Covering the Regime: The Story of Iranian Journalists
Journalist Niloofar Hamedi boldly stood up against a brutal regime and now is facing the consequences.
On September 16th 2022, Hamedi gained access to Kasra Hospital in Tehran— the capital of the Islamic Republic— to document the final hours of a young woman being treated there. Later that day, this young woman by the name of Mahsa Amini would die from injuries sustained during detention by Iran’s morality police. Hamedi, a journalist for the reformist daily newspaper Shargh, broke the news of Amini’s death with a tweet that rocked the core of Iran. In this tweet, Amini’s parents are holding each other in tears outside of their daughter’s hospital room. Amini’s father who looks small in the lifeless emergency room hallway is burying his head into his wife’s neck. He holds her veiled body and whimpers. From the place that Hamedi took the picture, her camera captured Amini’s mother’s head poking out above her husband revealing a sliver of her black hair— the same crime that killed her daughter.
Six days later on September 22nd, Iranian security agents raided Hamedi’s house, arrested her, searched her home, and confiscated her belongings, according to her lawyer Mohammad Ali Kamfirouzi. Her twitter accounts were suspended and she was taken to Evin Prison which has grown in infamy for its vile treatment of prisoners and mass imprisonment of journalists and activists. Iranian-American researcher Holly Dagres tweeted October 15th that Evin Prison holds “so many of the country’s best and brightest that it earned the nickname ‘Evin University’.” Hamedi’s reporting was the spark for nationwide protests which began in opposition to treatment of Iranian women but grew to oppose the Islamic Republic’s iron-fisted rule. Anonymously, journalists at Shargh spoke in support of Hamedi after her arrest. One of which said that “if it weren't for her courage, the tragic incident that happened to Mahsa Amini would not have been reported to the media so quickly.” Another of her colleagues shared their fears with a foreign correspondent that their conversations about Hamedi would be overheard by Iranian security and said “I might be next.” These two accounts represent competing sentiments from Iran’s press. The first is that brave journalism is impactful and necessary for the protection of human rights under a brutal dictatorship. The second quote shows the well-founded fear that any act of brave journalism will threaten one’s freedom, life, and family.
This truth effectively silences the journalists of Iran. Either the press bends to the tremendous pressure from the regime to report falsehoods and keep silent or journalists such as Niloofar Hamedi report truth and are imprisoned, disappeared, or found dead.
Iran has a deep history of criminalizing journalism. Under the rule of Reza Shah between 1925 and 1941, any reporting critical of the state was censored and all other publishers were strictly monitored. Media controls loosened under the less powerful Mohammed Reza Shah. In 1951 Mohammed Mosaddeq became Prime Minister with the aid of print media as a national mobilizer. This period of partial press freedom quickly ended with the US-Britain orchestrated 1953 Coup which reinstated and strengthened Mohammed Reza Shah. Under his new royal dictatorship, criticism was muzzled and free thought was outlawed. Then, the 1979 Iranian Revolution— which saw the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini— outlawed any expression counter to the goals of the Islamic Republic. Since the revolution, at least 1000 journalists have been arrested, detained, murdered, disappeared or executed by the Iranian regime. However, it is not only journalists based in Iran that are subject to harassment but journalists throughout the world.
In July 2021, the FBI foiled an Iranian plot to abduct and transport back to Iran exiled journalist and woman’s rights activist Masih Alinejad. Alinejad is a prominent critical voice of the regime who received a human rights award in 2015 for creating a Facebook page that encouraged Iranian women to remove their headscarves in opposition to the government’s gender based repression. One year later a man carrying an AK-47-style assault rifle was arrested outside of Alinejad’s Brooklyn home. Fortunately, no harm came to her and today her voice rises loudly in support of Iran’s protestors. However, the message from the regime to both Alinejad and exiled reporters is clear: criticism of the regime will not be tolerated whether it happens in the streets of Tehran or from a bungalow in Brooklyn.
