Reporters Without Borders, 17.06.2020
Three journalists get jail terms ranging from 91 days to 7 years
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the systematic imposition of harsh jail sentences on journalists in Iran. Of the three latest victims, the longest sentence was given to Khosro Sadeghi Borjeni, a member of the Tehran Association of Independent Journalists, who was sentenced to a total of seven years in prison on appeal in Tehran on 13 June. A revolutionary court had sentenced him to a total of eight years in prison on 2 February for “insulting the Islamic Republic’s founder,” “anti-government propaganda” and “meeting and conspiring against national security.” Under article 134 of the new Islamic Penal Code, according to which someone given several sentences serves only the main one, Borjeni will “only” serve a five-year sentence.
Sharam Safari, the editor of a Telegram news channel called Rvejpress, was sentenced to 91 days in prison on 15 June by a court in the western city of Kermanshah, which tried him on charges of “publishing false information,” “defaming the clergy and the Koranic School of the Holy City of Qom” and “publishing figures for Covid-19 infections.” Qom was the site of one of the first Covid-19 outbreaks in Iran. Safari had been released on bail after being summoned by the Kermanshah police in late March in response to a complaint by the University of Medical Sciences over his publication of unofficial Covid-19 figures.
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