Iranian journalist Mohammad Mir-Ghasemzadeh arrested as authorities ramp up legal pressure on media
Washington, D.C., November 30, 2023—Iranian authorities must immediately release journalist Mohammad Mir-Ghasemzadeh and cease jailing journalists for simply doing their job, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. On Monday, security agents with the Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Ministry arrested Mir-Ghasemzadeh, a local reporter in the northern city of Sowme’eh Sara in Gilan province, and took…
Iran arrests 2 female environmental journalists in mass raids
Washington, D.C., November 14, 2023—Iranian authorities must immediately release journalists Nasim Tavafzadeh and Helaleh Nategheh and stop trying to silence journalists by jailing them, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. On Saturday, intelligence agents with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrested Tavafzadeh, editor-in-chief of the local news website Moroor.org, and Nategheh, an environmental reporter…
Iranian journalist Manijeh Moazen arrested
Washington, D.C., November 9, 2023—Iranian authorities must immediately release journalist Manijeh Moazen and cease jailing members of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. On November 8, Moazen, a freelance journalist and translator, was arrested from her home in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and was taken to an undisclosed location, according to news reports and a…
Iranian journalist Negar Ostad Agha detained reporting on girl’s funeral
Washington, D.C., November 6, 2023—Iranian authorities must immediately release female journalist Negar Ostad Agha and cease jailing members of the press for reporting the news, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. On October 29, Ostad Agha, a journalist and senior editor at Etemad Online, was arrested in a cemetery in Iran’s capital, Tehran, while…
Iranian journalists Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi sentenced
Washington, D.C., October 22, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the decision to sentence journalists Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi to 13 and 12 years in jail respectively, and reiterates its call for their immediate release. Hamedi, a reporter with the state-run Shargh Daily, and Mohammadi, head of the social issues desk at the state-run…
‘Breathtakingly hard’: Iranian journalist Saeede Fathi on 2 months in Evin Prison
Saeede Fathabadi, who goes professionally by Saeede Fathi, was living in Vienna last year when she took a reporting trip to her native Iran to gather footage for a documentary about female athletes in the country. The topic is close to her heart; she used to be a professional basketball player but quit after she was unable…
Iran’s journalists in dire straits one year after protest crackdown
When Mahsa (Jina) Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, died in custody last September after morality police detained her for alleged “improper” wearing of her headscarf, Iran’s already embattled press corps paid a heavy price for reporting on her death and the nationwide protests that followed. Scores of journalists were among those arrested as Iranian authorities cracked…
Iran blocks Entekhab’s website and social media over report criticizing foreign policy
Washington, D.C., September 5, 2023—Iranian authorities must reverse their decision to shut down the moderate Tehran-based state-run news website Entekhab and allow media outlets to report the news freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. On Monday, September 4, the Press Supervisory Board of Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance revoked Entekhab’s operating…
CPJ joins renewed call for release of Burundi journalist Floriane Irangabiye after 1 year in prison
Nairobi, August 30, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists, Amnesty International, the Burundi Human Rights Initiative, and Human Rights Watch on Wednesday, August 30, renewed their call for Burundian authorities to unconditionally release journalist Floriane Irangabiye, who has been detained for a year. Irangabiye was arrested on August 30, 2022, and is serving a 10-year prison…
Taliban detains Iranian photojournalist Mohammad Hossein Velayati in Afghanistan
New York, August 22, 2023 — Taliban authorities should immediately and unconditionally release Iranian photojournalist Mohammad Hossein Velayati and cease harassing members of the press in Afghanistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. On August 19, Taliban authorities detained Velayati, a photographer for Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency, at Kabul International Airport before he…