AFP, Paris, 27 Jan 2012 – France on Friday condemned the reported arrests of four journalists in Iran and urged Tehran to drop plans to execute two critical bloggers.
France ‘condemns in the strongest terms the recent arrests of journalists in Iran,’ foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in a statement.
Iranian security forces in the past two weeks have reportedly arrested journalists Shahram Manouchehri, Sahamedin Bourghani, Parastoo Dokouhaki and Marzieh Rasouli.
France is also ‘extremely concerned by the situation regarding bloggers Saeed Malekpour and Vahid Asghari, whose death sentences have recently been confirmed by the Iranian courts,’ Valero said.
France ‘asks Iranian authorities to reverse these unacceptable decisions,’ he said.
‘Ahead of legislative elections on March 2, these arrests and convictions, along with interference in some media and control and censoring of the Internet, constitute new and unacceptable violations of the fundamental rights of Iranian citizens to free and objective information,’ Valero said.
The United States also condemned the arrests and death sentences on Thursday.