New York, January 28, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the arrests in Iran of at least 11 journalists in the largest crackdown on the media since 2009. “With this wave of arrests, the authorities appear to be attempting to pre-emptively silence independent news coverage ahead of the presidential election in June,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “We call on Iran to stop targeting journalists no matter who they work for, and release all those detained immediately.”
CPJ ranks Iran as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, with 45 behind bars in 2012, according to its prison census conducted on December 1.