Published on 24 January 2006
9 February 2010 - Number of journalists and netizens in prison now tops 65
3 February 2010 - New round of Stalinist-style trials gets under way
28 January 2010 - Two bloggers face possible death penalty
Blogger Mojtaba Saminejad, who has been in prison since February last year was taken in handcuffs (photo) to sit his exams at Tehran’s Azad University on 21 January 2006. Reporters Without Borders welcomed the fact that the Iranian courts have allowed him to continue his university course but repeated its call for his release.
"We have never stopped our condemnation of the unfair conviction of this young student who has been imprisoned for nearly a year for posting a few messages on the Internet. We urge the authorities to show leniency. Bloggers like Mojtaba represent no threat to Iranian society. On the contrary, they support the emergence of a citizen’s debate,” said the organisation.
The weblogger was photographed inside the Tehran university as he was going to take his exam and the photo was then posted on his former blog: http://man-namanam.blogspot.com.
He was first arrested in November 2004 for speaking out against the arrest of three colleagues. While he was in prison, his website was hacked into by people linked to the Iranian Islamist Hezbollah movement. On leaving jail, he relaunched his blog at a new address (http://8mdr8.blogspot.com), which led to his re-imprisonment, on 12 February 2005.
Mojtaba was sentenced in June 2005 to two years in prison for “insulting the Supreme Guide”. One month later he was given an extra ten months in prison for incitement to “immorality”.
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Adel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, better known by the pen name Kareem Amer, was arrested on 6 November 2006, for articles published on his blog .
