Iran Claims Newsweek Reporter Confessed
July 2, 2009 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
A reporter for Newsweek magazine who was arrested in Tehran has confessed to doing the bidding of Western governments, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported Wednesday.
Newsweek says Maziar Bahari has been reporting for years without bias and beyond reproach.
Maziar Bahari, 42, made his alleged confession at a news conference Tuesday. Because international journalists have been limited in their ability to gather news in Iran, CNN has not been able to confirm the agency report.
Fars reported that the Canadian-Iranian reporter who had worked for the BBC and England’s Channel 4 network admitted having filed false reports for Newsweek during the elections — a charge the magazine rejected.
“He has been reporting for years without any possible hint of bias and beyond reproach,” Newsweek Paris Bureau Chief Chris Dickey told CNN. “We think he’s one of the best reporters in the business.”
He called the report “preposterous.”
Dickey said Bahari had not been allowed to speak with a lawyer or with his family since his arrest on June 21.
