Call for immediate release of three illegally arrested journalists

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Reporters Without Borders has called for the immediate release of three journalists arrested on 7-8 September 2004 in Tehran and of retired film director Said Motallebi, father of exiled journalist Sina Motallebi.
The international press freedom organisation condemned the "unfair detention" of Babak Ghafori Azar, Shahram Rafihzadeh and Hanif Mazroi and raised serious fears about their welfare.
It said it was "extremely worried, based on their families' suspicions of ill-treatment, and because they are being held in a 'special wing' of Evin prison notorious for the use of torture."
"The arrest of Said Motallebi, 62, aimed at gagging his son, Sina, an Iranian journalist who has sought exile in Europe, is a despicable act", it said. "We call on the Iranian judicial authorities to halt this vile blackmail," it added.
Three journalists detained in Evin prison
Three weeks after the authorities shut down the news site Rouydad (Events), journalists Babak Ghafori Azar, Shahram Rafihzadeh and Hanif Mazroi were arrested by Edareh Amaken - the Tehran police unit usually responsible for cases of morals and close to the Tehran prosecutor Said Mortazavi. Evin prison in the north of Tehran where they are being held is notorious for the use of torture, under which Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi died on 10 July 2003.
Fears for their welfare have been heightened by the fact they are being held in a 'special wing' of the prison, under the direct orders of prosecutor Mortazavi.
UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion, Ambeyi Ligabo and Louis Joinet, chair of the working group on arbitrary detention of the UN Human Rights Commission, were refused access to this part of the jail during their visits to Iran in 2003 and 2004.
Not even the prison governor can enter this part of the prison, to which only intelligence service interrogators under the orders of Mortazavi are admitted.
Detention of the father of journalist Sina Motallebi
Said Motallebi, father of journalist Sina Motallebi living in exile in Holland from where he runs the news site www.rooznegar.com, was arrested in Tehran on 8 September.
He was previously summoned by the justice system the day after a press conference in Paris at the headquarters of Reporters Without Borders on 8 June 2004. Sina Motallebi, both at this conference and in several articles published later, spoke out about torture and ill-treatment that he suffered while in solitary confinement from 20 April to 12 May 2003.
The Iranian authorities had threatened to make Said Motallebi "another Pourzand" (a reference to journalist Siamak Pourzand, 75, jailed since 30 March 2003 and whose health has badly deteriorated in prison) if his son did not keep silent. Said Motallebi is in a poor state of health and suffers from heart problems.