Iran detains, harasses relatives of BBC Persian service staff
New York, February 3, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the detention and harassment in Iran of relatives of BBC Persian service staff who work outside the country, which is part of a sustained campaign to intimidate journalists into not reporting critically on Tehran’s activities.
Ahead of Iran elections, crackdown on press continues
New York, February 2, 2012–At least 10 Iranian journalists were jailed in the month of January as the government continued its crackdown on dissent ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled in March, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Recent news reports identified three previously undisclosed arrests.
Three Iranian journalists arrested in fresh crackdown
Iran lead the pack of countries with the most imprisoned journalists in 2011, holding 43 behind bars. This week Iran added to its reputation with the arrest of at least three prominent journalists: Marzieh Rasouli, Parastoo Dokouhaki, and Sahamoddin Bourghani. Decrying what he calls a “revolving prison door,” routinely releasing journalists while arresting others, CPJ’s…
Online publishers, developers sentenced to death in Iran
Politically-related Iranian prosecutions often take place in near secrecy, with unclear charges morphing and changing over time. It doesn’t get any easier to work out the motivations of prosecutors when the charges are connected to technology.
Iranian students barred for beliefs, say campaigners
In May 2007 the CPJ expressed outrage over the arrest of four student editors, including Puyan Mahmudian, in the run up to student elections at the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran. This article from CNN.com describes how despite spending months in prison and confessing to charges against him, Mahmudian and hundreds of others are blacklisted…
Iranian hacker dupes Google, activists worried
After reporting on fraudulent https certificates presumably being used by the Iranian government to spy on internet users, CPJ’s Danny O’Brien explains the impact of this security breach on journalists and activists in a radio interview with Public Radio International’s The World. Click here for the full story.