New York, August 7, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes today’s conviction of a police officer in the death of Iranian blogger Sattar Beheshti and calls on Iranian authorities to disclose details of the investigation and trial. The police officer was given three years in jail, two years in exile, and 74 lashes for assaulting…
CPJ conducts fact-finding mission in Ukraine Muzaffar Suleymanov, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Research Associate, traveled to Kiev on July 6 on a week-long fact-finding mission and spoke to more than a dozen local and international journalists about press freedom conditions in the country. Suleymanov also met with journalists who had covered or were covering…
It has now been six days since the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian, The National’s Yeganeh Salehi and two others were arrested in Iran, but we are no closer to understanding who detained them or why. Even the number of journalists arrested is in dispute. The Washington Post originally said its correspondent Rezaian, his wife Salehi,…
New York, July 24, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by a Washington Post report today that says Iran has detained four journalists–three of whom are U.S. citizens–and calls on authorities to release them immediately. Jason Rezaian, a U.S. citizen and a correspondent for the Post, and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, an Iranian correspondent…
Five years ago on Monday, CPJ announced that Iran had officially become the world’s leading jailer of journalists in the world. The announcement came on the heels of an unprecedented crackdown on the press that began on June 12, 2009, the day of Iran’s tumultuous presidential election that sparked a mass protest movement.
In the first few months of 2014, multiple journalists were arrested, interrogated, and prosecuted in Iran. Authorities pursued a revolving-door policy in imprisoning journalists, freeing some detainees on short-term furloughs even as they make new arrests.
On World Press Freedom Day, CPJ calls for the release of all jailed journalists By Shazdeh Omari/CPJ News Editor New York, April 29, 2014—Uzbek editor Muhammad Bekjanov has been in jail for 15 years, one of the longest imprisonments of journalists worldwide. Prominent Iranian journalist Siamak Ghaderi was imprisoned in 2010 and has been beaten…
New York, April 18, 2014–At least seven journalists were among those attacked when Iranian guards and intelligence officials raided a section of Tehran’s Evin Prison holding political prisoners on Thursday, according to news websites and human rights groups.The unprecedented violent attack left dozens of prisoners injured, some hospitalized, and others transferred to solitary confinement, according to news reports.
CPJ joined 26 other human rights and civil society groups on Wednesday in an open letter calling on the member states of the U.N. Human Rights Council to renew the mandate of Ahmed Shaheed, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran. The public letter also urged the members to participate in…