This year, seven Iranian writers were among 45 from 22 countries to receive the prestigious Hellman/Hammett award. Four Rooz writers are among the seven Iranian winners.

Ali Ashraf Darvishian, Ali Afshari, Arash Sigarchi, Roozbeh Mir Ebrahimi, Ensaf Ali Hedayat, Shahram Rafizade and Hasan Zarezade Ardeshir are the 7 writers who received the Human Rights Watch’s prestigious award this year.

Hadi Ghaemi, a researcher and member of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East office, spoke to Rooz about the Hellman/Hammett award: “This international prize is awarded to writers who are subjected to political mistreatment and intimidation. By awarding the Hellman/Hammett award, Human Rights Watch attempts to expose the difficulties facing writers who are subjected to political mistreatment and intimidation.”

“Unfortunately,” adds Ghaemi, “the condition of Iranian writers and defenders of free speech has deteriorated since president Ahmadinejad came to office in 2005. Iranian authorities systematically undermine free speech by shutting down newspapers and imprisoning journalists. The few remaining independent journalists are forced to either leave the country or succumb to self-censorship.”

Ali Afshari – who writes for Rooz – is one of the recipients of the Human Rights Watch’s award. According to the statement released by the Hellman/Hammett, Afshari spent 3 years in prison for his key role in organizing the student movement, and was subsequently sentenced to 6 years in prison after leaving Iran in 2005.

Afshari told Rooz, “This prize belongs to all those who suffer from human rights violations in Iran and those who fight for the improvement of human rights in Iran.”

Afshari believes that such awards “can motivate those who are active in the field of human rights in Iran. Such actions indicate that the international community and civil society organizations that are active in monitoring human rights conditions and pay attention to Iran, and this can create a momentum toward improving the condition of human rights in Iran.”

Another recipient, Shahram Rafizade, told Rooz, “The founders of this award, Lilian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, are two great and influential writers in international literature. Despite the heavy censorship of books in Iran, works by both writers have been translated into Farsi. I got to discuss Dashiell Hammett’s works with a magnificant translator, Ahmad Mir Alayee, when he was publishing Hammett’s “The Thin Man”, a work that later became a movie and television series. A year later, during the chain murders, Mir Alayee was assassinated by those who look at Iranian writers from behind the dark glasses of power.”

Another Rooz writer, Zarezadeh Ardeshir, told Rooz, “The issue of free speech and human rights in Iran is the most important issue that must be attended to, because every human being has a right to a healthy life. For this reason, and because of the atmosphere of censorship and oppression inside the country, the attention of international human rights organizations can affect the improvement of human rights in Iran.”

Five Iranians received the Hellman/Hammett award last year: political activist Taqi Rahmani, poet and translator Ali Reza Jabbari, painter and play writer Assurbanipal Babila, journalist Sina Motalebi, and journalist Omid Memarian.