Akbar Ganji (file photo)
8 August 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Iran has rejected a request from the European Union to release journalist Akbar Ganji, who has been on hunger strike in jail for more than 50 days.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said today Iran does not allow foreign envoys to intervene in its internal affairs.
On 5 August, British Ambassador Sir Richard Dalton had asked authorities to free Ganji, who is said to be close to death.
Ganji's lawyers have urged him to give up his hunger strike.
He was jailed in 2000 for reporting that intelligence officials had killed five Iranian dissidents two years earlier. Iran's Intelligence and Security Ministry later blamed the murders on rogue agents in the secret service.
(AP/AFP)
See also: Iran: Concern Grows Over Fate Of Jailed Journalist
On 5 August, British Ambassador Sir Richard Dalton had asked authorities to free Ganji, who is said to be close to death.
Ganji's lawyers have urged him to give up his hunger strike.
He was jailed in 2000 for reporting that intelligence officials had killed five Iranian dissidents two years earlier. Iran's Intelligence and Security Ministry later blamed the murders on rogue agents in the secret service.
(AP/AFP)
See also: Iran: Concern Grows Over Fate Of Jailed Journalist