Another Toll of Iranian Street Protests: 41 Jailed Journos

By: Mark Fitzgerald One month after protests erupted in the wake of Iran?s election, 41 journalists are behind bars, according to the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF for its initials in French).

Five more journalists were arrested as recently as July 11 -- and RSF says four of them were swept away to unknown destinations.

"Four of the latest five detained have been imprisoned in a secret place
and like all the others their families have had no news of their
condition," RSF said. "In most such cases, prisoners are not allowed
visitors and their lawyers have no access to their case-files.?

Iran was ?already the world's biggest prison for journalists and
cyber-dissidents and is on the way to becoming the world's most dangerous place for them to operate," the RSF statement said.

Among the five most recently arrested were the photographers Tohid Bighi, who worked for the Web site Mashroteh, which supported reformist presidential candidate Mehedi Karoubi and Majid Saidi, a former stringer for Time magazine in Afghanistan who worekd for several Iranian and international news agencies. Bighi was arrested ?for no apparent reason,? RSF said, and Saidi was taken from his home by intelligence ministry officials.

Also taken to some secret place were two woman journalists, Henghameh Shahidi, editor of the pro-reformist blog Paineveste, and Somaieh Nosrati, a parliamentary affairs editor for newspapers Teheran Emoroz and Hayat No.