Reporters Without Borders: Iran must stop intimidating independent journalists
Reporters Without Borders has condemned threats and pressure against Persian-speaking colleagues in global media, independent journalists living abroad and their families. The Iranian judiciary has announced a ban on the trading of Iran International employees.
Iran International Television has announced that the Islamic Republic's judicial system has pressured the families of a group of the network's colleagues by summoning them to intelligence centers and threatening them to ask their children and relatives not to continue working.
Calling such an act immoral, Iran International called on organizations defending freedom of expression to condemn the Iranian government's action and to call on Iranian authorities to free the internet and provide people with access to real news, instead of harassing innocent families.
In the latest move, the judiciary-affiliated Mizan News Agency announced that Iran International employees have been banned from trading for their coverage of the recent protests. Iran International TV says it will sue the Islamic Republic government through international institutions.
According to information received by Reporters Without Borders, in addition to Iran International staff, a number of journalists from Radio Farda, BBC, Voice of America, Man and You, and Kayhan London have been threatened by Iranian security services in various ways, from direct threats to cyberattacks or intimidation on social media. The families of some of these journalists have also been threatened within the country.
A statement from Reporters Without Borders said the journalists who were threatened preferred not to be named to avoid further pressure. This comes as BBC senior journalist Farnaz Ghazizadeh tweeted that her 73-year-old father had been summoned and warned about his two daughters. “Our families are hostages,” Ms Ghazizadeh wrote.
Threats of a dilemma
Reporters Without Borders has also condemned the writings of Hamid Baeidinejad, the Islamic Republic's ambassador to the United Kingdom, who "continually threatens media outlets and journalists on his Twitter account."
Baeidinejad, who was previously the director of political affairs and international security at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tweeted two days after the internet shutdown in Iran: "The Iranian people will never forget these days, how media networks such as BBC Persian, VOA, Man and You, and Iran International, with funding from foreign governments and the Pahlavi group, are trying to present organized rioters, murderers of lives, and arsonists as political critics and lead Iran into insecurity."
Reporters Without Borders reminded that threatening citizens, especially journalists and media outlets of a country, is not part of the ambassador's duties and mission: "We call on the British authorities to pay attention to these threatening and dangerous actions for the freedom of the media and journalists."
In a statement by Reporters Without Borders, Hamid Baeidinejad was called an "ambassador of threat."
In another tweet, Baeidinejad announced that he had sent a complaint to the British broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, against the aforementioned media outlets, claiming that these media outlets had distorted recent developments in Iran and had called on audiences to engage in widespread violence against Iranian civil society organizations.
During the 2009 election-related protests, the families of journalists from BBC Persian Television and Radio Farda were harassed and threatened. Shortly thereafter, employees of these media outlets were banned from trading and their assets were confiscated in Iran.
Source: DW
