The Iranian authorities have arrested former journalist Mehran Faraji, and Reyhaneh Tabatabaei, Shargh newspaper's political correspondent. Last week, four other workers from the reformist newspaper, Ahamd Gholami, Farzaneh Roostayi, Keyvan...
CATEGORY: Middle East and North Africa
Iranian writers’ call for Julian Assange’s release
A group of Iranian exiled Iranian writers has written an open letter calling for the release of Julian Assange: آزادی بیان مهمترین رکن یک جامعهی دموکراتیک آزادی بیان دستآورد سالها مبارزهی آزادیخواهان جهان است. دولتهای کشورهای پیشرفته و...
The ultimate expression? Union member enters second week of dry hunger strike
No right to assembly or protest. As an independent trade unionist in Iran your actions are automatically illegitimate in the eyes of the state and for many carry a prison sentence. One such worker Reza Shahabi, treasurer of the Bus Workers’ Union...
Iran: Workers at reformist newspaper detained
Security authorities raided into the office of reformist newspaper Shargh on 7 December and detained journalists Keyvan Mehregan, Farzaneh Roostayi and Ahamad Gholami, along with chief editor Ali Khodabakhsh. According to reformist website Kaleme,...
Iranian “blogfather” released on bail
According to Iranian news website Mashregh, Hossein Derakhshan, known as Iran's "blogfather" has been released on a bail of $1.5 million after 26 months in prison. Derakhshan had received a 19-and-a-half year prison sentence, with charges including...
Iranian web designer sentenced to death
Iranian authorities have sentenced a web designer to death for allegedly creating a pornographic website. Canadian resident Saeed Malekpour, 35, was convicted of "designing and moderating adult content websites," "agitation against the regime" in...
International day of the endangered lawyer
Lawyers in Rome, Madrid, Paris, The Hague and Berlin will today protest against the wrongful imprisonment of their colleagues in Iran. On this the International Day of the Endangered Lawyer, Iranian Embassies will be presented with a letter of...
Iran’s students prepare for 16 Azar
Reading The Economist's Bagehot blog, earlier this week its writer's dismissal of Britain’s student protests with “The revolution will be along later” was resonant of the final analysis many made of Iran’s “Green” movement: despite the...
Egypt keeps journalists and monitors out of parliamentary polling stations
For months in advance of Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Egyptian officials waged a rather strident campaign to fend off calls to allow international election monitors to observe the vote. The issue, they said, was out of the question and an...

Middle East: This week’s free expression news
Parliamentary elections are Sunday in Egypt, so here’s a heavily Egypt-centric collection of related links, plus some other happenings around the region In advance of parliamentary elections in Egypt, the regime is cracking down on opposition...