Bahman Totonchi, a former contributor to weekly Karfto, has been arrested in Sanandaj, the capital of the northwestern Iranian province of Kurdistan. Another journalist was stabbed and seriously wounded in a neighbouring province after writing about gas shortages in the region, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported.
Totonchi was arrested on November 18 at his Sanandaj home by intelligence agents who carried out a search and left with personal files and his satellite dish. It is not known where he is now being held. RSF has been told that the security forces had been harassing him ever since his newspaper was closed on December 29, 2007 on the orders of the Commission for the Authorisation and Surveillance of the Press, an offshoot of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
Mohammad Khaleghi, a journalist based in Takab (in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan) who writes for the ASR Iran news website, was seriously injured when he was attacked on November 24 by two men on a motorcycle who were armed with a knife and a box cutter.
A few days before the attack, he had covered protests by Takab residents about gas distribution problems and had questioned the government’s handling of the issue, prompting Takab’s governor to demand his dismissal and accuse him of being “morally incompetent.”
“Totonchi’s arrest brings the number of Kurdish journalists currently detained in Iran to five,” RSF said. “This can only be described as persecution as they all used to work for independent media that were already closed by the authorities in charge of supervising the media. We call for Totonchi’s release especially as, more than a week after his arrest, no charges have been brought against him.”
It added, “Meanwhile, the physical attack on a journalist who was covering sensitive social issues serves as a danger alert to the entire media just a few months before the start of the presidential election campaign.”
