Exclusive Interview with Two Journalists in Iran; From Countering 'Disinformation' to Arrests for 'Negative Portrayal'

The arrest of journalists in Iran intensified with the onset of nationwide protests at the end of September 2022, leading to the detention of at least 73 journalists and photojournalists in the second half of last year, further pushing press freedom into obscurity. The Persian section of Voice of America, coinciding with World Press Freedom Day, has addressed the state of media freedom violations and the arrests and pressure on journalists following the start of the 2022 protests, interviewing two journalists in Iran. The emergence of opposition journalists from government-controlled newspapers has been noted by a journalist inside Iran who spoke with Voice of America, stating that over the past decade, alongside the 'trend of eliminating dissenting journalists from the press and media, independent movements relying on new tools' such as social media have taken the path of investigative and critical journalism, playing the 'most important role' in 'exposing the nature of reformist and principlist movements of the Islamic Republic.' This independent movement has given rise to a new spectrum of dissenting journalists from heavily controlled newspapers. According to this journalist, whose name Voice of America has withheld for security reasons, with the beginning of Hassan Rouhani's government and the start of the JCPOA negotiations, 'the young idealistic generation of journalists' was gradually purged, restricted, and ultimately banned from activity. Under Ibrahim Raisi's administration, 'the critical capacities of journalists buried under the discourse of reform and the JCPOA in reformist newspapers no longer needed to defend the established government and were allowed to criticize by the owners of these media connected to reformists.' He emphasizes: 'In such an environment, when Mahsa Amini was killed by the ideological military forces of the Islamic Republic, there were no longer shackles like those of the delicate think tanks of Zarif and Rouhani to deceive critical journalists, and thus, suddenly, from within newspapers that the government believed had become uniform and aligned with the regime, journalists like Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloufar Hamedi bravely reported and did not allow the official media tools of the Islamic Republic to distort reality.' This journalist adds: 'This is a point that my interrogators emphasized during my detention, and in my opinion, they realized too late how we had been operating outside of the permitted and official press.' Another journalist residing in Iran, whose name is kept confidential by Voice of America, states that 'pressures on the media in Iran' have significantly intensified following the nationwide protests in the second half of last year, with the Islamic Republic's expectation from the media being 'the production of propaganda bulletins,' and due to 'critical analyses,' they are pressured under vague titles such as 'negative portrayal.' He points out that 'media are prohibited from interviewing the families of detainees and victims of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement,' and 'journalists who have written in this regard have often been arrested and released on heavy bail.' He also mentions that writing about optional hijab and internet disruptions has now become 'among the red lines of the media' and is one of the issues that 'journalists have been pressured about during interrogations.' This journalist also emphasizes the 'constant online harassment' by 'accounts affiliated with the security institutions' of the Islamic Republic, adding: 'They constantly insult these journalists and threaten them and their families with murder and rape or attempt to tarnish the journalists' reputation with false claims and create doubt among their audiences.' The Islamic Republic pressures and arrests journalists due to their professional activities. As reported by the committee and executive board monitoring the status of detained journalists in January 2023, dozens of journalists have been arrested, but Iman Shamsai, the director of domestic press and news agencies at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, claimed that 'no one in Tehran has been arrested for media activity.' According to a published list, in recent months, journalists including 'Farkhondeh Ashouri, Niloufar Hamedi, Maral Darafarin, Maliheh Darki, Mehrnoush Tafiian, Maryam Ghanad, Elaheh Mohammadi, Vida Rabani, and Farzaneh Yahya Abadi, Iman Beheshti, Amir Hossein Barimani, Milad Bidarigh, Ehsan Pirbarnaash, Alireza Jabari Darastani, Arya Jafari, Payam Khodabandehlu, Ismail Khazari, Ali Khatibzadeh, Sajjad Rahmani, Saeed Seif Ali, Ashkan Shamipour, Omid Tahan Bidehendi, Amir Abbasi, Milad Alavi, Mehdi Ghadimi, Shahryar Ghanbari, Masoud Kordpour, Rouhollah Nakhaei, Omid Hormazi, and Hossein Yazdi' have been arrested, some of whom have been released on bail. Although some of the arrested journalists have been temporarily released on bail, their legal cases are ongoing, and most of them remain in prison. Among those, Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, two of the dozens of arrested journalists, are still in temporary detention after months of uncertainty, and