Authorities must drop repressive measures against journalists and restore internet access that is vital to keeping the public informed.
This statement was originally published on cpj.org on 26 September 2022.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Iranian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all journalists arrested while covering mass protests around the country and restore blocked internet access.
CPJ has learned from multiple sources inside Iran that as of Monday, September 26, at least 20 journalists had been arrested as clashes between security forces and protesters left dozens dead. Details of arrests are sparse amid an internet blackout and major disruptions to phone and social media networks, but CPJ’s sources said that several of the journalists were taken into custody during post-midnight raids on their homes. The sources said that the security forces – who confiscated the journalists’ electronic devices – did not identify which agency they represented or produce arrest warrants or explanation of charges.
The protests began last week over the death in morality-police custody of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, arrested for allegedly violating the country’s conservative dress law.
“Iranian authorities must immediately release all journalists arrested because of their coverage of Mahsa Amini’s death and the protests that have followed,” said CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator, Sherif Mansour. “Iranian security forces must drop their repressive measures against the journalists telling this critical story and restore the internet access that is vital to keep the public informed.”
The most recent arrests include freelance reporter Sarvenaz Ahmadi and well-known blogger Seyed Hossein Ronaghi Maleki. According to a tweet by Ronaghi’s friend and former colleague, exiled Iranian journalist, Masoud Kazemi, the blogger told his mother in a call on Monday, September 26 that security forces had beaten him and broken his leg while in custody.
According to CPJ’s sources, media reports, and the Tehran Journalists Association, the following journalists had been arrested as of September 24:
1) Yalda Moaiery, photojournalist
Moaiery, writing on Instagram Stories from a van taking her to jail, said she was beaten and arrested on September 19 while covering protests on Hejab street in downtown Tehran. According to the exile news website IranWire, Moaiery said conditions in Qarchak prison, a female-only detention facility in the city of Varamin, southeast of Tehran, were “horrible,” with more than 100 women crammed into a tight space. “There are only 3 bathrooms for their use and prison authorities prescribe many tranquilizers for the prisoners,” she said.
2) Niloofar Hamedi, reporter for the Tehran-based semi-reformist Shargh Daily
Hamedi was among the first journalists to report on Amini’s hospitalization, according to a report by the exile-run news website IranWire. Her lawyer, Mohammad-Ali Kamfirouzi, tweeted Sunday that Hamedi was able to make a phone call to her husband and say that she is in solitary confinement and being interrogated in Tehran’s Evin prison. She had not been told of any charges against her.
3) Iman Behpasand, political commentator, columnist, and women’s issues reporter
4) Behzad Vafakhah, cultural and political columnist
5) Ruhollah Nakhaee, foreign policy reporter
6) Alireza Khoshbakht, political reporter
7) Zahra Tohidi, political reporter
8) Fatemeh Rajabi, economics reporter, arrested in her home in Tehran
9) Mojtaba Rahimi, a political reporter arrested in his home in the city of Qazvin following tweets about several protesters killed in and around his hometown.
10) Majid Tavakoli, political commentator and columnist, arrested in his Tehran home.
11) Marzieh Talaee, a Kurdish reporter arrested in the city of Saqqez in Kurdistan province.
12) Masoud Kordpour, editor-in-chief of the Kurdish Mukrian News Agency
13) Khosrow Kordpour, editor and reporter with the Kurdish News website Mukrian New Agency, brother of Masoud Kordpour
14) Elahe Mohammadi, a reporter with the state-run Hammihan Daily. According to a tweet by her lawyer Mohammad-Ali Kamfirouzi, she was arrested on September 22. According to the lawyer, security forces broke the entrance door to her house and arrested her violently and confiscated her personal devices such as laptop, books, phone and even her press card.
15) Elnaz Mohammadi, political reporter with semi-state- state-run bi-monthly Andishepouya magazine; twin sister of Elahe Mohammadi
16) Vida Rabbani, political commentator recently sentenced to ten years and four months in prison and banned from practicing journalism
17) Hamed Shafiei, political and social reporter
18) Ahmadreza Halabisaz, photojournalist
Halabisaz was arrested in downtown Tehran on September 22 while he was photographing the protests. A few hours after his arrest, he was permitted to call his family and tell them that he was taken to Evin prison, BBC Persian service reported.
19) Sarvenaz Ahmadi, freelance political and cultural reporter, who recently reported on forced child labor
20) Seyed Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, blogger
CPJ emailed requests for comment on the arrests to the Iran missions based in Geneva, Switzerland, and at the United Nations headquarters in New York, but did not receive a response.
