RAPID ACTION NETWORK

20 March 2006

IRAN: Dissident journalist Akbar Ganji released.

English PEN's Writers in Prison Committee welcomes the news that leading dissident journalist and writer Akbar Ganji was freed on 17 March 2006. He was reportedly granted a conditional release for the Iranian New Year, which begins on 21 March and ends on 3 April. Since his sentence is officially due to end on 30 March, it seems unlikely that he will be returned to prison.

The BBC reports as follows:

‘[Ganji] has spent much of his jail term in solitary confinement and went on hunger strike for several months last year.  When brought to court to stand trial, Ganji complained he had been beaten but he says he was then threatened for revealing it. The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says many Iranians thought Ganji, 46, would never be freed from jail, even though his sentence was due to end. The release comes days before the United Nations Security Council is due to discuss Iran's stand-off with Western nations over the country's nuclear programme. He is so outspoken in challenging the regime that they assumed fresh allegations would be levelled against him, she says.

But Ganji's wife and lawyer confirmed he was sent home on Friday night, with no other pending charges against him. The family says he is not in good health. He has low blood pressure and they say he now weighs only 49 kg, after having first been on a hunger strike and then later, they allege, denied regular food by the jail authorities. But one family member told AFP news agency he was "doing well and in good spirits" after his release…

Ganji is not expected to give any interviews now because his wife says that might give the authorities an excuse to arrest him again.’

The full report can be found on the following link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4819440.stm

Background:
Akbar Ganji, now aged 46, was arrested in April 2000, together with 17 other Iranian journalists and intellectuals who had taken part in a cultural conference in Berlin. He was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, which was reduced on appeal to six months, for "taking part in an offence against national security" and "propaganda against the Islamic system" (see previous RAN alerts). In July 2001 he was again brought to trial on charges of "collecting confidential state documents to jeopardize state security" and "spreading propaganda", and was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.

The charges stem from a series of articles written in 2000 and later published as a book in which he implicated several high-ranking officials in the 1998 murders of several prominent writers and political activists, in what became known as the "serial murders" case. Among those implicated in the articles was the former President, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Please send appeals:

- welcoming the release of dissident writer Akbar Ganji, and urging that all others currently detained in Iran in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory, are immediately and unconditionally freed.

Appeals to:

Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei
The Presidency
Palestine Avenue
Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: +98 21 649 5880/ 774 2228

President
Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency
Palestine Avenue
Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: +98 21 649 5880

Head of the Judiciary
His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Ministry of Justice,
Park-e Shahr,
Tehran,
Islamic Republic of Iran.
Fax: +98 21 879 6671
Email: irjpr@iranjudiciary.org (mark ‘Please forward to HE Ayatollah Shahroudi’), Rahimi@iranjudiciary.org