Masoud Behnoud ( fa, مسعود بهنود; born in
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
)
is an
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
, He began his career as a journalist in 1964. Since then he has worked as an investigating journalist for different newspapers.
Behnoud lives in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
and works as a journalist for a number of media organisations, mainly
BBC Persian
BBC Persian ( fa, بیبیسی فارسی) is the Persian language broadcast station and subsidiary of BBC World Service which conveys the latest political, social, economical and sport news relevant to Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, a ...
Service, for which he has worked for the past fourteen years. His debut in the West was the launch of ‘Khanoum’, by Pegasus Elliott McKenzie in November 2008.
Biography
Behnoud started his career as a journalist in 1964 and was active in the trade union of the Iranian journalists. During his career Behnoud produced and presented programmes for the
National Iranian Radio and Television
National Iranian Radio and Television, or NIRT for short, ( fa, رادیو تلویزیون ملی ایران, ''Radio-ye Telâvisiun-e Mili-ye 'Iran'') was the first Iranian state broadcaster, which was established on June 19, 1971, following the ...
, and he founded a number of newspapers and magazines many of which were banned with the advent of 1979 Islamic revolution of Iran, with the editor and senior members of staff being arrested. An attempt to publish other newspapers later on was met with public interest though they were all closed
Between 1971 and 1979 he was the chief editor of the daily ''
Ayandegan
''Ayandegan'' ( fa, آیندگان lit. "The Future People") was one of the most influential and popular daily newspapers in Iran during Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's rule. It was the first morning daily paper of Iran. It had an independent and critica ...
'' which was closed in 1979 on the orders of
Ayatollah Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...
, and its editor and senior staff were all imprisoned. During 1972–79 he also worked as a producer, writer and speaker for the National Iranian Radio and Television. In 1979 Massoud Behnoud became the chief editor of the weekly ''
Tehran-e Mosavvar'', which was shut down by the Islamic government after 30 issues during the crackdown of all non-governmental and independent newspapers.
Crackdown of the journalists
From 1979 till 1985, after the closure of ''Tehran-e Mosavar'' and of the trade union of Iranian journalists Massoud Behnoud didn't have any possibilities to continue his work. From 1981 to 1985 he led a low profile existence (more or less in hiding) in Tehran. In 1985 he was one of the founders of ''
Adineh
Adineh Masjed-e Bala ( fa, آدینه مسجدبالا, also Romanized as Ādīneh Masjed-e Bālā; also known as Ādīneh and Ādīneh Masjed-e ‘Olyā) is a village in Zalian Rural District, Zalian District, Shazand County, Markazi Province, ...
''. For more than 13 years Massoud Behnoud was one of the members of the editorial board.
[Behnoud biography August 1999](_blank)
/ref>
Arrest and imprisonment
After the crackdown on Iranian newspapers, Massoud Behnoud was imprisoned for 23 months for charges that included drug trafficking. Other well known journalists, including Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, Akbar Ganji
Akbar Ganji ( fa, اکبر گنجی , born 31 January 1960 in Tehran) is an Iranian journalist, writer and a former member of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He has been described as "Iran's preeminent political dissident", and a "wildly pop ...
, Emadeddin Baqi and Ebrahim Nabavi
Seyyed Ebrahim Nabavi ( fa, سید ابراهیم نبوی; born 1958 in Astara, Iran) is a prolific Iranian satirist, writer, diarist, and researcher. He currently writes in the news website ''Gooya'' and the online newspaper ''Rooz'', and has a ...
, were also jailed. Behnoud was fined the equivalent of US$15,000. The court accused him of "having provoked public opinion, insulting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and the commander of the Revolutionary guards
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...
". Behnoud's imprisonment provoked condemnation from many international human rights groups, including Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
, International PEN
PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internationa ...
and Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...
.
Prison
Serving a period of six months, two of which he spent in alleged solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
, Massoud Behnoud was released on temporary bail of approximately US$40,000.
On 1 June 2002, while Behnoud was engaged in a European lecture tour, the Iranian judiciary announced that an order for his arrest had once again been issued. On base of this order he had to come back to Iran to serve the remainder of his 16 months term in prison, but he refused to go back.
Bibliography
Masoud Behnoud has written six books on the contemporary history of Iran.
* ''Kaveh Golestan: Recording the Truth in Iran'', by Masoud Behnoud, Hengameh Golestan and Malu Halasa, 2007
* ''Khanoum'' by Masoud Behnoud and Sara Phillips, 2008
* ''Robin Hood of the Desert'', by Masoud Behnoud and Pooya Yazdani, 2011
See also
* Intellectual movements in Iran
*Mehdi Jami
Mehdi Jami (born February 1961 in Mashhad) is an Iranian journalist.
Jami holds a master's degree in Persian language and literature from Ferdowsi University (1992). He is also a self taught photographer and filmmaker.
His research interests ...
*Ahmad Zeidabadi
Ahmad Zeidabadi fa, احمد زیدابادی (born 21 July 1965 in Zeidabad, Sirjan) is an Iranian journalist, academic, writer and political analyst and the secretary general of Office for Strengthening Unity. He is one of the notable figure ...
*Alireza Nourizadeh
Ali Reza Nourizadeh ( fa, علیرضا نوریزاده, born 24 June 1949 in Tehran) is an Iranian scholar, literary figure, journalist, political activist and an expert on Iranian contemporary history.
Career
Nourizadeh is a political refu ...
References
External links
Massoud Behnoud's Weblog (in Persian)
Massoud Behnoud's Website (in English)
RSF Alert on Behnoud's Arrest
- IFEX
Website biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Behnoud, Massoud
Iranian journalists
Iranian bloggers
Iranian emigrants to the United Kingdom
People from Tehran
1946 births
Living people
Iranian Iranologists
Iranian magazine founders