CAIRO: International press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned Iran's continued crackdown on foreign reporters in the country. The statement comes after Tehran-based journalist Angeles Espinosa, a correspondent for the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais, was handed expulsion orders by the Iranian government. According to RSF, Espinosa had her residence permit canceled on October 10 and was given two weeks to leave the country. She has been an accredited reporter in Iran for the past five years and her walking orders were given without explanation, RSF said. “Espinosa's press card was withdrawn when she was arrested in Qom in July after interviewing Ahmad Montazeri, the son of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a leading reformist cleric who died in December 2009. The Foreign Press Bureau told her at the time she would be able to recover it when she returned from her summer vacation,” the statement from RSF read. Iran has been cracking down on foreign media in the country since street protests broke out in the summer of 2009 after what activists and observers said was a rigged and flawed election. “Instead, her passport was also confiscated last month, following her return from her vacation. When it was given back to her on 10 October, the residence permit stamp had been canceled,” RSF said. The International Committee against Stoning has meanwhile reported that two German journalists were arrested on October 10, while interviewing the son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman whose death sentence by stoning for adultery was recently suspended. The son and Sakineh's lawyer, Houtan Kian, were also reportedly arrested. The state-run news agency INSA quoted prosecutor-general Golam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie as confirming the arrests of two foreigners who had “entered Iran as tourists.” “Coming at a time of continued active repression of the Iranian media, this return to censorship of the foreign media is particularly disturbing,” RSF said. BM
