Farsi guides to the surveillance attack in Iran
As we’ve reported before, there’s strong evidence that forces with widespread access to Iran’s internet infrastructure have been engaged in large-scale surveillance of https traffic in July and August, certainly of Google traffic, and perhaps many more websites, including Facebook and Yahoo! If you used the Internet in Iran during this period you should, at…
Iran adds to its list of press freedom violations
New York, September 9, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the forced closure of two independent Iranian newspapers on Monday and the arrest of an Iranian writer in the city of Tabriz. In July and August, Shahrvand-e Emrooz (Today’s Citizen), a reformist weekly, ran two covers depicting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a satirical light. The…
Catching the Internet’s spies in Iran and elsewhere
In August, Google introduced a new, if rather obscure, security feature to its Chrome web browser, designed to be triggered only under extreme circumstances. If you were talking to Google’s servers using the web’s secure “https” protocol, your browser makes a number of checks to ensure that you are really talking to Google’s servers. Like…
Iran must work toward improving press freedom
Dear Dr. Shaheed: Ahead of your report on human rights in Iran to the U.N. General Assembly in September, I would like to take this opportunity to provide you with an assessment of the country’s state of press freedom as documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Authorities were detaining 34 journalists when CPJ conducted its annual worldwide census of imprisoned journalists on December 1, 2010, making Iran, along with China, the world’s worst jailer of the press. In reviewing these cases and their developments, we have identified three distinct and worrying developments to which we would like to draw your attention.
Iran continues to target critical journalists
New York, August 10, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about a rise in the number of imprisoned journalists in Iran and the continuing deterioration of their health. In recent days, Iranian authorities increased a prominent journalist’s prison term by two years and arrested a critical journalist who had just finished serving a prison…
Iran continues to target journalists
New York, August 3, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists is dismayed by news reports in Iran indicating that furloughed journalists are being summoned back to prison while new journalists continue to be convicted on manufactured charges. Reports of journalists’ deteriorating physical and mental health are equally disturbing. “That the legal rights of accused and imprisoned journalists…
Iran adds a year to award-winning journalist’s prison term
New York, July 26, 2011– Recent news reports that Iranian authorities have added a year to the politicized five-year sentence currently being served by journalist Mohammad Davari is the latest example of vindictive government policies against critical journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
In Iran, Shamsolvaezin ordered to prison
New York, July 20, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists is dismayed to learn that veteran Iranian journalist Mashallah Shamsolvaezin has been summoned to serve a 16-month prison term that was unjustly levied in 2010. Shamsolvaezin is a journalist, political analyst, deputy chairman of the now-defunct Iranian Journalists Association, and spokesman for the Committee for the…
Iran abuses detained journalists, arrests others
New York, July 8, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by the Iranian government’s persistent mistreatment of detained journalists as well as news reports that authorities have arrested two additional journalists in recent days. “We are profoundly disturbed by media reports and testimonies indicating that Iran’s prison and judicial authorities continue to engage in abusive…
When rape is inevitable: Surviving imprisonment in Iran
As I read the account of Saeeda Siabi in an Iranian prison it became hard for me to breathe. Her descriptions of being raped in front of her 4-month-old son stopped the air in my chest. “They took me to a torture room and tied me to a bed,” she said. “I was wounded and…