Iranian jailed blogger receives press freedom award

Kouhyar Goudarzi

The National Press Club in Washington awarded its John Aubuchon Press Freedom prize to jailed Iranian blogger, Kouhyar Goudarzi, in absentia on November 16.

At this ceremony, the president of the NPC Alan Bjerga called on Iran to end the oppression of journalists in Iran saying: “Tonight we call upon Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop cracking down on the press in Iran and to free Kouhyar Goudarzi and the other nearly two dozen journalists now held in Iranian prisons-just as we call for the freedom of the scores of other reporters held around the world.”

Bjerga added that Iran and China are quickly descending in the “race to the bottom” of the world’s top jailers of journalists.

He said at the ceremony that the NPC honours Goudarzi “not because he is a famous prisoner, but because he is one of many whom the world does not speak of enough.”

Allan Bjerga also read a letter sent by Goudarzi’s mother, Parvin Mokhtare, on the occasion of her son’s receipt of this award. Bjerga read: “It is pleasing to know that the 'charges' levied against our children in their own country, for which they have been imprisoned -- charges such as human rights work, fighting for the right to higher education, free speech, free press, rights of child labour, campaign against the death penalty, civil and citizenship rights, etc. -- are not 'charges,' but causes of encouragement and applause in other countries.”

The International Campaign for Human Rights published Mokhtare’s letter in which she dedicates the award to “the great Green nation of Iran, Argentinian and Palestinian mothers, the persevering mothers of Iran, especially the mothers of Neda Agha-Solatan, Sohrab Aarabi, Mohsen Ruholamini, Kianoosh Asa and the mother of all Iranian political prisoners.”

The John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award is given each year to one US and one international recipient that have contributed to the cause of press freedom and open government.

John Aubuchon, a prominent advocate of press freedom and the president of the National Press Club in 2002, passed away in 2003.