U.S.-funded radio denies detained Iranian journalist
worked for it
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - A U.S.-funded radio network denied
Tuesday that an Iranian woman arrested in Tehran was employed by the station.
Iran 's hard-line Kayhan newspaper reported Tuesday that the detained
woman, Camellia Entekhabifard, had worked for Radio Free Europe, a radio
station that Iran considers hostile to its establishment.
"She has never worked for us and she was not supposed to report
for us," an official at the Prague-based Radio Free Europe said by
telephone.
The radio station often seeks current-events commentary from Iranian
journalists on its Farsi-language broadcasts.
According to press reports, Entekhabifard was arrested on Wednesday,
a few days after returning from the United States, where she had spent
six months.
Kayhan, which was received in Dubai, said Entekhabifard was arrested
because of "cooperation with an American media."
"During her six-month stay in the U.S., she worked with Radio Free
Europe. Following the recent riots she was sent to Iran ," said the
paper.
Iran is recovering from weeklong street violence and pro-democracy demonstrations
held earlier this month, the worst unrest in the country since the 1979
Islamic Revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah and installed the
rule of Shiite Muslim clerics.
Entekhabifard used to work for Zan, a moderate newspaper that was banned
in February.
Radio Free Europe began transmitting from Munich, Germany, in 1951,
spreading news to Soviet-controlled countries behind the Iron Curtain during
the Cold War between the West and the Communist East.
It moved its headquarters to Prague in 1995 following the collapse of
communism six years earlier.av-ti-sf
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