AFP: Iran plans to continue holding a US-Iranian journalist kept in the country since January until her case can be decided in court, the US-funded broadcaster she works for said Monday. PRAGUE, June 11, 2007 (AFP) – Iran plans to continue holding a US-Iranian journalist kept in the country since January until her case can be decided in court, the US-funded broadcaster she works for said Monday.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was quoting the lawyer for detained correspondent Parnaz Azima, who had her passport confiscated when she entered Iran in January to visit her sick mother.
Mohammad-Hossein Aghasi said he had been told by Iranian government officials that it could take months for the case to reach court.
Azima, a journalist for RFE/RL’s Persian language service, has described her status “as a prisoner who is in a larger prison and the length of the prison term has not been determined.”
A citizen of both the United States and Iran, she has been charged with spreading anti-state propaganda by working for “counterrevolutionary” radio. She rejects the charges.
Azima, who joined the Prague-based broadcaster in 1998 and is based in the Czech Republic, was not jailed after paying a bail of around 550,000 dollars.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts to Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus and Central and Southwestern Asia, and is funded by the US Congress.
