Iran

The mobile messaging app Telegram is popular in Iran, where citizens who have limited access to uncensored news and mainstream social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, use it to share and access information.

Fighting against the death penalty lands journalist Narges Mohammadi in an Iranian prison.

“Convicting journalists for ‘acting against national security’ underlines the need to change the overbroad laws that lead to the harassment and jailing of the media,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator.

While talk of increased access is welcome, content within the ‘National Internet’ would be blocked or filtered according to political, cultural, or religious criteria, and its users’ activity would be monitored.

Are Iran’s recent election results more of the same or the dawn of a new era for free expression? 37 journalists hope it’s the latter.

Atena Daemi was released on 15 February, after serving 16 months of her 14-year sentence in Evin prison.

Over 40 human rights groups and more than 75 international cartoonists are calling for leniency for Atena Farghadani, an Iranian cartoonist currently wrongfully jailed.

Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian was freed on 16 January as part of a prisoner swap between the United States and Iran, and was flown out of the country on 17 January.

Four journalists ­– Afarine Chitsaz of the daily Iran, Ehssan Mazndarani, the editor of the daily Farhikhteghan, Saman Safarzai of the monthly Andisher Poya and Issa Saharkhiz, a well-known independent journalist – have been held since their arrest on 2 November.

ARTICLE 19’s latest report on Iran assesses the immediate needs and hurdles faced by Iranian activists striving to continue their work outside Iran.

Iran is consistently one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists, CPJ research shows. In December 2014, at the time of CPJ’s most recent prison census, it was holding 30 journalists in prison.

Detained writer and blogger Mohammad Reza Pourshajari is being unlawfully held despite the expiry of his one year prison sentence. His conviction, in the first place, was solely on the basis of articles he had posted on his blog criticizing the Iranian authorities.

A spokesperson for the Iranian judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, appeared on state TV late Sunday night to announce that the Tehran Revolutionary Court had convicted Rezaian. However, the details of the verdict and whether Rezaian was in fact sentenced are still not clear.

Since April 2015, security forces have detained five prominent members of Iran’s Teachers’ Association, as well as the secretary general of the Teachers Organization of Iran.

Iran’s goal of creating a “Halal Internet” (a national information network) has not been abandoned. It has just changed name. The focus is now on “Intelligent Filtering,” which means ensuring that access to the Internet and above all to social networks is selective and controlled.

In the last 10 years, at least fifty Kurdish journalists and media workers have fled the country and sought asylum in European and American countries due to pressures by security forces.