The repression of Iran’s theocratic regime amid month-long protests has also targeted media professionals. At least 18 women journalists were arrested by the authorities, according to monitoring by an NGO specializing in the subject.
The figure worsens Iran’s lead as the country that most incarcerates female journalists, according to the Coalition for Women in Journalism in New York. In all, 38 are held in the country, followed by three autocracies: China (16), Belarus (10) and Myanmar (9).
Other parallel monitoring corroborates the scenario of judicial harassment and the attempt to stifle press freedom in the Middle Eastern country. As of Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had reported 40 arrests of media professionals amid the recent protests.
The wave of mobilization, one of the biggest since the 1979 Revolution, began after the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country’s moral police. Detained in Tehran for allegedly not wearing the hijab, the Islamic veil, properly, she was taken to a police station and from there to hospital.
The regime alleges that Amini died as a result of a heart problem, a version that the family and activists dispute – she would have been the victim of aggression by the agents. The girl’s father claims he was prevented from seeing the autopsy report on his daughter’s body.
Since Amini’s death on September 16, hundreds of protests, mostly led by women, have been held in different parts of the country. The acts gained volume and strength as students and university students joined the mobilization.
The regime has minimized the acts and protesters. The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Friday that no citizen should think he could shake the summit in power. He likened the regime to an unshakable tree: “That sapling is a mighty tree, and no one should dare to think that he can uproot it.”
One of the journalists arrested since the beginning of the mobilization is Niloofar Hamedi, a specialist in women’s rights and a reporter for the newspaper Al Sharq. She was one of the first media professionals to detail the case of Amini’s death to the public.
Mohammad Ali Kamfirouzi, her lawyer, reported on the 22nd that Iranian intelligence agents broke into Hamedi’s house, confiscated her belongings and arrested her. She has not yet been formally charged, but is being held in solitary confinement at Evin Prison.
The trigger would have been the publication of a photo of Amini’s parents crying in the hospital where their daughter had been admitted. The journalist’s Twitter account, shortly after, appeared as suspended.
Iran is among the ten worst countries in the world in terms of press freedom, according to the NGO Reporters Without Borders. In a ranking of 180 countries, it is in the 178th position.
While the country’s constitution guarantees freedom of the press, the press law of the 1980s allows authorities to punish journalists who, in Tehran’s assessment, have put the country at risk, offended the clergy and the supreme leader, or divulged what is considered false information.
According to the NGO Human Rights in Iran, more than 200 civilians died due to the repression. Complaints about deaths of minors are also multiplying. The organization estimates that the victims include at least 23 people under the age of 18, a figure corroborated by Amnesty International.
A statement from the NGO published on Thursday (13) states that 20 of the dead were boys aged between 11 and 17, and 3 girls, two aged 16 and one aged 17. Most died after gunshots were fired, some at gunpoint. clothes, and beatings.
“Iran’s security forces have killed nearly two dozen children in an attempt to crush the spirit of resistance among the country’s brave young people,” said Heba Morayef of Amnesty. “If the international community were one person, how would it look the parents of these children in the eye? Would it bow its head in shame at its inaction against the widespread impunity of the Iranian authorities?”
Iranian Education Minister Yusef Nuri admitted that students were apprehended on the streets and in schools. “There aren’t many; I can’t give an exact number,” he told local newspaper Shargh on Wednesday. He also stated that teenagers are in psychological centers where they must be “re-educated”.
International pressure has grown. This Friday, Josep Borrell, head of diplomacy at the European Union (EU), said he had asked the Iranian foreign minister for the country to stop the repression. “Protesters must be released, and internet access is required.”
A similar message had been given by French President Emmanuel Macron, who expressed admiration for Iranian women protesting in the streets. The regime accused Paris of promoting interference in internal affairs and motivating “violent and law-breaking acts”.
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