the judiciary has accused them of 'collusion and conspiracy against national security and propaganda against the regime' as well as 'collaboration with the United States.' On Tuesday afternoon, May 2, it was also announced that Niloufar Hamedi, Elaheh Mohammadi, and Nargess Mohammadi were recognized as this year's winners of the UNESCO International Press Freedom Prize known as 'Guillermo Cano.' Audrey Azoulay, the Director-General of UNESCO, stated in a statement that now more than ever, it is important to pay tribute to all women journalists who are prevented from performing their duties and face threats and attacks on their security. According to the report by Reporters Without Borders last year, Iran fell to rank 178 in terms of press freedom among 180 countries, and the Committee to Protect Journalists in its annual report placed the Islamic Republic of Iran alongside China, Myanmar, Turkey, and Belarus at the top of the list of the world's largest prisons for journalists. The media in the grip of censorship; the fate of the press after the establishment of the Islamic Republic. In early summer 1979, with the approval of the new press law by the Islamic Revolutionary Council, several newspapers and magazines were shut down. From late summer 1980, restrictions against the press intensified, and the publication of many newspapers and publications was halted. Ruhollah Khomeini, in his speech on August 17, 1979, in Qom, attacked publications, stating that if they had acted 'revolutionarily,' they would have broken the pens of all publications and shut down all corrupt magazines and publications, and brought their heads to trial and banned corrupt parties and brought their leaders to justice, and erected gallows in the main squares and harvested the corrupt and depraved. If we had acted in this way, these troubles would not have arisen.' However, Khomeini's remarks represented a 180-degree shift from his statements before the 1979 revolution in Neauphle-le-Château, where he said: 'The people rose up to be free; they should not have their pens broken so they cannot write. These people broke the pens in the past fifty years.' Elaheh Boqrat, a journalist, previously told the Persian section of Voice of America about the beginning of the era of censorship and repression, stating: 'All groups were wiped out, and their publications were shut down,' and 'conventional publications were put under pressure,' pressures that, although 'later became organized,' in those first two years, pressure groups that are now known as 'fire-at-will' were attacking the offices of newspapers that did not align with Khomeini's line and the power structure, burning them down. Behzad Mehrani, a researcher, told Voice of America that in the 1990s, the second Khordad faction, which is the left faction of the Islamic Republic and was mostly present in security agencies in the 1980s, realized that the Islamic Republic needed a slight opening for survival; however, 'this space was not for dissenters and secular forces, but for intellectuals and the left faction of the Islamic Republic.' However, the officials of the Islamic Republic could not tolerate even that relative and controlled opening and, with the intra-group struggles of the ruling forces in Iran, the press faced widespread closures and shutdowns. In the 2000s, the sparks of the explosion of information worldwide reached Iran as well, and the availability of publishing and obtaining information for citizens, along with the expansion of Persian-language media abroad, posed a new challenge for censors. Thanks to the internet, the control of free information circulation, despite the resurgence of conservatives, somewhat slipped from the hands of the ruling regime, and the expansion of public protests and the widening gap between the people and the established regime presented new challenges for the media. Hediyeh Kimiai, a journalist, points to the increased security pressures on journalists during Hassan Rouhani's second term and the silence of domestic media during public protests and the repression of the Islamic Republic's forces, stating to Voice of America that many of her colleagues were forced to leave their jobs or remain silent, and some 'were attracted to government and state institutions' and turned to reflect them in the media. According to her, the boycott or distortion of the realities of nationwide protests in December 2017 and November 2019 continued during the incident of the Revolutionary Guards' missile attack on the Ukrainian plane. The media in the grip of censorship; a look at the state of the press in Iran since the revolution. The past four decades have presented numerous challenges for journalism in Iran, including imprisonment, migration, house arrest, job changes, or continuing work under the sword of repression; dismantling professional organizations and constructing nominal organizations. The rise of social media as a new form of media has further heightened the concerns of repressors regarding the free flow of information and added new dimensions to censorship. As Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, describes the virtual space as 'truly free' and 'unrestrained and unbound,' he has prioritized 'organizing' it by launching a 'national internet' or in plans like 'protection.'