Day 8 of Sina's arrest; ethical dillema of Journalism in Iran

Sina said to Iranian Students News Aganecy (ISNA) he was hopeful that the court was going to accept his explanations and even woudn't take him to the court. He was worried that some people's support, might make new problems and new questions for him in the interogation process. He sounded confident and calm, but as I said, worried. He talked to ISNA while he appeared in a court in Mehrabad Airport (!) for the first time after a week of being in costudy.

Sina at work in Hayat-e No daily which was closed down a few months ago

This is what makes it complicated in Iran, nobody really knows if his/her support would help the detainee or hurt him/her more. I think Mark Glaser's piece for OJR is the first western journalist who has written more about this dillema which in fact challenges journalists ethics and principles.

Actually Sina was involved in such a dillema once himself, when he was working in Neshat daily. (Neshat was a replacement for Jameah dialy which was closed down after about a year. The same team were running it.) Sina has close relations to a well-known director called Masoud Kimiaie, who had made a few films very critical of the new technocrat mayor of Tehran, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, who was vey unpopular among traditional fractions of hard-liners. Also he had made another movie admiring intelligence agents of Iran and had tried to show a humane and tolerant face of them.

After it proved that the members of the intelliegence ministry of Iran had murdered some writers and opposition leaders in Iran, Sina wrote that Kimiaie, had relations with Saeed Emami, the chief of those inetl. agents who killed the writers--and killed himself in prison during the interogation process. Sina wrote that Kimaie's last films (Soltan, Ziafat, were made with great amount of support and help from Said Emami.

Then the editor-in-chief, Mahmoud Shamsolvaezin, who had close relations with Kimiaee, fired Sina after it got published and created huge controversy in the days after Emami's suicide. Shamsolvaezin then wrote an unusual column in the A&E page of the paper condemning Sina of reporting unconfirmed reports and defended Kimaiee in a personal way.

Sina responded to him a few days later in an article which was published in the same paper that he had done his profession and although he had close personal relations with the director, journalistic ethics didn't allow him to ignore this important piece of news.

In many Iranian people's minds, there is still a huge gap between what is "right" and what is "appropriate". It shows itself through different incidends such as Sina's arrest as well.