A Respite for Teheran's Independent Press
In early March the head of Iran's justice department, Mahmud Hashemi, announced that he had instructed the courts to begin treating the press more leniently and not to ban newspapers in the event of legal violations by individual journalists.
It would be enough to hold the responsible editor accountable, said Hashemi. Moreover, journalists should not be treated like criminals.
A sea change for Iran's justice system?
Two days later the head of Teheran's justice department, Abbas Ali Alizadeh, elucidated the instructions. "We will treat journalistic offenses completely differently than business fraud or threats to national security."
Without explaining why they had previously taken a different approach, he said that one of the fundamental principles of Islamic justice is that judges must "take into consideration the personality, profession and social position of the accused as well as the external circumstances" when reaching their verdicts.
This change of heart on the part of the Iranian legal authorities came as a surprise. After years of battle cries against the liberal press, this conciliatory note had an unconvincing ring.
Hadn't the authorities banned more than a hundred newspapers and magazines in four years? Hadn't numerous journalists been arrested in these attacks against the press, some of them condemned to long prison sentences?
How could the head of the justice department announce his message of peace while knowing perfectly well that twelve journalists are still sitting in prison, including Akbar Gandji, who was condemned to ten years imprisonment and five years exile?
He has been behind bars for six years. Despite his ruined health, in the face of protests from at home and abroad, he has been denied a conditional discharge on medical grounds.
Only a few months ago, having nearly obliterated the liberal press, the justice department directed its ire against Internet services and bloggers. In a broad offensive last December, over 100 websites were filtered and 25 Internet service providers were arrested.
Several weeks later four of them were released for 50,000 euros bail each, after being forced into a humiliating public admission of remorse.
Forced confessions and self-incriminations
Djavad Gholam Tamimi, one of those released, admitted to having sold information and documents to a foreign embassy, claiming remorsefully to have endangered national security after being led astray by reformers.
"I wish to apologize to the Iranian people," wrote Tamimi. "In another country I would have been punished by death or lifelong imprisonment for my crime. But here, at the hands of the justice system and in prison, I have experienced a kindness which has made me profoundly ashamed. I do not know what I could do to prove myself worthy of this generosity."
The others' "confessions" were similarly worded. The self-incriminations were disseminated by the news agency Pars and read on state television. The penitents disassociated themselves from the "Association for the Defense of Free Speech" and the "Association of Journalists", calling them "stooges of the enemies of the Islamic Republic".
These organizations had made massive efforts to obtain the prisoners' release and had called a demonstration outside the justice department.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Teheran regime hoped to use these "forced self-incriminations to break the personality of dissidents and silence critics."
According to the organization, it has documents which clearly show that the justice department has employed former members of the secret service who were in charge of torture and forced confessions.
Ali Mazrui is a former member of parliament and one of the leaders of the reform movement; his son was also arrested and later released. In an open letter to President Khatami he described what his son went through in prison.
His son was repeatedly blindfolded and beaten, he wrote. He was required to provide detailed information about his parents' private lives and confess that he himself had been guilty of immoral behavior and maintaining forbidden contacts.
He spent 59 days in solitary confinement, permitted to leave his cell for three minutes three times a day to relieve himself. Along with the letter Mazuri included the text of a pre-formulated confession which his son was supposed to sign before being released. The text was similar to the confessions provided by the other prisoners.
Iran – the largest prison for reporters in the Middle East
In early February Arasch Sigartschi, who ran the Internet service "Eltehab", was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. The 28-year-old was accused of "espionage and insulting the leader of the revolution". Sigartschi is also editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Gilan Emruz", published in the province of Gilan.
On his website he expressed critical views on political and social issues and spoke out for the release of political prisoners and freedom of the press.
The Teheran-based Association for the Defense of Free Speech protested the verdict, speaking of a "new phase" of repressions against the press, especially Internet services and bloggers.
The organization Reporters without Borders also demanded Sigartschi's release in a press statement on February 24. With twelve journalists in detention, Iran represented "the largest prison for reporters" in the Middle East, according to the press release.
A court in Rasht, in northern Iran, finally decided to release Sigartschi on 17 March, after payment of one billion Rials (95,000 Euros) bail.
Against this background, the new orders from the head of the justice department seem astonishing, and not just for outsiders. They met with consternation within the justice department as well. A few days after the statements by Shahrudi and Alizadeh, Said Mortazawi, presently Teheran's attorney general and one of the most influential hardliners in the justice department, had his say.
He had been a judge for many years, passing most of the newspaper bans and verdicts against journalists. Mortazawi told journalists in Teheran that he was unaware of the justice department head's instructions regarding policy toward the press.
He said that he had written to Alizadeh requesting a clarification of the situation, and emphasized that he still regarded it as a matter of course to ban newspapers that disregard regulations and laws.
A press in danger of toeing the line
It remains to be seen who will determine the future course of the justice department. One thing is certain: in the conservative camp there is no consensus about policy toward the liberal press and critics in general.
After their manipulated victory in the parliamentary elections a year ago, the fundamentalist Islamists are more determined than ever to intensify the previous hard line to finally achieve their goal of bringing the press into line.
They are opposed by the pragmatic moderates, who support a more lenient approach. They defend the change of course by arguing that increased repressions would further reduce turnout for the presidential election in June, already expected to be low.
In addition, given that relations with Europe are already strained by the atomic conflict, their highest priority is to avoid further aggravating the situation with human rights abuses.
These voices are presumably responsible for the fact that Sigartshi, sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, was recently released on bail. In addition, an appeals court has ruled that "Neshat" – once Iran's biggest liberal newspaper, banned four years ago – may resume publication.
Bahman Nirumand
© Qantara.de 2005
Translation from German: Isabel Cole
Qantara.de
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