Jailed Iranian journalist awarded golden pen for freedom

Zeid-Abadi has been in and out of prison since 2000 and was recently sentenced to six years imprisonment, five years exile and a life time ban on writing by the Iranian government this August following disputed elections that returned President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to office, on charges of trying to orchestrate a “soft revolution” aimed at […]

Zeid-Abadi has been in and out of prison since 2000 and was recently sentenced to six years imprisonment, five years exile and a life time ban on writing by the Iranian government this August following disputed elections that returned President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to office, on charges of trying to orchestrate a “soft revolution” aimed at toppling the country’s theocratic government.

In a statement, WAN-IFRA singled out his stance against the Iranian president and the country’s supreme ruler, Ali Khameini as having earned him the award. “Mr Zeid-Abadi has chosen to repeatedly brave them and publicly support reform and the rule of law in Iran,” the statement said.

He becomes the second Iranian to win the prize in recent years following Akbar Ganji in 2006. Mr Zeid-Abadi has been the chief editor of the Azad newspaper and has appeared in the Tehran-based Hamshahri, a daily newspaper, the BBC Persian service, and the Persian/English news site Rooz. He is a member of the Association of Iranian Journalists, and is the elected president of one of Iran’s largest student organisations, the Iranian Alumni Association. He is also a professor of political science, and has lectured at many academic institutions, including the Iranian Studies Group at MIT in Tehran.

He rose to prominence in 2000 when he wrote a damning letter from prison criticizing the country’s judiciary. The letter was widely circulated despite attempts by authorities to suppress it. His latest arrest was in June this year alongside dozens of journalists who were systematically rounded up in the aftermath of the disputed June elections. Forty of them were later put on trial the following month.

The Golden Pen of Freedom is awarded annually by WAN-IFRA to recognise outstanding action, in writing and deed, of an individual, a group or an institution in the cause of press freedom.

Previous winners of the award since 1961 include Argentina’s Jacobo Timerman (1980), South Africa’s Anthony Heard (1986), Vietnam’s Doan Viet Hoat (1998), Zimbabwe’s Geoffrey Nyarota (2002), and China’s Shi Tao (2007) and Li Changqing (2008). The 2009 laureate is Najam Sethi of Pakistan.