- In June 2009, the Iranian authorities harassed Alhurra’s correspondent in Tehran Mohammad Al Assadi and banned him from doing any coverage for one week.
- Radio Farda correspondent Parnaz Azima spent much of 2007 as a virtual prisoner in Iran, enduring almost daily interrogations. A citizen of both the U.S. and Iran, Azima’s Iranian passport was confiscated when she arrived in Tehran in late January. She was permitted to leave Iran in mid-September. In March 2008, a Revolutionary court found her guilty of acting against Iranian national security and engaging in “anti-establishment” activity as a direct result of working for “counter-revolutionary” Radio Farda. The court seized the deed to her mother’s home in lieu of bail and sentenced Azima to one year in prison. Azima filed an appeal that was heard in August, 2008 A Revolutionary court affirmed the original charges against Azima. The court returned the deed to her mother, but ruled to suspend the sentence for two years. Should she return to Iran during this period, the law requires that she be apprehended at the border and imprisoned.
- One other Radio Farda broadcaster also faces charges for working for what the Iranian regime calls a “counter-revolutionary radio station,” and family members of other Radio Farda staff living in Iran have been subject to harassment and interrogations over the last six months[as of June 2008]. Even broadcasters and editors based in Prague received threats from Iranian authorities, and in a case similar to Azima’s, the deed of one Prague broadcaster’s family house in Tehran was seized.
- Sources providing reports to Radio Farda from within Iran have been arrested, charged and convicted, in part as a result of their association with Radio Farda. One recent example is Abolfazl Abedini Nasr, a journalist in the southern city of Ahvaz who was sentenced on December 24, 2007 to one year in prison for “inciting workers to revolt” and “relations with foreign news media;” in September 2007, Abedini provided Radio Farda extensive coverage of labor unrest in Khuzestan province.
Although there are many obstacles and dangers involved in broadcasting in Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, BBG still attracts wide audiences in this region. Click here to learn more.
