Reporters sans frontires - Iran Journalist reimprisoned after a week of freedom, held with ordinary detainees

Reporters sans fronti�res - Iran: "Journalist reimprisoned after a week of freedom, held with ordinary detainees

Reporters Without Borders today called for the immediate release of journalist Massoud Bastani, who was reimprisoned a week after his release on 6 August from Evin prison in Tehran and is being held in Arak prison, in the centre of the country, which is normally used for non-political prisoners.
Bastani had spent two weeks in Evin prison for covering a demonstration in support of imprisoned fellow journalist Akbar Ganji, who was on hunger strike at the time.
�It is shocking that a prisoner of conscience has been put with inmates held for ordinary crimes, as some of them could be dangerous or sick,� the press freedom organisation said. �It is also unacceptable that a journalist is being punished just for supporting a colleague who was on hunger strike, and we call on the judicial authorities in Arak to stop harassing him.�
The editor of Nedai Eslahat (a daily that was closed by the authorities in 2003) and a contributor to such pro-reform newspapers as Etemad, Toseeh and Joumhoryat, Bastani first run-in with the authorities was in 2003, when he was sentenced to six months in prison, 70 lashes and a five-year ban on practising journalism.
He wrote many reports about Ganji�s hunger strike this summer. In a 27 June release, Reporters Without Borders had commented that : �The authorities are not only content to let Akbar Ganji die, they are also arresting and harassing those who have the courage to defend him.�
Ganji�s wife, Massoumeh Shaffii, meanwhile told Reporters Without Borders by phone that she has just sent a letter to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to coincide with the Iranian president�s visit to New York for the UN summit. Thanking Annan for requesting Ganji�s release, the letter informs him that"