Free Maziar Bahari

Unfortunately, this has become a banner year for imprisoned journalist. On June 21st, Maziar Bahari was detained by Iranian authorities. Bahari is a reporter for Newsweek and was covering the protest resulting from the contested Iranian elections. Bahari has dual Iranian-Canadian citizenship and has been working for Newsweek since 1998. He has also been covering Iraq consistently since the war began in 2003.

Bahari had published at least five articles about Iran in June before his arrest. Bahari was coerced into making statements incriminating himself of "covering illegal demonstrations" and "promoting a color revolution." He has been visited briefly by his mother several times in the last eight weeks. His wife, Paola Gourley, who lives in London (and is six months pregnant) has begun to make the rounds to popular television news outlets to increase public support and awareness of his situation. She says that when she saw the picture of him in detention it "broke her heart." Bahari has been jointly charged with over one hundred other journalist and activist of promoting the "illegal" protest, and they will all stand trial together.

Unlike other situations involving other imprisoned journalist this year, Bahari's employer and his family have come out publicly for his release, which probably means that any back-channel negotiations between the Iranians and the Canadian government have not been going well. Maziar Bahari has routinely reported from the Middle East, and was routinely accredited by the government in Iran to cover events there for Newsweek and the BBC. Suddenly, they have come to believe that he is an agent of foreign governments, or more likely they only want to quash legitimate decent and lay the blame on foreign agents. To support the effort to free Maziar Bahari, please go to FreeMaziarBahari.org.