MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2003
Defiant journo freed in Iran, faces new charges
AP
TEHRAN: A journalist who accused senior Iranian hard-liners of involvement in the killings of political dissidents has been freed from jail, but will face court next month on charges similar to those that led to his almost three-year imprisonment.
Emadeddin Baqi, a prominent investigative writer, said on Friday that he was freed from Evin prison a day earlier after serving most of a three-year term for "insulting sanctities" and "publishing falsehoods."
Baqi said officials have ordered him to reappear in court on March 8 to face new charges linked to articles he wrote before entering jail.
Authorities were not immediately available for comment. Baqi wrote a book -- Tragedy of Democracy in Iran -- in which he accused senior hard-line clerics, including former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, of murdering dissidents in late 1998.
The killings began with the November 1998 stabbing deaths of Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar, a married couple who ran a small Iranian opposition party. Writers Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh and Mohammad Mokhtari were later kidnapped and apparently strangled before their bodies were dumped on Tehran's outskirts.
Authorities later said the main suspect in the killings, senior Intelligence Ministry official Saeed Emami, committed suicide in jail. But several reformists, including Baqi and fellow journalist Akbar Ganji, who remains in jail, have suggested Emami was killed to protect those who ordered the murders.
The intelligence ministry acknowledged its agents were involved in four murders, but said they were rogue operatives.
"I stand by what I said in my book. It is based on historical facts and professional research. Historical facts remain unchanged," Baqi said.
"Imprisonment was the price I had to pay for democratic reforms in Iran. If uncovering undemocratic practices and insisting on democratic changes demand a greater price, I'm still ready to pay."
Baqi was initially sentenced to seven years jail but an appeals court reduced the sentence to three years.
Part of the jail term was based on an article in which Baqi questioned capital punishment in Iran, where authorities believe eye-for-an-eye retribution is part of Islamic law and questioning it, therefore, is punishable by jail.
Copyright 2003 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.