Reporters Without Borders: Iran ranks 164th in world press freedom rankings
In its latest report on media freedom in the world, Reporters Without Borders has warned of "increasing hostility" against journalists, encouragement to confront them, and the imposition of information by authoritarian regimes.
Iran ranks 164th out of 180 countries in the 2018 list.
Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands top the list of world press freedoms. The last country in terms of press freedom is North Korea, followed by Eritrea and Turkmenistan.
According to Reporters Without Borders, Iran has made no significant progress this year compared to last year and continues to "stagnate in the lower ranks."
The body that monitors the press and media has noted that the Islamic Republic of Iran has never managed to leave the bottom of the list and has always been “the neighbor of the worst.” In 2011, Iran was among the bottom five countries on the list, and the year before that, it was one rank lower.
Although the 164th rank compared to last year, when Iran was ranked 165th, may be a sign of an improvement in the situation of freedom of expression and media, Reporters Without Borders has reminded that this "improvement" is one rank due to the worsening situation in other countries.
According to the organization, Iran remains one of the world's five largest prisons for journalists and citizen journalists, and since January 2017, "more than twenty journalists and fifty citizen journalists" have been arrested in the country.
Reporters Without Borders has criticized the Islamic Republic's "Media System Organization Bill," saying that "in addition to its legal shortcomings and inefficiency for Iranian society, this bill also seeks to turn journalists into government employees."
This institution is referring to a bill proposed by the Islamic Republic government last year that would require journalists to “obtain a journalism license.” In the event of a “press crime,” if the article is written by someone who does not have a journalism license, they will be tried in a public court without a jury. This is despite the fact that the media system is under the complete control of the Iranian government and journalists have no independence in it.
Reporters Without Borders says that the "suppression" of freedom of information is not limited to the country, and that "global media, especially Persian-language media abroad, have also been victims of repression, intimidation, and censorship" by the Iranian government.
Dictators, War, and "Information Blackholes"
Reporters Without Borders has warned about the imposition of journalism by authoritarian regimes, saying that dictators and war are turning countries into "information black holes."
Syria is ranked 177th in the organization's rankings, while another war-torn Middle East country, Yemen, is ranked 167th, and Iraq is ranked 160th. The situation in other Middle Eastern countries is no better. Saudi Arabia is five places below Iran, at 169th, and the United Arab Emirates is ranked 128th.
Reporters Without Borders says that never before have so many countries been in the black, meaning "very bad," category on the 2018 press freedom map, and that "a large number of Middle Eastern countries are in this category."
The press watchdog says the state of media freedom in the United States has “fallen again” and in Canada, another country in the North American continent, “has continued to improve.” The situation in Africa has improved somewhat, but the indicator for the Eastern Europe and South Asia region has fallen towards the Middle East and North Africa.
According to the organization, the situation in the Middle East and North Africa region is "getting worse year by year."
Reporters Without Borders has been publishing its media freedom rankings annually since 2002. According to the organization, patterns such as self-censorship and harassment and suppression of freedom of information, legal infrastructure and frameworks, pluralism, and media independence are considered in its annual ranking.
Source: Radio Farda
