Reza Alijani

Reza Alijani "joined Iran-e-Farda's editorial staff in 1992 and eventu-ally became editor-in-chief. Under his guid-ance the magazine became a reference for the partisans of reform and gained great popularity among students. On many different occasions Reza Alijani was summoned to appear before the revolutionary courts for his articles defending free speech. This journalist was already well known to the Iranian authori-ties. He was tortured and detained in the 1980s for contrib-uting to a clandestine publication.

"After the assassinations of several intellectuals in 1998-his name was high on the hit list-he is one of the rare journalists who has dared defend freedom of the press in Iran through his interviews on foreign radios and articles in the national press. In January, 1999, it earned him the dubious honour of receiving death threats from the fundamentalist organisation that claimed the other murders in 1998. This did not stop Reza Alijani from speaking out. In an interview given a few months later to the daily, Arya, he spoke for the first time in Iran of the murder of thousands of prisoners car-ried out by the authorities in 1989.

"He was arrested by secret service agents in February, 2001, ten months after Iran-e-Farda was banned. The journalist was held for two hundred days in isolation before being trans-ferred in October to a cell with two other journalists. His lawyer has access neither to him nor his dossier. In nine months his wife has been able to visit him exactly once. 39 years old, Reza Alijani has two children."

• Winner of the 2001 Reporters Sans Frontières - Fondation de France Prize