Iran

Iran's leading reformist daily newspaper Hammihan (Compatriot) has been ordered closed, less than two months after it was allowed to resume publishing. Hammihan, banned in 2000 by the hardline Iranian judiciary after the newspaper called for improving Iranian ties with the United States, had resumed publishing in May this year, publisher Gholamhossein Karbaschi told the Associated Press (AP). A...

Reporters Without Borders has learned of the arrests of three more Iranian journalists, one of them two days ago. They bring the number of journalists detained in Iran to six. “The Iranian regime is one of the most repressive in the world towards the media,” the press freedom organisation said. “Independent journalists are closely watched and constantly harassed. Arrests are frequent, and months...

The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Iranian authorities to drop criminal charges against an Iranian-American journalist working for U.S.-backed Radio Farda, to return the journalist’s seized passport, and to allow her to travel freely. On May 15, the Special Security Bureau of the Revolutionary Court Public Prosecutor’s office charged Parnaz Azima with disseminating propaganda...

Reporters Without Borders today deplored a two-year prison sentence imposed on a provincial newspaper journalist, as well as the closure of a weekly paper and a ban on two journalists from leaving the country. “The Iranian press and its journalists continue to be the victims of injustice and four are currently in prison,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “Many are hounded at their...

Two pominent reformist newspapers in Iran that had been banned resumed publishing this week. One of the papers, Hammihan (Compatriot), was banned in 2000 by the hardline judiciary after it called for improved ties with the United States, the Associated Press (AP) reported. On Sunday, the paper was back on the newsstands, and its top story — with the headline "Iran-US talks in Baghdad" — was on an...

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the recent arrests of four Iranian student editors of Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran following the publication of newsletters carrying articles deemed insulting to Islam. The students say they had no involvement in the publications, calling them a fraud designed to disrupt student elections. All of the university's student publications...

In a continued effort to suppress reform-minded critics, the Iranian government has sentenced yet another prominent journalist, Ali Farahbakhsh, to three years in jail and slapped him with a huge fine, partly due to a typo in the court documents. Farahbakhsh was convicted of spying in a trial held behind closed doors on Mar. 26. He was first imprisoned five months ago on his return to Iran after...

Reporters Without Borders called today for the immediate release of freelance business journalist Ali Farahbakhsh, who was convicted of spying in a parody of a trial on 26 March and was sentenced to three years in prison and an exorbitant fine. “The same day that the UN Human Rights Council decided not to examine the situation in Iran, a journalist was the victim of the Islamic Republic’s...

Iran has lifted a ban on a leading reformist daily but closed down two weeklies. The Iranian government Sunday lifted the ban on Shargh which had been shut down last September by Iran’s press watchdog. An Iranian woman looks at Shargh newspaper, before the popular daily was shut down last September. Iran’s hardline judiciary has closed down over 100 reformist and moderate publications and websites...

The Iranian government has shut down four publications, including a major reformist newspaper, according to reports. The reformist daily, Shargh, or East, was shut down Monday indefinitely because it had refused to replace its managing director apart from publishing a cartoon in a recent edition that was considered insulting to the government, state television said, citing a statement from the...