Iranian authorities have arrested at least six internet journalists and webloggers in recent days, colleagues and relatives say, in a further blow to limited press freedoms in the Islamic state. News-based internet sites and online journals known as weblogs have flourished in Iran where the disproportionately youthful population often turns to the internet for information and entertainment. The hardline judiciary's muzzling of print media through the closure of some 100 publications in the last four years also meant the internet became a haven for liberal journalists seeking a place to write.
Journalists and relatives named the six arrested journalists and webloggers as Shahram Rafizadeh, Babak Ghafouri-Azar, Rouzbeh Amir-Ebrahimi, Hanif Mazroui, Omid Memarian and Mostafa Derayati. "We do not know where they are being held. We heard they have been kept in solitary confinement," said a relative of one of the detainees, who asked not to be named. |