A free speech defender and lawyer who has represented imprisoned journalists, Nasrin Sotoudeh, was arrested on 5 September on charges of anti-government propaganda and conspiring against the regime after responding to a summons from a revolutionary court prosecutor’s office located inside Tehran’s Evin prison. She has defended political prisoners such as journalists Issa Saharkhiz and Mohammad Sadegh Kaboudvand.
Three newspapers have been closed and a jail sentence has been imposed on one journalist in the past few days. The Commission for Press Authorisation and Surveillance, the censorship arm of the ministry of culture and Islamic orientation, has suspended the business daily Asia and withdrawn the licences of the weeklies Sepidar and Parastoo. Asia was suspended for publishing sensitive images and critisising the government’s economic policies. Badrolsadat Mofidi, the secretary-general of the Association of Iranian Journalists from Tehran, has been sentenced to six years in prison was sentenced for “assembly and collusion to commit a crime” and “propagating against the regime.” She is banned from any press related activities for five years.
Prohibitions on reporting on green movement leaders are just the latest restrictions imposed by the Islamic Republic. Negar Esfandiary reports
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The video-sharing website has wrongly barred Iranians from its documentary experiment, Life in a Day, because of US sanctions. Negar Esfandiary reports
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