Prominent Iranian journalist and IPI World Press Freedom Hero Mashallah Shamsolvaezin has been requested to appear in front of Iran’s Revolutionary Court within three days, sources told the International Press Institute (IPI) on Sunday.
In a separate letter Shamsolvaezin received from the Revolutionary Court, the journalist was also informed that he was banned from travelling outside of the country. The letter followed Shamsolvaezin’s participation in the Forum for Media Freedom Defenders held by the Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ) on May 8-11, 2014 in Amman, Jordan.
“Mashallah is a true example of a professional journalist and the harassment and restriction of travel rights by the Rouhani administration reflects badly on a government that has been trying to show a different side of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” IPI Executive Board Member Daoud Kuttab, an award-winning Palestinian journalist and founder of the Jordanian news website AmmanNet, said today.
Shamsolvaezin, a longtime critic of Iranian government policy, has been jailed frequently. His longest stint was a 17-month sentence served from 2000 to 2001 in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison in connection with an article he published criticising capital punishment.
In January, IPI named Shamsolvaezin its 66th World Press Freedom Hero. Accepting the honour at IPI’s World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa in April, Shamsolvaezin called publicly on his country’s government to unconditionally release the 48 journalists it held behind bars. Referring to the Iranian government, he said: “They have the power and they have control over the power. They should be willing to give up control and allow others freedom.”
