Head of Iranian Kurdish weekly paper arrested
AFP, Tehran
The director of an Iranian Kurdish weekly paper published in the western city of Sanandaj has been arrested on charges of "disturbing public order", and encouraging ethnic and religious dissent, the official news agency IRNA said yesterday. Mohammad Sadigh Kaboudvand drew the ire of the hardline judiciary after publishing articles on jailed Turkish Kurd leader Abdollah Ocalan and Ghazi Mohammad, a historical pro-independence figure behind a breakaway republic in 1945. The paper's director was currently in jail pending trial, but a member of his editorial staff said he could be freed on bail set at 80 million rials (9,300 dollars). The paper, The People's Message, is published in both Kurdish and Farsi and was launched in early 2004. At least a dozen journalists are currently in jail in the Islamic republic, where authorities have closed down over 100 publications in recent years. Most are close to the pro-reform movement.
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