Iran: Two journalists stabbed by Islamic extremists

[daft fan]

Tehran, 8 Nov. (AKI) – Two Iranian journalists, known for their criticism of the government and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been stabbed in the past 24 hours.

Reza Avaspour, head of the sports weekly, Varzesh (Sport), was stabbed Wednesday evening in Kerman, in western Iran, while leaving the office.

Avazpour was in surgery for four hours and risked losing a leg because of the wounds inflicted by two unknown assailants armed with knives.

The director of Varzesh had received several threats in recent weeks from a group that calls itself Allah's Soldiers.

Varzesh has published several investigative pieces in which they accused actual directors of the football federation and one of Ahmadinejad's deputies of wanting to sink Iranian football.

While striking the newspaper editor, the attackers berated him for having criticised the president and called him a "servant of the Americans".

A few hours later, in Karaj, north of the capital, Abaselat Abed, the editor of the daily newspaper, Mardomsalari (Democrazia) was stabbed. The attackers took the journalist's file and his camera.

Meanwhile, Ali Nikunesbati, official spokesman of Iran's most important student organisation, Daftar Tahkim Vahdat (Office for the Consolidation of Unity), was arrested this morning.

According to his father, the police arrived at Ali's house and took his computer and two boxes of documents and publications.

Nikunesbati who was arrested previously last July, was released at the end of August.

With his arrest, there are now ten activists from the student movement detained in Evin prison.

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