Iran

Several sources in Iran have told Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) that the authorities have again been blocking the Internet and mobile phone networks since the start of a big protest at 3 p.m. on February 20. Internet connections have been slowed right down or entirely disconnected in certain neighbourhoods in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashad, making it hard or...

Iran has launched a renewed crackdown of the past few days including a wave of arrests of journalists that began on February 14 and cases of harassment of journalists’ families. The authorities have stepped up cyber-attacks on news websites and disruption of the Internet in a sweeping form of censorship designed to stifle the protest movement and prevent information about demonstrations from...

The authorities in Iran have increased censorship in a bid to prevent Monday’s anti-government protests, blocking independent or pro-opposition websites and other electronic media. Broadband speed has greatly slowed in major cities as in the run-up to previous anti-regime demonstrations or opposition events. Mobile phone and text-message traffic has been badly disrupted and the Persian calendar...

Taghi Rahmani, a veteran independent journalist and staunch free speech activist, was picked up at his Tehran home on Wednesday by men in plain-clothes and was taken to an unknown location, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. At the same time, several journalists and bloggers have been summoned for questioning by the Revolutionary Guards and the...

Iranian journalist Abdolreza Tajik, winner of the RSF 2010 press freedom award, has been freed after his family put up bail for a third time in the sum of 500,000,000 tomans (about 370,000 euros), Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. RSF said it was delighted at the release on Wednesday of the emblematic figure in the struggle for freedom and journalism in...

Human rights lawyer and free speech defender Nasrin Sotoudeh has now been held for more than 100 days in Iran. She began her third hunger strike last week and is resolved to continue it until the end, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Shirin Ebadi, Nobel peace laureate and president of the Tehran-based Centre for Human Rights Defenders, Jean-François...

Iranian authorities have arrested three journalists from the daily Sharq, bringing the number of the newspaper's incarcerated staffers to seven in less than a week, according to news reports. In other developments, veteran journalist Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, has been sentenced to 16 months in prison, the BBC reported, and blogger Hossein Derakhshan was returned to jail after being temporarily...

Iran has sentenced a prominent reformist journalist to 16 months in jail on charges of insulting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and undermining the Islamic regime, he told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Sunday. Mashallah Shamsolvaezin heads the Journalists' Association of Iran and was the editor of several reformist dailies closed in a crackdown on the press between 1998 and 2000. "I was sentenced...

Iran on Tuesday arrested four journalists at the daily Sharq. There have also been recent news reports that indicate the abusive treatment endured by dozens of imprisoned Iranian prisoners has adversely affected the health of many of them--including Issa Saharkhiz, a founding member of the now-defunct Association of Iranian ‎Journalists, who has reportedly undergone surgery for internal...

Emadoldin Baghi, journalist and emblematic figure in the defence of human rights in Iran, began serving a six-year prison sentence on Sunday. Before turning himself in at Evin prison he said in an interview: In fact neither I nor my lawyers know whether the sentences have been upheld, by what court and in front of which judge! All that happened is that I received a phone call telling me to give...