Reporters Sans Frontières

Published on 17 June 2009

A hotline for journalists in danger

SOS Presse, a phone hotline for journalists - (33) 1 4777-7414 - is open every day round the clock and, with the help of American Express, a Reporters Without Borders official can be quickly reached. Collect/reverse-charge calls can be made. SOS Presse (33) 1 4777-7414

19 June – 11 am. At least five more journalists arrested in provincial cities It has emerged that four journalists were arrested in the southern city of Boshehr on 16 June:
 Hamideh Mahhozi
 Amanolah Shojai, who is also a blogger
 Hossin Shkohi, who works for the weekly Paygam Jonob
  Mashalah Hidarzadeh.

Several journalists and bloggers were among those arrested in the northern city of Rashat on 15 June. They include Mojtaba Pormohssen, who writes for several pro-reform newspapers, hosts a programme on radio Zamaneh and edits the newspaper Gilan Emroz. He was transferred yesterday to Lakan prison in Rashat.

17 June – 3 pm. Revolutionary Guard warns news websites

The Revolutionary Guard’s Organised Crime Surveillance Centre has written to the editors of websites ordering them to suppress “content inviting the population to riot and spreading threats and rumours.” Carrying today’s date, the communiqué says there have been “several cases of websites and personal blogs posting articles inciting disturbance of public order and inviting the population to rebel.”

The communiqué continues: “These sites, created with the help of American and Canadian companies, receive the support of media that are protected by the American and British security services such as the BBC, Radio Farda (Free Europe) and Radio Zamaneh.”

The Surveillance Centre adds that it will reveal important information in the coming days about these “destructive networks.”

In a communiqué last March, the Surveillance Centre announced for the first time that it had been trying to dismantle one of these “networks.” Several of its young editors were arrested and their “confessions” were released a few days later. As well as admitting to creating pornographic websites to “mislead” Iranian youth, they said their activities had been orchestrated by Americans and Israelis and that they had been paid well. Some of the sites concerned were pornographic, but other criticised Islam, religion and the regime.

17 June – 1 pm. Two new arrests

Saide Lylaz, a business reporter for the newspaper Sarmayeh, who had been very critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies, is arrested at his home in Tehran. His wife says she does not know where he has been taken.

It is reported that Mohamad Atryanfar, the publisher of several newspapers including Hamshary, Shargh and Shahrvand Emrouz, was arrested on 15 June and was taken to the security wing of Evin prison.

Reporters Without Borders has meanwhile received reports of many detainees being mistreated.

16 June – 6pm. Aldolfatah Soltani arrested

Aldolfatah Soltani, a lawyer who represents many imprisoned journalists and who is a member of the Human Rights Defenders Centre, is arrested on the orders of the Tehran revolutionary court and is probably taken to the security wing at Tehran’s Evin prison. Ten or so opposition activists, politicians and civil society figures have been arrested in the course of the day in Tehran and three other major cities – Tabriz, Ispahan, and Shiraz.

16 June – 4 pm. Foreign media forbidden to cover “illegal” demonstrations

The minister of culture and Islamic guidance, Mohammad Sfar Harandi, announces that “foreign news media are forbidden to attend or cover demonstrations that have been organised without the interior ministry’s permission.”

In practice, the authorities have been trying to prevent foreign journalists from covering the street protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announced reelection “victory” since 13 June.

Reporter Yolanda Alvarez of Spanish state radio and TV broadcaster RTVE was expelled with all of her crew on 15 June. The Iranian authorities “asked us to leave the country today,” she said in a telephone interview for RTVE. “We are unwanted observers (…) they want to eliminate every kind of foreign media presence (…) the streets were totally taken over by anti-riot troops yesterday (…) If there hasn’t been any repression until now, it’s because they knew that we, the foreign journalists, were there.”

A member of a TV crew working for Italian state broadcaster RAI, a Reuters reporter and a France 3 journalist have been physically attacked by members of the security forces in Tehran. A BBC crew was threatened by police until demonstrators chased the police away. The correspondents of German TV stations ARD and ZDF were forbidden to leave their hotel rooms on 13 June. Two Dutch journalists working for the Nederland 2 TV station and a Belgian TV crew working for RTBF were arrested and expelled.

16 June – 3 pm. Well-known “Blogging Mullah” jailed

It is reported that Mohammad Ali Abtahi, also known as the “Blogging Mullah,” was arrested this morning at his Tehran home. A vice-president during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency, he had been acting as an adviser to Mehdi Karoubi, one of the opposition candidates in last week’s presidential election. The news of his arrest is posted on his blog Webneveshteh (http://www. Webneveshteha.com/). He is the second well-known blogger to be arrested since the election. The first was Somayeh Tohidloo (http://smto.ir), arrested on 14 June.

16 June – Former newspaper editor arrested

It is reported that, although seriously disabled, Saeed Hajjarian was arrested at his Tehran home during the night. Following Khatami’s election as president in 1997, Hajjarian was editor of the now-closed daily Sobh-e-Emrouz, which supported Khatami’s reforms. After the newspaper exposed the involvement of intelligence officials in a series of murders of dissident intellectuals and journalists in 1998, he was the victim of a murder attempt in March 2000 that left him badly paralysed. He is seen as one of the strategists of the pro-reform movement.