Iranian Journalist Banned for Five Years Over AIDS Article

Elham Afrootan, an Iranian journalist, was banned from working as a reporter for five years for publishing an article, "Let's Make AIDS Public," in Tamadon-e Hormozgan weekly, her lawyer told the Iranian Student's News Agency Tuesday. Afrootan was ruled to have been "spreading vice" with the article. "However, she was acquitted on charges of insulting the founder of the Islamic revolution," the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the attorney said. Ali Dirbaz, who managed the weekly and is a deputy in Iran's conservative-controlled parliament, was sentenced to 20 months in prison, and the paper was permanently shut down in April. Afrootan's one-year sentence was suspended for five years due to the fact she is in her early 20s. Since 2000, Iran's judiciary has shut down many mostly pro-reform newspapers; the crackdown has seen dozens of journalists arrested.

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