The third of May is an annual event that has been celebrated since 1993, coinciding with the forty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly, with the aim of assessing the legal status and actual conditions of media and honoring their work. This day is an opportunity to talk about the fundamental principles of media freedom, evaluate the state of media freedom in countries around the world, defend media against factors and reasons that endanger their independence, and pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives while performing their duties.

This report takes a look at what happened to the media and media professionals in Iran in the past year, on the eve of World Press Freedom Day. It can be said that the situation of the media, especially web-based media which have a significant role in the circulation of information in Iran, went to the brink of darkness but remained grey.

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Every year, Reporters Without Borders presents a report on the state of media in the world on the eve of World Press Freedom Day. In the latest report published by this organization, it has been announced that “journalism is completely or partially blocked in 73% of countries around the world.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the countries in the world that has consistently been ranked in the lowest categories of the global media freedom index since the first report published by Reporters Without Borders in 2002.

Iran’s position in this new classification is also the same. Due to government suppression of freedom of information, Iran has been ranked as one of the worst at 174 out of 180 countries, among the 180 countries mentioned. Problems such as restrictions and disruptions in news coverage have been cited as reasons for this position.

Although media and press faced difficulties due to the economic recession caused by the spread of the coronavirus worldwide, and some of them limited their activities due to a decrease in financial resources, the performance of some governments during this period and their disruption of news coverage forced the media to publish false and distorted information, causing the ranking of these countries, including Iran, to fall to the bottom of this classification.

Reporters Without Borders has mentioned in their latest report on journalism as “a vaccine against misinformation” and wrote that in Iran, “government officials have tried to control information and increase arrests and imprisonment of journalists in order to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.”

This report refers to the manipulation of statistics and information related to the number of infected and deceased individuals due to the coronavirus. Later, when the coronavirus, like many other crises in Iran, subsided, one by one, officials who had previously talked about “domestic vaccine production”, “construction of a coronavirus detection device” and “being under control” confessed (1) that the reported number of deaths is at least one-third of what actually happened.

The unfortunate situation of disruption in the dissemination of information due to the incorrect handling of information has not ended. Reporters Without Borders has announced that the Iranian government has put pressure on journalists and citizen-journalists, and in addition to preventing the spread of information in traditional and official media and on the internet, they have also increased their threats, summonses, arrests, and convictions of journalists and citizen-journalists.

Add to all of these events the issuance and execution of the highest number of death sentences against Iranian journalists in the past fifty years, the downsizing of forces in newspapers and news agencies, the deaths of journalists in car accidents, and the loss of cultural figures and media professionals during the widespread outbreak of COVID-19.

Media censorship and harassment of journalists

Reporters Without Borders has been calling Iran one of the top five prisons for journalists for years. In the past year, Bakhtash Abtin, a poet, writer, and filmmaker, was unjustly denied medical treatment in Evin Prison and lost his life.

It had only been a few days since his death when the media announced the exile of Kianoush Samimi, the editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine “Iran Farda”, who has been in prison since December 2020. His exile occurred while the Iranian Writers Association had warned in a statement that the life of this Iranian journalist is in danger after publishing a letter and comparing the death of Behrouz Javid Tehrani to “semi-intentional murder”.

Prior to this, Javid Rahman, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, mentioned in a report on the situation of media freedom in Iran, a journalist named Sadouk who has been subjected to harassment, intimidation, and threats by security institutions, according to his family and close associates.

This report also refers to the blocking of the transfer of assets of some Iranian journalists who are active in foreign Persian-language media, by the Iranian judicial system.

In another section of this report, harassment, imprisonment, and mistreatment of human rights defenders and lawyers have been criticized; because these individuals have engaged in “informing, media interviews, and launching Telegram channels”. Among these individuals are Amir Salar Davoudi and Payam Dorfeshan, who were sentenced to two years in prison and a two-year ban on practicing law for their campaign against filtering Telegram.

The news of the arrest and closure of a number of Iranian newspapers, magazines, and publications in the past year also shows that the policies of the Islamic Republic regarding media censorship have not changed significantly, and perhaps even cases that have led to the removal and suspension of media outlets have had an increasing trend. If until yesterday criticizing major policies, exposing economic corruption, writing about management crises, misconduct of managers, and similar cases were considered “threats to national security, black propaganda, and insults to authorities,” now “publishing a hand-written article similar to the handwriting of the Leader of the Islamic Republic” can lead to the revocation of a media outlet’s license.

But in Iran, another aspect of media restriction is in a place where it doesn’t even show up in statistics and numbers. Faraj Sarkoohi, a well-known Iranian journalist and writer, said in an interview with Radio Farda: “In Iran, in order to have a media outlet, whether it’s a newspaper or a magazine or anything else, you have to obtain a publishing license. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ministry of Intelligence, Judiciary, and others issue this license and before issuing it, they examine the qualifications of the individual applying for the license.”

He emphasizes in this conversation that in the past thirty years, “no publishing permit has been issued for an independent journalist.” According to him, publishing permits are only issued for “governments” and “there is no newspaper that belongs to one of the government factions.”

“Sarkoohi refers to this censored section as the invisible section that is not seen in any statistics or figures.”

Protection and Violation Plan of the Right to Free Access to Information

After the terrifying internet blackout in the days of Aban 1398, when Iranian citizens took to the streets in protest against economic issues, the situation of internet in Iran remains dire. In 1400, the internet in Iran experienced a significant decrease in speed and citizens report daily about the decrease in internet speed and the decline in the quality of online services.

It is not hidden from anyone that when we talk about media and free flow of information today, we also consider all network-based platforms. In the past years, especially in Iran, due to the lack of “independent media”, the burden of information dissemination has been on social media and citizen journalists more than traditional media outlets.

In the first half of 1400 (2021), when the government of Ebrahim Raisi had not yet fully settled, reports were published about the unsatisfactory state of Iran in terms of internet in the world. These reports showed that the average fixed internet download speed in Iran is 19.17 megabits per second. Among 175 countries evaluated, these reports had ranked Iran at 136th place.

Based on data published by the Speedtest website, the mobile internet situation in Iran is not much better. Studies have shown that in the first half of last year, the average download speed of mobile internet in Iran was 30.17 megabits per second and the average upload speed was 11.44 megabits per second.

It is good to know for comparison that the global average for mobile internet download speed is 48.40 megabits per second and the global average for mobile internet upload speed is 12.60 megabits per second, with a delay of 37 milliseconds.

These numbers are being published while the use of VPN and the decrease in speed caused by bypassing filtering in the calculations of these institutions have not been taken into account, and it is estimated that by considering them, the speed can even decrease up to ten times.

The internet speed reduction process in the second half of the year increased with the inauguration of the government of Ebrahim Raisi. The plan to restrict the internet in Iran, known as “protecting users in the virtual space”, was taken more seriously by the Islamic Consultative Assembly; to the point that hardline forces in the parliament declared that they are not seeking filtering, but rather nationalizing the internet and cutting off citizens’ access to all websites that do not have servers in Iran.

Although this plan has been temporarily suspended due to public pressure, hardliners in the Iranian parliament and government are still seeking to implement it in order to bring Iran’s internet into their dark era and make it similar to China’s internet.

Notes:

1- A member of the Supreme Medical Council stated; the number of COVID-19 fatalities is 3 to 4 times higher than the official statistics, Mehr News Agency, 4 November 2020.

2- Suppression of Freedom of Information in Iran (December 2020 – January 2021), Reporters Without Borders, November 9, 2021 – Updated on March 1, 2022.