Prisons and Protests: Covering Iran After the Election

Woodrow Wilson Center | Washington D.C. | 30 November 2009

The Middle East Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting present a panel discussion with Iason Athanasiadis, freelance journalist; Barbara Slavin, Assistant Managing Editor for World and National Security, The Washington Times; and Jon Sawyer, Executive Director, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Iason Athanasiadis is a writer, photographer, and documentary filmmaker covering Middle Eastern current affairs from his Istanbul base. He reported on Iran’s presidential election for American and British news outlets, including The Washington Times, on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. He was jailed at the direction of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and held for three weeks in solitary confinement at Tehran’s Evin Prison. He was a consultant on A Death in Iran, a documentary for the BBC and PBS Frontline that aired earlier this month. Read the rest of this entry »

The Plight of Iranian Journalists

(Muhammad Sahimi | Tehran Bureau | 8 November 2009) - Except for a brief period in the beginning of President Mohammad Khatami’s first term (1998-2000); and earlier, between 1941, when Allied forces occupied Iran, and 1953, the year the CIA-led a coup against the popular government of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh, freedom of the press in Iran has been under constant assault over the past century. Hundreds of Iranian journalists have been jailed or driven into exile. Many have been murdered. In short, Iran has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist. Read the rest of this entry »

IRAN: Khatami says protesters won’t back down

(Jeffrey Fleishman – Babylon & Beyond | Los Angeles Times | 11 October 2009) – Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has posted a strong declaration on his website that the protest movement in Iran will not die despite violent crackdowns by the military and police. Read the rest of this entry »

Tehran Plans to Execute 3 Protesters of Election

(Michael Slackman | New York Times | 10 October 2009) — Iranian officials have sentenced to death three protesters who participated in demonstrations following the nation’s disputed presidential election in June, according to ISNA, Iran’s semiofficial news agency. Read the rest of this entry »

Fourth Show Trial of Reformist in Tehran with Prominent Reformist Hajjarian [Persian]

(Fars News | YouTube) – One of Iran’s most prominent pro-reform figures admitted fomenting unrest and asked for the country’s forgiveness Tuesday during the mass trial of activists detained in the post-election crackdown in a confession that the opposition said was coerced. The courtroom statement by Saeed Hajjarian — who is considered one of the reform movement’s top architects and who was shot in the head in a 2000 assassination attempt — was the latest dramatic confession in the month-old trial that the opposition has compared to Josef Stalin’s “show trials” of opponents in the Soviet Union.

Will Iran’s Basij stay loyal?

At any opposition demonstration in Iran they materialise from nowhere. For opposition supporters, they have become notorious. (See BBC video).

(Jon Leyne | BBC News | 13 August 2009) – The government’s Basij militia have become President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s chief enforcers, as he tries to consolidate power in the wake of his disputed re-election. Read the rest of this entry »

Iran: Investigate Security Chiefs in Post-Election Abuse

Nature, Scale of Abuses Indicate Coordinated Efforts Ordered at Highest Levels

(Human Rights Watch | 14 August 2009) - The Iranian government should investigate the nation’s top security officials to determine whether attacks on demonstrators and detainees following the disputed June 12, 2009 election were ordered and coordinated at the highest levels, Human Rights Watch said today. Read the rest of this entry »

Iran Tries to Suppress Rape Allegations

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, in a sermon at Tehran University on Friday, denounced claims that protesters had been raped. (Abedin Taherkenareh/European Pressphoto Agency)

(Robert F. Worth and Nazila Fathi | New York Times | 14 August 2009) — Iran’s clerical leadership on Friday stepped up a campaign to silence opposition claims that protesters had been raped in prison, with prayer leaders in at least three major cities denouncing the accusations and their chief sponsor. Read the rest of this entry »

Iranians Gather in Grief, Then Face Police

Protesters chanting slogans at an opposition rally at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery outside Tehran on Thursday.

By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHI (New York Times, July 30, 2009)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Thousands of people gathered in Tehran on Thursday to commemorate those killed in Iran’s post-election crackdown, but a vast deployment of police officers used tear gas and wooden batons to disperse them, in some of the largest and most violent street clashes in weeks.

The mourners gathered at the freshly-dug graves of protesters, including Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman whose bloodied image has become an icon of the opposition movement. As opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi arrived at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, the police barred him from entering, and angry mourners chanted “Neda lives! Ahmadinejad is dead!” referring to Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, witnesses said. Read the rest of this entry »