Iran

The International Federation of journalists (IFJ) has joined its affiliate, the Association of Iranian journalists (AoIJ), to demand that the government of Iran follows up on its election promises by showing respect for press freedom and releasing all journalists imprisoned in the country. According to the AoIJ, three more Iranian journalists have been imprisoned in the country in recent months â€...

Seven journalists were among those attacked when Iranian guards and intelligence officials raided a section of Tehran's Evin Prison holding political prisoners on Thursday, according to news websites and human rights groups. The unprecedented violent attack left dozens of prisoners injured, some hospitalised, and others transferred to solitary confinement, according to news reports. Among those...

A Tehran media court decided on February 20 to close the reformist daily Aseman (Sky) after only six issues at the Tehran deputy prosecutor’s request. “This act of censorship is unacceptable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It is indicative of the media war that is being waged by the Revolutionary Guards and orchestrated by courts, to the detriment of freedom of information. We demand...

Mehdi Karoubi, a dissident theologian, former parliamentary speaker and owner of the closed newspaper Etemad Melli, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the owner of the closed newspaper Kalameh Sabaz, and Mousavi’s wife, the writer Zahra Rahnavard, are spending their 1,100th day in detention today. They were placed under house arrest in February 2011. “The arbitrary detention of Karoubi, Mousavi and...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has deplored the death in prison of journalist and writer Hoda Saber and accused the Iranian regime of being responsible. He was taken to hospital with chest pains on June 10 and died of a heart attack a few hours later. The Evin prison authorities did not inform his family, who learned about his death two days later on the Internet....

Journalist Siamak Pourzand, 80, a major cultural figure in Iran, has committed suicide. Detained and under house arrest for ten years, banned from leaving the country and separated from his family, Pourzand killed himself on April 29 in Tehran. "We hold the Iranian authorities responsible for this gesture of despair. Despite several appeals to the authorities by his family and various human rights...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the recent arrests of Mohammad Seifzadeh, a human rights lawyer who has defended several imprisoned journalists, and Alireza Rajai, a journalist who writes for several reformist newspapers. A founder member of Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi’s Centre for Human Rights Defenders, Seifzadeh managed to tell his family on...

Iranian authorities used force to contain demonstrations a week ago in the southwestern province of Khuzestan and banned news coverage of the bloody clashes that took place. Both the national and international media were prevented from covering the incidents. The crackdown has continued this week with several arrests of netizens and media contributors, according to Paris-based press freedom group...

Iran has intensified its crackdown on media professionals. Agence France-Presse (AFP)’s bureau chief was expelled at the end of last week. In addition, accreditations for foreign media journalists have been revoked by the Iranian ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Abdolreza Tajik, who was awarded the RSF-FNAC press freedom prize in 2010, was given a six-year jail term for his work with the...

Mir Hossein Mousavi, owner of the suspended newspaper Kalameh Sabaz, his wife, author Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karoubi, owner of the suspended Etemad Melli, and his wife have been arrested in Iran, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, the Tehran public prosecutor, told a press conference on February 27 that the two newspaper...