Attacks on the Press in 2010 - Committee to Protect Journalists

Journalists in PrisonIntelligence agents arrested Mohebbi, an 18-year-old blogger fromAmol in northern Iran, at his home and placed him in custody at SariPrison, the reformist news website Saham News reported. He is theyoungest person on CPJ’s 2010 prison census.Mohebbi wrote about social issues, particularly women’s rights, ona personal blog. Among other topics, he covered the case of SakinehMohammadi-Ashtiani, a woman convicted of adultery and sentencedto death by stoning. He also wrote in support of the Change forEquality campaign, an effort to reform laws that discriminate againstwomen.On November 14, Mohebbi appeared in a Sari court to face chargesof “acting against national security,” “insulting the supreme leader,”and “propagating against the regime,” local and international mediareported. Mohebbi had been questioned by security agents on severaloccasions beginning in 2008, the Committee of Human RightsReporters said.The government blocked access to his blog on at least three occasionsprior to May 2010, Mohebbi wrote. Although he moved the blog toa new address, authorities appeared to have imposed a permanentblock.imprisoned: october 10, 2010Two journalists working for Bild am SonntagTwo journalists working for the German newspaper Bild am Sonntagwere arrested after interviewing the son of a woman convicted of adulteryand sentenced to death by stoning, a case that had drawn worldwideattention. Bild am Sonntag said the journalists, an editor and aphotographer, had traveled to Iran to report a story on the woman,Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani. Neither the paper nor the governmentdisclosed the names of the journalists.The two were initially accused of improperly entering the country ontourist visas. “The two people were not journalists—or they had noproof for it,” state-run Press TV quoted judiciary spokesman GholamHossein Mohseni-Ejei as saying.In November, authorities announced that the two journalists wouldbe charged with espionage. “The espionage charge for the twoGerman citizens who came to Iran to stage propaganda and spyinghas been approved,” Malekajdar Sharifi, head of the judiciary in391