Payam Fazli Nejad Arrested - 2004-02-24

Payam Fazli Nejad, a writer and journalist who had been pursued by the Intelligence of the Law Enforcement Force since 2002 and was imprisoned for a month in November 2002, was again arrested on February 22, 2004, and transferred to an unknown location. After his release from prison, Fazli Nejad was considered a hostage of the parallel intelligence circle and the serial murder headquarters. When, after a year, he revealed details of the actions and programs of the parallel intelligence in the cultural and political arena in private letters to writers, intellectuals, and political activists, he was repeatedly summoned and threatened with re-arrest. Fazli Nejad had been free on a bail of 150 million tomans since December 2002; however, like many other cultural and artistic activists, he was forced to cooperate with the media institutions of the serial murder headquarters. Before his arrest, he intended to publish a detailed and revealing text about the reasons and manner of his year-long hostage situation (from his release from detention in November to December 2002) in the world media and to expose the thoughts and activities of the parallel intelligence circle in Iran. It is said that the main topics of Fazli Nejad's revelations included the methods of extracting confessions from cinematic writers and the tortures of the serial murder circle: how cultural and cinematic activists were taken hostage after their release from prison: the media methods of the parallel intelligence circle during critical moments: the views and goals of the parallel intelligence circle regarding intellectuals, etc. It is reported that Fazli Nejad has left a copy of his revealing analysis along with related documents with some reputable media owners and prominent journalists. His arrest occurred after this writer had officially announced to the parallel intelligence circle a month prior that he would refrain from any contact with them. He stated that he would inform Iranian officials of all the violations and destructive cultural-political actions of the serial murder stream. At the time of his arrest, Payam Fazli Nejad was the editor of the Persian section of the Cinema weekly, the editor-in-chief of the Roudad-e Hafteh weekly, and a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). His cinematic works include books such as Cinema: Politics: Freedom and Duel with Cinema, which analyze the ideological cinema movement in Iran after the 1979 revolution.