NUJ calls on Turkey to stop the deportation of Mohammad Mosaed
Mohammad Mosaed was forced to flee his home and Turkey should not hand him over to Iran.
The NUJ is calling on the Turkish authorities to stop the deportation of Iranian journalist Mohammad Mosaed. He is being detained after crossing the border into Turkey from Iran.
In September 2020, a court in Teheran sentenced Mohammad Mosaed to four years and nine months in prison, banned him from journalistic activities for two years and ordered for his communication devices to be confiscated.
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said:
"Imagine if every journalist around the globe who scrutinised and questioned the response of their government – whether to the Covid-19 pandemic or restrictions imposed upon the media – was arrested, sentenced to prison and banned from carrying out their job, using their mobile phone or accessing the internet?
"It is alarming and outrageous that Mohammad Mosaed has been treated this way by the Iranian authorities, and forced to flee his home for safety. We call on the Turkish government not to hand Mosaed over to Iranian border control. This repression and targeting of journalists has to stop."
Mohammad Mosaed works as a freelance economic journalist and has written for newspapers Shargh and Hamshahri and the weekly magazine Chelcheragh.
He was first arrested in November 2019 in relation to posts he published criticizing the internet shutdown in Iran at the time. The government had reacted to protests over a spike in oil prices by shutting down the country's internet for a week in what the IFJ called "an attempt to cut communication lines and silence media reporting."
On 22 February, agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps summoned Mohammad Mosaed for questioning about his social media activity. He was forced to delete his Telegram channel and deactivate his Twitter account. He had published posts criticizing the Iranian government for its handling of the Coronavirus outbreak and denounced the nomination of hardliner candidates for parliamentary elections.
He had to pay bail of 10 billion Iranian Toman, more than €200.000, to be freed in the case originating from his arrest in November 2019.