TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has freed one of three journalists accused of publishing "lies" about the ruling system in the Islamic Republic after his family paid bail of 500 million rials ($54,000), a news agency said on Wednesday.
Farshad Gorbanpour, who worked for a pro-reform daily shut down in July, told the ISNA news agency he was released on Sunday from Tehran's Evin prison.
The Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) earlier this month said Gorbanpour and fellow journalist Masoud Bastani were detained on July 31, followed by the Aug. 4 detention of Soheil Assefi, and called for their release.
The Iranian judiciary said they were accused of "publishing false statements and lies against the system."
A judicial source earlier said Bastani had already been released but that he could be called in for further questioning.
ISNA said Gorbanpour worked for the Ham Mihan daily, which was shut on a legal technicality, according to its publisher. A few weeks later another pro-reform daily, Sharq, was also closed down, its director said.
Rights groups and diplomats say Iran has launched a broad crackdown on dissenting voices in the country, which is under growing Western pressure over its disputed nuclear programme.
Iran says it allows free speech, but journalists say they have to tread carefully.
Separately on Wednesday, RSF said it urged two Iranian Kurdish journalists who have been sentenced to death to call off a hunger strike they began in mid-July.
The judiciary's spokesman last month said that Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolvahed 'Hiva' Botimar were sentenced to death for mounting an "armed struggle against the system", but that they could appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court.
"They are now on the 47th day of their hunger strike and their condition is very worrying," RSF said in a statement.
The Supreme Court must agree to review their convictions and quash their death sentences, it said.
