International Herald Tribune, 3/3/2008

A journalist who works for a U.S.-funded radio outlet has been convicted by an Iranian court of spreading anti-state propaganda and sentenced to one year in prison, her company said Monday.

Iranian-American Parnaz Azima was not in Iran during the court action Saturday. She now has the difficult choice of deciding whether to return to Tehran, where she had to forfeit the deed to her mother's home to raise the bail needed to be released from custody.

Azima, who is based in Prague, was found guilty by Tehran's 13th Revolutionary Court of "spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic" by working for the "anti-revolutionary" Radio Farda, the Persian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the broadcaster said.

In an e-mail statement sent to The Associated Press, the broadcaster said three other charges against Azima had been dropped: acting against Iran's national interests, earning illegitimate income and owning a satellite receiver.

"She is guilty of nothing more or less than doing her job as a professional journalist," said Jeffrey Gedmin, the president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 

Azima traveled to Tehran last year to visit her sick mother and was kept in Iran for months after Iranian authorities seized her passport in January. Four months later, Azima was charged with security-related offenses, an accusation she denied.

The journalist had her passport returned in September and was allowed to leave Iran after posting bail using her 95-year-old mother's house.

Azima now must decide whether to return to Iran to serve her one-year sentence or to forfeit the deed to her mother's home, which was turned over to Iranian authorities in lieu of US$550,000 (€360,000) in bail, said Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

"Now, the very real possibility exists that her mother may be put out onto the street by the Iranian government," Gedmin said.

Azima's lawyer in Tehran, Mohammad Hossein Aghassi, has 20 days to appeal the verdict, the media company said.

Gedmin condemned Iranian authorities for what he called "a clear trend of targeting and harassing employees of Radio Farda," which means Radio Tomorrow in English.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a private, nonprofit corporation that receives funding from the U.S. government. It was established in 1949 to spread pro-Western news and promote democratic values and institutions in countries behind the Iron Curtain.

The station moved its headquarters to Prague from Munich, Germany, in 1995, after the collapse of communism.

It broadcasts in 28 languages to some 20 countries, including Iran and Iraq since 1998, and Afghanistan since 2002.