This week, four feminist bloggers were sentenced to imprisonment in Iran. In an exclusive preview of the new issue of Index on Censorhip (out next week), Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi discusses the prospects for free expression in her country.
Read Shirin Ebadi’s ‘View From Iran’ here (pdf)
A Tehran court has passed six-month prison sentences on four female bloggers, found guilty under article 500 of the Islamic criminal code. The four women were charged for articles that appeared in two online newspapers that defend women’s rights in Iran, Zanestan and Tagir Bary Barbary.
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Hassan Al-Fahs, Tehran bureau chief of the Dubai-based satellite TV station Al-Arabiya, has been ordered to leave the country by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. There was widespread astonishment amongst the management of Al-Arabiya as they continued to emphasise Al-Fahs’s professionalism as a journalist. The station also stated that it had never reported a story on Iran without incorporating the government’s viewpoint. There has not yet been any explanation from the authorities.
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A draft has been passed on its first reading by the Iranian parliament which proposes to apply the death penalty to bloggers and website editors who ‘promote corruption, prostitution or apostasy’. According to article 3 of the bill, judges will be able to decide whether the person found guilty of these crimes is a ‘mohareb’ (enemy of God) or a ‘corrupter on earth’. Article 190 of the criminal code stipulates that these crimes are punishable by ‘hanging’ or by ‘amputation of the right hand and left foot’.
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