Iranian journalist Ali Nazari Mazdak is still missing since last November 8th. This day, unidentified security forces entered his home, searched it, seized his computer and arrested him without knowing at present where he is.
The only following piece of news has been a telephone call to his family explaining that he is arrested and he doesn’t know where he is. The family is worried because their request to visit him has been rejected. Their main fear is that his case swells the long list of journalists missing or killed in Iran.
Well known for his pacifist ideas and for promoting democracy in his country, it seems that Iran Secret Agency officers (attached to one of the Iran concentration camps) kept a close watch on him, after the recent and close presidential election.
In July 2009, “Fars” news agency, a radical online newspaper run by the government, and “Javan” newspaper, the official army journal, had published an article on Mazdak, reporting that he was a reformist journalist and close friend to Mohammad Ali Abtahi (one of the main supporters of Mehdi Karoubi, who has just been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment). This article said that Mazdak is a left Marxist, who is inciting the population to protest and was seen in demonstrations flying a banner that bore the slogan “Free Abtahi”.
Currently, Mazdak is actively supporting the World March for Peace and Nonviolence and is the editor of “Journalists for Peace,” a censored website that promotes peace and nonviolence. Previously he was co-editor of the banned newspaper “Etemad-e-Melli” and editor of the monthly magazine “Nasim”. He was the winner of the “Pen Remembrance” prize, awarded by the Iranian Press Union Society in 2007.
At the international level, the first “voices” alerting to his disappearance and asking for his release have already begun to be heard. His personal blog in Persian remains “silent” because it has not been updated since the day of his arrest: http://mazdakali.blogfa.com/.
