Veteran Iranian journalist arrested amid crackdown

TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) -- Iran's Press Court has jailed Masoud Behnoud, a veteran secular journalist, as the campaign against the independent press moved beyond the mainstream Islamic reform movement.

Friends and associates say Behnoud, who first rose to prominence as a pre-revolutionary television reporter, was sent to Tehran's Evin prison late on Wednesday after interrogation by the court.

The official IRNA news agency confirmed the arrest on Thursday, saying a temporary detention order had been issued against Behnoud.

IRNA said the prosecutor had filed 85 charges against the journalist, the latest in a string of arrests and detention orders aimed at editors, journalists and publishers. However, it gave no details of the accusations.

After a career in television under the monarchy, Behnoud joined the influential Azadegan in the run-up to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The newspaper was later closed as the clerical authorities cemented their grip on the new Islamic republic, but Behnoud continued to publish magazines and journals.

In the explosion of independent media after the election in 1997 of moderate President Mohammad Khatami, he contributed to a number of the reformist newspapers backing the president. He was also an author and a regular commentator on Iran for the BBC.

Journalists and analysts say his arrest marks a new turn in the clerical establishment's press crackdown, which saw the mass closure of pro-reform newspapers in April.

Previous arrests have largely focused on leading Islamic modernists among the Iranian press corps, but they say the detention of Behnoud suggest that circle is being expanded to include leftists, liberals and the so-called religious nationalists.

The crackdown was boosted on Sunday, when supreme clerical leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the pro-reform parliament to kill debate on a bill to ease Iran's tough press laws.

Since then, authorities have closed the last major reformist daily and ordered the arrest of two prominent journalists, including Behnoud.

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