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Iran: Cyber-feminist arrested

Reporters Without Borders reports:

"Reporters Without Borders today condemned the arrest of journalist Maryam Hosseinkhah, a member of the editorial team of websites Zanestan (The city of women - http://herlandmag.net/ ) and Tagir Bary Barbary (Change to equality - http://we-change.org/), which campaign against violations of Iranian women’s rights.

She was arrested on 10 November for “publishing false news, threatening public order and publicity against the regime” after refusing to submit to an order from a judge at the Tehran revolutionary court to name all her colleagues.

Zanestan, a women’s online bi-monthly founded in 2005, has been closed since 12 November 2007 on the orders of the Internet bureau of the ministry of culture and Islamic orientation, after publishing reports about the sentencing of four women who campaigned for signatures for the web petition “One million signatures to amend laws which discriminate against women.

“We are dismayed by this arrest. Maryam Hosseinkhah has already been arrested on the 3rd March 2007”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “These women are simply asking for the same rights as men and there is nothing dangerous about them. The crackdown against these brave women shows the importance of the Internet in the country to the feminist struggle,” the organisation added."

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