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July 6, 2009

Iran releases detained British freelance journalist

By Paul McNally

A freelance journalist with joint British and Greek nationality held in Iran for more than two weeks is reported to have been released.

Iranian state television quoted a spkesman for the foreign ministry, Hasan Qashqavi, saying Iason Athanasiadis-Fowden was now free.

The freelance reporter, known as Jason Fowden, was arrested as he attempted to leave the country on 19 June.

He was working in Iran for the Washington Times and was thought to be the only non-Iranian reporter being held in the wake of the protests over Iran’s disputed presidential election.

Pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters accuse the government of rigging the election to declare hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner.

The media crackdown in recent weeks has seen a number of reporters expelled from the country and many local journalists and bloggers detained.

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