One-year suspended sentence passed on journalist Emadoldin Baghi

Reporters Without Borders today voiced outrage at the suspended sentence of one year in prison which the sixth revolutionary court of Tehran has passed on journalist Emadoldin Baghi without making public its reasons.

At the same time, the organisation also called on the Iranian courts to give assurances as to the state of health of Iradj Jamshidi, the editor of the economic daily Asia, of whom there has been no word since his arrest on 6 July and incarceration in Evin prison.

Baghi, who worked for Neshat, a daily closed down by the authorities, was tried on 9 November, but the sentence was announced only yesterday. It could be changed to an actual prison sentence at any time during the next five years.

This threat is clearly an attempt to silence Baghi, who often writes about violations of freedom of expression in Iran for the reformist dailies Shargh and Yas-e-no.

"I was unable to defend myself in this travesty of a trial which last only a few minutes, and I was barely able to speak," Baghi told Reporters Without Borders. "What kind of trial is it where there is neither lawyer nor judge, or where the judge is prosecutor at the same time and where the defendant is not even told of the charges against him ?"

In his book, "The Tragedy of Democracy in Iran," Baghi accused the Iranian authorities of being involved in a series of murders of intellectuals and journalists in 1998. He has already been imprisoned because of his articles in the reformist press. In his most recent previous trial, on 23 October 2000, he was given a three-year prison sentence for "threatening national security" and "disseminating false news."

After his release on 6 February of this year, Baghi was repeatedly harassed by the judicial authorities, summoned frequently to appear in court and banned from leaving the country. The harassment stepped up after last month's visit to Tehran by Ambeyi Ligabo, special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression for the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the fate of the 11 journalists currently in prison in Iran. In addition to Jamshidi, they include they include three journalists who were arrested at the same time on 14 June : Taghi Rahmani of Omid-é-Zangan, Reza Alijani, the editor of Iran-é-Farda (who is a Reporters Without Borders-Fondation de France laureate), and Hoda Saber, managing editor of Iran-é-Farda.

Rahmani's wife, Narges Mohammadi, told Reporters Without Borders : "The last family visit for the three journalists was on 30 October. Since then, for the past 32 days, neither their lawyers nor their families have received any news of them. We still don't know what they are charged with. They have not yet been brought to trial. That means that they have been in preventive detention