Photojournalist Beaten by Municipal Office Staffer

Journalist and photographer Adel Azizi, chairman of the Central Provincial Photographers Association, was beaten up by an employee of the Arak governor's office last week on visiting to talk about industry problems.

According to a report by the Young Journalists Club dated September 3, the veteran reporter had gone to the office to follow up on an unenforced order by Arak governor Hossein Bakhtiari to reduce the fines issued to journalists by police for covering the news during night-time curfews. The employee who attacked Azizi is understood to have refused to carry out the order, while simultaneously issuing a curfew permission for one of his clients, a friend, in front of all the others while ignoring the queue.

"Mr. Chaghari refused to carry out my paperwork and I told him to write it down,” Azizi told reporters. “But he said he wouldn’t do the job, nor would he write it down. When I came back to see the governor again, he insulted me – I replied – and he attacked me and hit me twice in the face. When I fell to the ground, he started kicking me. Eventually the police intervened."

Azizi said he complained, but four days later no action had been taken against the employee. Not only this, he said, but he received a call from an unknown telephone number in which the caller threatened him, telling him to “watch the consequences” of his complaint.