London – The Iranian government’s strong crackdown on the wave of protests over the death of young Mahsa Amini has already led to the arrest of at least 20 journalists, according to monitoring by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Popular demonstrations broke out last week in response to the death of 20-year-old Amini after she was arrested for wearing the traditional veil (hijab) in a way deemed wrong by the morality police.
With the outbreak of protests on the streets of the country, the local press covered heavily in real time with the protesters as well as the journalists. While most of them went to prison, other professionals were arrested after their social media posts.
Journalists Arrested at Dawn in Iran
Mahsa Amini’s death caused instant outrage in the country’s society, with protests led by women opposing sharia (Islamic law) by removing and even burning headscarves in public.
By law, Iranian women are required to wear veils to completely cover their hair and neck when they are away from home.
Government pressure is on par with the scale of the popular uprising: authorities have confirmed 41 deaths linked to the protests. NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) counts at least 76 victims.
Among those arrested, the total exceeds 700. According to CPJ, at least 20 of them are journalists. The organization stressed that details of the arrests were scarce due to an internet “blackout” promoted by the Iranian government, which also limited access to phone and social media networks.
However, sources told the NGO that several journalists were detained during dawn police raids on their homes:
“The security forces, who seized the journalists’ electronic devices, did not reveal which agency they represented, or the arrest warrant or the charges.”
The most recent arrests were freelance reporter Sarvenaz Ahmadi and well-known blogger Seyed Hossein Ronaghi Maleki.
A friend of Iranian journalist Masoud Kazemi living abroad said in a statement on Ronaghi’s social media account that the blogger managed to reach his mother by phone on Monday (26). He said he was beaten and had a broken leg while in police custody.
Based on information from its sources, local media reports, and the Tehran Journalists Association, CPJ compiled a list of journalists arrested in Iran as of September 24:
Photojournalist Yalda Moaiery is one of them. She reported on Instagram that she was beaten and arrested on September 19 while following protests in central Tehran.
According to IranWire news site, Moaiery said conditions at Qarchak Prison, a women’s detention center in the town of Varamin, were “terrible”, with more than 100 inmates crammed into a cramped space.
“There are only 3 toilets to use and prison officials prescribe a lot of tranquilizers for inmates,” he said.
Another was Shargh Daily reporter Niloofar Hamedi, who was one of the first to report on Amini’s hospitalization. Her lawyer, Mohammad-Ali Kamfirouzi, tweeted on Sunday that the journalist managed to call her husband and said he was in solitary confinement and was interrogated at Evin Prison in Tehran.
Until then, he was not informed of any charges warranting his arrest.
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Also, political commentator, columnist and reporter Iman Behpasand on women’s issues; Behzad Vafakhah, cultural and political columnist; Ruhollah Nakhaee, international policy correspondent; Alireza Khoshbakht, political correspondent; Zahra Tohidi, political correspondent; Economic reporter Fatemeh Rajabi was arrested at her home in Tehran, and political reporter Mojtaba Rahimi was arrested at her home in the city of Qazvin after tweets about several protesters killed in her hometown.
#روزبه_خادمی متولد سال ۱۳۶۹ شب گذشته با اصابت گلوله در فردیس کرج کشته شد. او در آخرین استوری‌اش نوشته بود برای آزادی زنان کشورش جان خواهد داد. pic.twitter.com/bW46uJ53lz
— Mojtaba Rahimi (@mojtaba1367575) September 22, 2022
CPJ also listed the names of political commentator and columnist Majid Tavakoli, who was imprisoned in his home in Tehran; Kurdish reporter Marzieh Talaee, imprisoned in the town of Saqqez, Kurdistan province; Masoud Kordpour, editor-in-chief of the Kurdish news agency Mukrian; Elahe Mohammadi, editor and correspondent of Khosrow Kordpour, Mukrian, brother of Masoud Kordpour and correspondent of the state-owned Hammihan Daily.
According to a tweet by his lawyer, Mohammad-Ali Kamfirouzi, he was arrested on September 22. He said police officers raided the journalist’s home and violently arrested him, confiscating his personal devices such as laptops, books, phones and even press cards.
امروز بعد از ظهر مأموران امنیتی با شکستن در، وارد خانه موکلم #الهه_محمدیخبرنگار روزنامه میهن ، شده پس از تفتیش تفتیش دو ، وسایلی مانند ، کتابهای مجوزدار ، شوزاتی شو توتی شو توتی شو توتی شو توتی شو توتی شو تو تی شو توتی شو توتی شو تو تو pic.twitter.com/W51zlb8ifi
— محمدعلی کامفیروزی (@Kamfirouzi) September 22, 2022
Police also arrested Elnaz Mohammadi, political reporter for the bimonthly magazine Andishepouya, and the twin sister of Elahe Mohammadi; political commentator Vida Rabbani, who was recently sentenced to ten years and four months in prison and banned from journalism; Hamed Shafiei, political and social reporter, and Ahmadreza Halabisaz, photojournalist.
Halabisaz was arrested on September 22 while photographing protests in central Tehran. He was allowed to call his family a few hours later to tell them he had been taken to Evin Prison, according to the BBC’s Persian service.
Check out this photo on Instagram
Other inmates are Sarvenaz Ahmadi, a freelance political and cultural reporter, and Seyed Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, a blogger.
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source: Noticias
