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Shiva Nazar Ahari, Iran, jailed since September 2012

Article ID:

17654

Day 27
Country: Iran
Journalist: Shiva Nazar Ahari
Media: Azad Zan (Freed Women) website
Jailed since: September 8, 2012

Suggested Tweet:

30 Days for Freedom calls for release of Shiva Nazar Ahari and all journalists jailed in #Iran bit.ly/1fPkcdC #FreethePress

Shiva Nazar Ahari, an award-winning human rights activist, journalist and editor of the Asad Zan (“Freed Women”) website, is half way through her four year prison term. Sentenced to jail and 74 lashes for her human rights reporting and activism, Ahari’s case dates back to June 2009 when she was arrested in the wake of mass protests following President Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election. She was charged with “enmity against God,” “plotting against national security” and “spreading anti-government propaganda.” Spending a long stretch of her time in solitary confinement and going on hunger strike to protest her detention at Evin prison, she was temporarily released on a bail of $500,000 in September 2010, pending the outcome of her appeal which was confirmed in January 2012.

Awarded the Theodor Haecker prize in 2011 for “her courageous internet reporting on human rights violations,” Ahari is part of a generation of female journalists that actively speaks out about human rights violations in Iran. They include Ahari Parvin and Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, co-founders of the Campaign for One Million Signatures (COMS), which seeks to eliminate discriminatory laws against Iranian women. Parvin and Khorasani were both arrested and sentenced to three years in prison in 2007 for “threatening the national security.” The Committee of Human Rights Reporters, which Ahari helped found and that has campaigned against human rights violations in Iran since 2005, has also come under attack particularly since the disputed elections in 2009: several members were arbitrarily arrested and some members fled the country in fear of their safety.

Iran has the world’s worst record for jailing women media workers, according to Reporters Without Borders: within three years since the contested presidential elections in June 2009, at least 57 women received jail sentences of up to seven years. Most of the promises made by newly appointed President Rouhani about freedom of speech and the release of all political prisoners have not been fulfilled. Today, Iran has become the leading jailer of journalists worldwide with 35 reporters behind bars as of December 2013, according the Committee to Protect Journalists.]

Suggested Tweet:

30 Days for Freedom calls for release of Shiva Nazar Ahari and all journalists jailed in #Iran bit.ly/1fPkcdC #FreethePress

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