IRAN. JAIL FOR JOURNALIST FOR DEFENDING DEATH ROW COLLEAGUES

July 31, 2007: a Tehran revolutionary court sentenced journalist Emadoldin Baghi to three years in prison for writing articles defending two journalists that were sentenced to death in Iran’s southern Khozestan region for “activities against national security” and “publicity in favour of the regime’s opponents.” Baghi’s wife, Fatemeh Kamali Ahmad Sarahi, editor of the now-closed monthly Jameh-e-no, and his daughter, Maryam Baghi, received three year suspended prison sentences and five years of probation for taking part in a series of human rights workshops in Dubai in 2004. The charges were “meeting and colluding with the aim of disrupting national security.”
Baghi, 45, is the former editor of Jomhouriat, a daily newspaper that was closed in July 2004.
He and his wife have been subjected to repeated summonses for questioning by intelligence ministry officials. Baghi was released on 6 February, 2004, after serving a three year prison sentence for “attacking national security” that he received in 2000.
On leaving prison, he set up an organisation to defend the rights of prisoners of conscience that is still functioning. Baghi has been banned from leaving the country since 5 October, 2004. (Sources: Reporters Without Borders, 01/08/2007)