Iran regime cracks down on the press

After 10 Iranians died and more than 450 people were detained in fierce clashes between police and protestors on Saturday, eye-witnesses reported no rallies in Tehran on Sunday. However, as night fell, some pro-reform protestors returned to the rooftops to shout "Marg bar dictator" ("Death to the Dictator") and "Allahu akbar" ("God is Great').

Among those detained were several family members of Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who, as reported by The First Post last week, has been in a power struggle with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, following the disputed election on June 12.

The arrests come despite the fact that Rafsanjani is head of the Assembly of Experts, a group of clerics which in theory has the power to remove the Supreme Leader. However, by Sunday evening, all his relatives had been freed.

News organistions are having to rely increasingly on "citizen journalists" for reports from the streets as domestic journalists and bloggers who don't toe the government line are arrested, and foreign correspondents are banned from the country.

Among those affected are:
• Jon Leyne, BBC correspondent, was told yesterday he had 24 hours to leave the country. He is accused of "dispatching fabricated news and reports, ignoring neutrality in news, supporting rioters and trampling the Iranian nation's rights". The BBC's veteran Middle East correspondent, Jeremy Bowen, appears to be still operating in the capital.

• Mohammad Ghochani, editor of Etemad Meli, a daily paper owned by Mehdi Karoubi, one of the opposition presidential candidates, was arrested in the middle of the night on June 17/18. He was taken away by Intelligence Ministry officials, it is thought to Tehran's Evin prison.

• Ali Mazroui, head of the Association of Iranian Journalists, has been arrested in Tehran. He is thought to be one of 33 Iranian journalists and bloggers now in jail.

• Lindsey Hilsum, international affairs editor for Channel 4 News, was ordered to leave Tehran towards the end of last week and is now obliged to comment from London on whatever footage C4 can obtain.

• Maziar Bahari, Tehran correspondent for /Newsweek/, was detained without charge yesterday morning and has not been heard from since. He is an Iranian-born Canadian national. Newsweek called the detention "unwarranted and unacceptable".

• Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice-president under President Khatami, and also known as the 'Blogging Mullah', was arrested at his Tehran home on June 16. Ali Abtahi's blog announces that "Whenever he gets released, he will write here on his website." In his last article, posted the day after the election, he wrote about "a huge swindling".

• Jila Baniyaghoob who edits a news website focusing on women's rights was arrested at midnight on June 20 by Intelligence Ministry officials. Last month she won the Courage in Journalism prize awarded by the International Women's Media Foundation. Her husband, Bahaman Ahamadi Amoee, who writes for pro-reform publications, was arrested at the same time.