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 TEHRAN
(Reuters) - Two Iranian journalists are in jail awaiting trial, the judiciary
said on Saturday, after local media reported their newspaper criticised Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, father of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The reporters, who wrote for a newspaper based in the Gulf province of Hormuzgan, are being held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, where several prominent dissidents are
jailed.
"Both of the suspects are safe and well and are awaiting trial in the Tehran prison," Mohsen Yektan-Khodaee, head of
the judiciary in Hormuzgan, told Reuters.
The judiciary was unable to say when the two would go on trial for
"insulting Islamic values". Criticism of Iran's system of clerical rule is
equated with criticism of Islam itself.
Rights group Amnesty International said it had demanded information on the
welfare of one of the journalists, Elham Afroutan. It feared she may have slipped into a coma
after attempting suicide or could have died in detention.
"The death or suicide of Miss Elham Afroutan is hereby denied," Yektan-Khodaee
said.
The second detainee was the editor-in-chief of the Hormuzgan
weekly journal "Tamaddon-e Hormuzgan".
His name
was not immediately available.
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