Censorship as a Preserver of the Old Order: From the Constitutional Revolution to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance/ Mehrdad Naghibi

The policy of censorship and pre-publication review, as the primary deterrent to the advancement of culture, has continued to persist for years by relying on a wide range of available tools, aiding opponents of freedom of expression. Today, the issue of censorship is no longer confined to book publishing and the press; instead, all cultural, […]...

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A Review of Lost Trust in Official Media in the Narration of National Disasters / Nafiseh Sharafaldini

“Verification is the first unconscious reaction of an individual when faced with an event or news. Even a child, who lives solely based on instinct and unreliable bits of learning, turns to their parents for verification to determine the accuracy of a position. In the modern world, media has to a large extent replaced parents […]...

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The Supreme Council of Cyberspace Acting Against National Security An Interview with Alireza Bozorgmehri/ Pedram Tahsini

Alireza Bozorgmehri, a former member of the Digital Economy Working Group at the Ministry of Economy, spoke with Peace Mark Monthly Magazine about the filtering environment in Iran and the obstacles to its removal. According to Bozorgmehri, until the composition of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace changes, there is little hope for the acceleration of […]...

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Will Telegram and X Be Unblocked? An Interview with Keyvan Noghrehkar/ Ali Kalaei

The issue of filtering and removing restrictions on various internet platforms has been a highly debated topic in Iran over the past few years. While the Minister of Communications has stated that lifting the ban on all platforms is on the government’s agenda—and recently, WhatsApp and Google Play were unblocked—public opinion and observers are left […]...

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An Interview with Citizens on the Daily Impacts of Internet Filtering/ Dina Ghalibaf

Internet filtering in Iran has become one of the most complex and serious social and economic issues. This policy has not only affected citizens’ daily lives but also challenged public perceptions of trust and transparency in governance. In this report, we visited Enghelab Street, one of the busiest areas in Tehran, to speak with various […]...

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From the Ban on Showerheads to Internet Filtering / Fereshteh Goli

To understand the history of internet filtering in Iran, we need to go back to the early years following the victory of the February 1979 Revolution. As soon as the Islamic Republic was established, it declared many cultural topics—and generally anything that carried the scent of technology—either forbidden or subject to bizarre restrictions and censorship […]...

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The story of a painful day in journalism in Iran / Hormoz Sharifian

In Iran, the day of the journalist is marked by the name “Mahmoud Saremi”. On August 8, 1998, one of the journalists of the IRNA news agency, along with several employees of the Islamic Republic consulate, was killed by Taliban forces in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. Since then, August 8 has been designated as […]...

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“Naghbi on the conflict between censorship and writers in Iran/ Benjamin Abbasi”

“Censorship” is the nightmare of every artist, writer, and thinker. This nightmare is present in the realm of “literature” and is a subject of conflict between Iranian writers and it, which is the topic of this writing. In our country, censorship, deletion, and distortion of the works of artists and intellectuals have been systematically and […]...

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Privacy, threat and limitation/ Hormoz Sharifian

Privacy and personal freedoms are one of the most valuable rights of citizenship that people in most countries around the world have fought hard and sometimes bloody battles to obtain. These are the divine and human rights that God has bestowed upon them. Privacy and personal freedoms are subsets of social freedoms, and true democracy, […]...

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Human Rights in the Era of Digital Authoritarianism/ Amin Qazaei

Does emerging technology strengthen individual freedoms or make authoritarian governments more capable of controlling and monitoring citizens? In response to this issue, there has always been a simple analytical framework: on one hand, information technology, with the emergence of the internet and later social networks, facilitates and accelerates the free flow of information and increases […]...

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Privacy in Public Spaces: A Human Rights Perspective/ Ehsan Haghani

Since legal systems gradually became instruments for exerting individual power over individuals and enforcing obedience to the commands of authority, the nature and use of laws have changed and turned into systems for reflecting the collective will and safeguarding individual rights. Systems based on the rule of law have emerged, increasingly emphasizing the importance and […]...

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Censorship and Censor; A Journey Traveled / Seyed Mohammad Sahafi

1- In 43, I was six years old when they took me to Savak Qom to visit my father who was in temporary detention at the branch of this organization on Station Street in Qom. They had taken him there to punish and intimidate him because he had been selling and distributing the banned book […]...

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