Watchdog

Iran’s judiciary has extended the pretrial detention of "Washington Post" reporter Jason Rezaian for another two months, a rights watchdog has reported.

Rezaian, who holds dual American and Iranian citizenship, has been in detention for the past four months without being formally charged.

The reason for his arrest is unclear.

Human Rights Watch said on December 3 that the authorities had informed Rezaian, who is being held at Tehran's notorious Evin prison, that investigations against him were ongoing and that his detention had been extended.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said the Iranian authorities should release Rezaian.

She said that "If the authorities had evidence that Rezaian had committed a real crime, they should have charged him shortly after his arrest."

Rezaian and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, also a reporter, were reportedly detained on July 22.

Salehi has been since released on bail.

A rights watchdog has called on Iran’s judiciary to overturn the death sentence against 30-year-old activist Soheil Arabi, who was convicted of “insulting the Prophet Muhammed” on Facebook.

In a December 2 statement, Human Rights Watch said “it is simply shocking that anyone should face the gallows simply because of Internet postings that are deemed to be crude, offensive, or insulting.”

Arabi’s death sentence was confirmed by an appeals court last week. He was arrested last year over his Facebook posts.

Arabi, a photographer by origin, had reportedly been active on Facebook under different names.

Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at the New York-based group, said Iran should immediately revise its penal code to remove provisions that criminalize peaceful free expression.

In recent months, a number of Facebook activists have been sentenced to jail in Iran.