New Method of Suppressing Journalists by Revolutionary Guards Intelligence: Increased Pressure on Journalists Over Social Media Activity
A new wave of security pressures and suppression of journalists in Iran has entered a new phase with the summoning and interrogation of more than ten journalists and the confiscation of communication devices from several journalists in Tehran and other cities. Journalists residing in Iran, in interviews with the Human Rights Campaign in Iran, have stated that the main pressures relate to their activities on social networks, particularly Twitter, and security officials have pressured them to refrain from any criticism of Islamic Republic policies.
A journalist residing in Tehran told the campaign: “They have arrived at a new strategy that reveals a very serious contradiction in the Islamic Republic system. While Twitter is a banned and filtered application in Iran, all officials from the supreme leader to government members and parliamentary representatives use Twitter for information dissemination and positioning. But they have turned the use of this same Twitter into a tool of pressure for a layer of critical journalists. In such a way that they constantly monitor the accounts of these journalists and consider examples that do not align with their policies and preferences as violations and crimes, and through this they file charges against them.”
Over the past two weeks, communication devices of more than ten journalists have been confiscated by Revolutionary Guards Intelligence officers. Yasmin Khaleghian, Maziar Khosravi, Moloud Haji Zadeh, Yagma Faskhamian, Mona Mafi, Ehsan Badaghi, and Shabnam Nezami are among journalists whose communication devices and those of their family members have been searched and confiscated by Revolutionary Guards Intelligence officers. According to one journalist, “The number of journalists in Tehran and other cities whose homes have been raided by Revolutionary Guards officers is greater than those who have made the issue public or media coverage. For example, regarding journalists in provincial towns where such incidents have occurred, we see that due to security pressures they have not even been willing to publicly address the issue, and we also see that some journalists have been forced to reduce their presence on social networks to zero.”
A journalist in Tehran told the campaign: “The Revolutionary Guards have launched a new project in suppressing journalists. Because arresting journalists is costly for them, they conduct home raids with summonses and based on prosecutor’s orders for home searches, confiscating the communication and mass media devices of journalists, and other family members including computers, mobile phones, books, handwritten documents, and press cards. They provide receipts for the confiscated items and say you must come on such and such a day to such and such Revolutionary Guards office for clarification, and they list the confiscated devices as part of investigations. That is, they effectively prevent journalists from working while also taking away their personal devices to fabricate accusations and crimes against them.”
This journalist told the campaign: “In some cases, they have also pressured journalists through contact with responsible managers of newspapers not to publish anything criticizing the policies of the Islamic Republic on social networks. From those killed and arrested in November protests to the downing of the Ukrainian airplane by a Revolutionary Guards missile, and now the parliamentary elections which will be held in two or three weeks, there are matters that the Revolutionary Guards want to prevent—whether through confiscating journalists’ devices or pressuring through newspaper managers—so that we effectively write nothing on social networks, especially Twitter, other than the government’s official narrative and do not criticize it. These are matters that we are allowed to write about in our newspapers within a specific framework, which is heavily censored by newspaper managers, but on social networks and our own Twitter accounts they now apply the same pressures and censorship with security pressures and threats. Their policy is essentially that they won’t take us to prison, but they will turn our homes, our newspapers, and our lives into a prison.”
Alongside the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence’s new method of creating fear and intimidation among journalists and preventing their activity on social networks, some journalists have also reported being summoned and interrogated by security agencies. One journalist who was interrogated last week told the campaign: “They specifically told me that on the eve of elections, any activity I have on social networks that contradicts the positions announced by the supreme leader is playing in the enemy’s field and acting against national security. They said that on social networks I can only work within the same framework in which I can write and publish in the newspaper and should not deviate from the red lines that the newspaper has on my personal Twitter.”
However, summoning and interrogating journalists about their social media activities is not limited to journalists residing in Tehran. Reporters Without Borders, quoting a journalist in southern Iran, reported that “the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence summoned me and everything they said was about my posts on Instagram in which I had expressed shame about the government’s false coverage of the plane. In the end they said: if you don’t want to spend the next ten years in prison and want to live, both shut your mouth and deactivate your social media accounts. That’s it. Don’t cooperate with the enemy.”
Simultaneously, Khosrow Sadeqi Borujeni, a freelance journalist and researcher in the field of labor and welfare, reported on his Twitter about an eight-year prison sentence issued against him on charges of “conspiracy and collusion against national security, propaganda against the regime, and insulting Imam Khomeini” by the Revolutionary Court.
The Tehran Province Journalists Guild also reported the conviction of Amir Babaei, one of its members, with a complaint by the “Deputy Governor of Kermanshah on the charge of publishing falsehoods, to pay a fine of one hundred million rials.”
The appeal court ruling for Marziyeh Amiri, a journalist at Shargh newspaper who was arrested last year while preparing a report at the International Workers’ Day gathering and was released on bail, has been announced as 5 years. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 148 lashes in the first trial and on appeal was convicted by the Revolutionary Court on charges of “conspiracy and collusion, propaganda against the regime, and disruption of public order” to five years imprisonment. In the city of Abadan, Mandana Sadeqi, editor of the Fidos news website, was summoned on the charge of propaganda activities against the regime and released on a bail of 40 million tomans.
Reporters Without Borders in its latest report announced that Iran, in terms of media freedom ranking among 180 countries in the world with a six-rank decline compared to 2018, has fallen to the 170th position.
Source: Human Rights Campaign
