia, one
which loses its temper easily."
The police,
continued the 39-year-old, who owns a modest little book
stall in a shopping arcade in Enqelab Square in the
Iranian capital, does not just "slap the faces of
detainees, but breaks their skulls, as they did with
Zahra Kazemi".
This is the case that turned
world attention, and that of much of its media, toward
Iran. Kazemi, a photojournalist holding both Iranian and
Canadian citizenship, died in custody on July 11 in
Tehran as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage caused by a
cranium fracture. She was reportedly severely beaten
following her arrest on June 23 while taking photographs
of Evin prison, north of Tehran. Her death led to a
diplomatic row between Iran and Canada. But greater
still were the reverberations within Iran's media
community.
"Murdering Kazemi while she was in
jail was so shocking that it spurred Iranian journalists
into staging a sit-in protest on August 8," Mashallah
Shamsulvaezeen, board member of Iran's Journalist
Association, told Inter Press Service. The day is now
observed as Journalists' Day in the country.
Fifty years ago Karimpour Shirazi, a journalist
famous for his criticism of the royal family, was burned
alive in the military camp in which he was jailed.
Kazemi, said Shamsulvaezeen, is the second journalist to
have been killed in custody in Iran.
Recent
weeks have seen harassment of the media by the state
intensify. A wave of arrests has swept through the
reformist press - the target of the conservative
clerical establishment in its tussles with more
reform-minded groups led by President Mohammad Khatami -
since an outburst of anti-regime protests in mid-June
and July.
A daily published by the official
Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), typifies the
situation. The Iran newspaper's managing director was
charged, after a complaint was filed about an article,
with spreading propaganda against the establishment and
publishing false news, and then released on bail.
Other publications have also run into trouble.
The weekly Nameh-yi Qazvin was shut down on charges of
"promoting depravity and publishing lies" after it was
accused of discrediting clerics. The managing directors
of Iranian dailies Kayhan, Siyasat-i Ruz and Etemad
appeared in court on August 13 to face complaints
against their publications, according to IRNA reports.
Journalists who tend to support the official
line, however, see the events and their significance
differently. Ahmad Khorramian, 29, a journalist with a
conservative newspaper, said that the Zahra Kazemi case
"became controversial thanks to her Canadian passport".
Khorramian argued, "European and Canadian diplomats did
not move a finger when, five years ago, Mahmoud Saremi,
who was the IRNA correspondent in Mazar-e-Sharif [in
northeast Afghanistan] was killed by Taliban forces."
The reality on the ground, however, belies the
apparent logic of such explanations, critics say. In the
past four years, more than 90 newspapers and magazines
have been banned, throwing over 2,000 journalists out of
work, says Mohammad Hydari, manager of the website
Parspejvak.com.
Even so, there are those who
soldier on, undaunted by the all-too-regular commute
between home and jail or revolutionary courts. "As a
journalist I write to defend the basic rights of my
fellow citizens to know and participate in the shaping
of their country's destiny, and I'm ready to pay the
price," said Nader Karimi, 33, editor of the magazine
Gozaresh.
Karimi has indeed had to pay a
staggering price. Released from jail this month, Karimi
has lodged with the authorities a security deposit of a
crippling 500 million rials (around US$60,000) to ensure
that he appears in court when summoned. Shamsulvaezeen
said he "feels very concerned for my fellow journalists
in Iran because there is no professional safety for
them".
The Kazemi case, he explained, proves how
vulnerable Iranian journalists are during political
turmoil. "The Islamic regime is suffering from a chronic
legitimacy crisis," he said. "That is the main reason
for its paranoia and why it reacts impulsively and in
panic."
The pattern, said dissident journalist
Amir Kavian, is depressingly familiar. Every year,
several journalists write or speak about an issue that
the regime finds "subversive" or "against Islamic values
and national interests". Then, said Kavian, they are
jailed until some members of parliament or more
sensitive authorities appeal for clemency on their
behalf. "Then the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, pardons them or commutes their sentences,"
observed Kavian.
There are signs that dissidence
is growing stronger. On August 16, the Journalist
Association called for the resignation of the Minister
of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ahmad Masjedjamei and
the public prosecutor of Tehran, Judge Mortazavi, who
are seen as responsible for the crackdown on
journalists, intellectuals and students.
Among
those at the August 8 protest sitin was Arash Pahlavan,
a student leader who was representing the support of
reformist students. With the start of campaigning for
parliamentary seats just seven months away, Pahlavan
indicated that the movement was reconsidering its
tactics.
"Unless reformist parliamentarians and
politicians are ready to pay the price of fighting for
freedom of speech and the rights of the people, we will
not repeat the blunder we committed six years ago of
taking to the streets," Pahlavan said, referring to
criticism that pro-Khatami forces were far too timid to
push for real change.
The dilemma facing the
dissidents and reform-minded among the press is that in
the absence of independent parties and political
institutions, newspapers and magazines have become
political instruments, often representing politicians'
interests.
Rival associations of journalists are
allied with the reformist group of Khatami and others
with his rival, Khamanei. "In this tug of war, nothing
changes basically ... there is no room for independent
journalism to emerge," said Kavian.
"There are
two options open to journalists and writers in Iran -
massage the word and doublespeak and lead a low-profile
profession, or write unscrupulously and be a martyr for
the pen," remarked Mohammad Hydari.
Yet the
pressures can be unbearable for those who decide to
uphold the principle of freedom of speech and
expression. As Dr Mohsen Kadivar, a 46-year-old
electronics engineer and theologian who recently led a
communal prayer at a jailed journalist's home, said,
"The price one pays for engaging in political activities
has increased so much that no one dares become
involved."
(Inter Press Service)
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