Increase in Legal Prosecution and Security Pressure on Journalists Since Coronavirus Outbreak in Iran

The International Federation of Journalists has announced that since the outbreak of the coronavirus and COVID-19 disease, judicial prosecution and security pressure on journalists in Iran, particularly at the local level and on reporters covering government corruption, have increased, referring to the arrest and conviction of some Iranian journalists.

The report states that this international body has condemned the escalating pattern of judicial harassment of “Iranian journalists who are simply carrying out their duty to inform citizens about matters of public interest” and has called on the Iranian government to immediately stop media suppression and end judicial prosecutions against media personnel.

In a section of the report, referencing the summons and conviction of several journalists including Mahdi Sohrabi, a local journalist in Zanjan, Amir Abbas Dehbashi Nejad in Bushehr Province, Elaheh Mousavi, an environmental journalist, Elaheh Ramazanpour, a reporter for Hamshahri newspaper, and Shahram Safaei, a Kurdish journalist, it states that in addition to these judicial cases, security pressures on journalists and media workers across Iran have increased.

Previously, Voice of America reported that Reporters Without Borders, in its latest ranking of media freedom status globally in 2021, a copy of which was obtained by Voice of America, announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran, among 180 countries evaluated, fell one rank to position 174.

In the Reporters Without Borders report, it states that Iranian government officials, by tightening information control and increasing arrests and imprisoning journalists with heavy sentences, attempted to reduce the number of those infected and killed by COVID-19.

The U.S. State Department has repeatedly condemned the violent actions of the Islamic Republic against the Iranian people, including civil activists, under various pretexts, as well as the repeated and continuous violations of the rights of Iranian citizens by agents of the Islamic Republic.

Source: Voice of America