The threat that Iran poses to journalists is credible and deadly in some unfortunate cases. In September 2019, while traveling in Iraq, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards detained and abducted exiled-Iranian journalist Ruhollah Zam. He was transported to Evin Prison to await trial. Iranian officials stated that the reason for his imprisonment was stoking the 2017 nationwide protests through his popular news service, Amad News, that ran on the messaging app Telegram. During a June 2020 trial, prosecutors unfairly accused Zam of “crimes against national security” and “cooperation with the hostile state of the United States.” He was sentenced to death and, on December 12th 2020, Zam was hanged leaving husbandless his wife and fatherless his two daughters.
The Islamic Republic does not only extend its foreign threat to journalists but all free-thinkers. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa February 14th, 1989 condemning author Salman Rushdie to death after Rushdie published the “Satanic Verses” which fictionalized parts of the Prophet Muhammad’s life. Rushdie began living under 24-hour protection in a secured safe-house in Britain for the next ten years after the fatwa. Proponents of the fatwa targeted people connected to the publication of the book. In July 1991, an unknown man stabbed to death the novel’s Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi. That same month Rushdie’s Italian translator Ettore Capriolo was attacked and suffered stab wounds to his neck, chest, and hands. Two years later the novel’s Norwegian publisher William Nygaard was shot three times outside of his home.
Three decades after the initial fatwa was issued, 24 year-old Hadi Matar charged a stage in Chautauqua, New York to stab and punch Rushdie 10 to 15 times as he was being introduced. Rushdie and the event moderator Henry Reese who sustained facial injuries were set to discuss the United States as a refuge for writers in exile before the attack. The Iranian state is committed to ensuring that there is no refuge safe enough for anyone who is deemed an enemy of the regime. Rushdie survived the attack but lost vision in one eye and movement in one hand, according to his agent Andrew Wylie. Iranian newspaper Kayhan praised the attacker: “Bravo to this courageous and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and depraved Salman Rushdie in New York. Let us kiss the hands of the one who tore the neck of the enemy of God with a knife.” Although there appears to be no links between Matar and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, there has been consistent pressure towards Rushdie. As recently as 2019, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reaffirmed his predecessor’s death sentence towards the novelist stating in a tweet that the fatwa was “based on divine verses” and is “solid and irrevocable.” With the continued reign of the ayatollah, global freedom of speech and thought is threatened. While violence is perpetrated abroad to silence the government’s critics, it is doubly as prevalent at home in Iran.
In a shocking moment of defiance, Iranian hacktivists under the Twitter username @EdaalateAli1400 bypassed the cybersecurity measures of Iranian State TV to broadcast the live message: “Join us and stand up.” More text which appeared above the head of Mahsa Amini and three young women who had died in the protests read: “The blood of our youth is dripping from your hand.” Just before the State TV broadcast resumed, an image of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared burning in flames. Upon the Supreme Leader’s forehead, a sniper’s target drifted from eye to eye.
Social media and the internet have been useful tools for many modern opposition movements. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook megaphoned young people’s anger in Tunisia against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali where some began to refer to his overthrowing as the “Twitter revolution”. The Iranian state recognizes the power of the internet and limits its citizens’ access whenever possible. One week into the protests, Iran restricted access to Instagram and WhatsApp. According to Reporters Without Borders (RWB), 81.92 % of all Iranian social media traffic in 2021 occurred on Instagram. The government has blocked access to free VPN services and mobile networks are shutdown. An Iranian journalist interviewed by RWB explained that the “duration of network shutdowns depends on the region. In Tehran, the network may only be cut from mid-afternoon until midnight, but in Iranian Kurdistan, the shutdowns may start in the morning with no prospect of the network returning before midnight.” These conditions leave few options for information spreading; the journalists and people of Iran are left guessing the state of their country and the protests.
Since the protests began in September, 450 people have been killed; however the regime has only acknowledged the deaths of 300. As of December 5th 2022, 71 reporters and citizen journalists have been arrested for covering the anti-regime protests. Niloofar Hamedi remains in Evin Prison. In November, government officials stated that she had been charged with “colluding with the intention of acting against national security and propaganda against the state.” More human rights violations will occur in Iran. The regime aims to occupy Evin Prison with every Iranian journalist living at home or abroad. The duty of telling stories of abuse will fall on the Iranian people. Niloofar Hamedi may remain in prison for exposing the murder of Mahsa Amini, but her example of bravery will empower Iranian women and men to raise their voices higher than the threats from an ayatollah. It is words that will defeat this regime that thrives in silence.