Following the Seizure of the Rozan Newspaper, Journalist Yaghma Fakhshami Arrested

Iran's Labor News Agency, ILNA, reported on Thursday that following the seizure of the Rozan newspaper, political journalist Yaghma Fakhshami was arrested and sent to Evin Prison on Wednesday, December 3rd. The news agency did not mention the reason for Fakhshami's arrest. The Tehran Prosecutor's Office announced the order to seize the Rozan newspaper in a letter to the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance on Tuesday, December 2nd, but did not specify the reason for the seizure. However, according to Shamsi Pourmohammadi, the editor-in-chief of the Rozan newspaper, the reason for the seizure was stated to be the content of the newspaper's issue on Saturday, December 29th. In that issue, the Rozan newspaper published articles commemorating the late Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, featuring his photo on the front page with the headline 'A Different Cleric.' Since the rise of Hassan Rouhani's government, several publications, including the newspapers Bahar, Nasht, and Aseman, have been seized by the judiciary or the press supervisory board, and several journalists, including Saba Azarpeik, Jason Rezaian, and Yeganeh Salehi, have been arrested. Currently, several journalists who were arrested and imprisoned following the protests against the 2009 presidential election, including Ahmad Zeidabadi, Masoud Bastani, Mehrdad Sarjouei, Alireza Rajaei, and Keyvan Samimi, remain in prison. Meanwhile, Serajeddin Mirdamadi, a journalist who reportedly returned to Tehran from France during Hassan Rouhani's inauguration ceremony, was arrested upon his return to Iran and ultimately sentenced to three years in prison. Reporters Without Borders stated in its annual report published in the last two weeks of this year that Iran is the third largest prison for journalists in the world, after China and Eritrea. The United Nations General Assembly, on Thursday, December 27th, adopted a resolution calling on the Islamic Republic of Iran to stop human rights violations, including 'torture, gender discrimination, and targeting activists and journalists.' However, Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, stated in an interview with CNN on Friday, October 4th, that he does not believe anyone in Iran has been arrested for their journalistic activities. 135 Iranian journalists criticized Rouhani's statements in a letter, describing them as 'distortion and denial of reality.'