UN experts expressed concern on Thursday over continued and escalating threats against journalists with London-based Iran International.
A group of UN special rapporteurs reviewed “credible threats to the lives and safety of 45 Iran International journalists and staff and 315 of their family members in seven countries,” including several European countries, Canada, Türkiye, the USA, and the UK.
Journalists have been stalked, had their cars broken into, and have received death threats. Journalists’ families have been “interrogated, placed under surveillance and threatened with arrest and even death.”
These experts were particularly alarmed by the state of media freedom in Iran:
This campaign is an attempt to silence and censor critical reporting and courageous public interest journalism by a fragile Government that appears afraid of legitimate criticism […] Such intimidation violates both freedom of expression and media freedom and may have a chilling effect on other journalists.
It also deprives the public of their right to information. Civic space in Iran is already severely limited, and transnational repression further impedes those seeking to expose human rights violations.
Iran International is an international news source, providing Iranian news to citizens who use VPNs and people outside Iran. They often report on sensitive topical issues, such as Iran’s geopolitical role, politics, the economy, and numerous human rights breaches.
Iran has retaliated against Iran International’s reporting with “very serious threats,” including “assassination and kidnap threats against journalists,” “serious physical assaults,” and “online abuse,” all justified by declaring Iran International a terrorist organization. However, Iran International is not the sole target of Iran’s censorship.
Iran has a reported history of harassing international Persian-language news channels, including BBC News Persian.
Iran’s media censorship has been a repeated topic of concern amongst human rights organizations, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has described Iran as “one of the world’s most repressive countries in terms of press freedom.”
Recently, the capital offence of espionage was extended to cover information dissemination and media work.
According to RSF, Iran’s June war with Israel has only increased press censorship and left Iran’s journalists in need of international protection: “While the Israeli bombs may no longer be compounding the repression they have long faced by the Iranian regime, the recent strikes have left the country’s reporters in a more fragile state than ever.”
(Jurist)
