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MP Ordered Jailed For "Libeling, Slandering" Iranian Judicial System
TEHRAN, June 19 (News Agencies) - Iranian reformist deputy, Hossein Loghmanian, was sentenced to 13 months in jail Tuesday for "libeling and slandering Iran's judicial system" in a speech at the parliament, the state news agency IRNA reported.
It quoted the spokesman for the reform-dominated parliament's judicial commission, Mohammad Kazemi, as saying that he hoped an appeal court would "take into account ... that ... under Iran's constitution parliamentary deputies are immune from any legal proceedings for their remarks."
Loghmanian was already detained for several hours on January 28 for remarks he made before a parliament debate and not during an actual session, IRNA said.
However, the agency did not repeat the actual statement.
At the time of his January incarceration, Loghmanian's troubles had become a cause celebre among the reformist majority parliament.
They had denounced his arrest as arbitrary and demanded parliamentary immunity apply to him.
They also threatened "to act" if their colleague was not freed immediately.
Loghmanian is the first parliament deputy of the current reformist-dominated parliament elected in February 2000 to be condemned to prison.
But several others have been summoned for court hearings, including reformist President Mohammad Khatami's brother, Mohammad-Reza, who heads the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), the country's largest reform party.
A female MP, Fatemeh Haghighat-Jou, was jailed for several hours in March for criticizing a journalist's prison conditions.
The Iranian courts, dominated by conservatives, are totally independent of President Khatami, who was overwhelmingly re-elected to a second four-year term on June 8.
Since the moderate president took office in 1997, initiating a reformist sweep of parliament, more than 40 mostly pro-reform papers and journals have been closed down, while dozens of journalists and Khatami allies have been jailed or have trials pending.
A new conservative daily, the Tehran-e Emrouz, or "Today's Tehran," appeared on the nation's newsstands Tuesday.
The daily, formerly a weekly, is run by journalist Ali-Reza Mohammad-Khani. It is the fourth new daily to be launched since the beginning of the new Iranian year, which started on March 21.
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