Iran: journalism

Iranian government wants all websites dealing with Iran will have to register with the culture ministry in the next two months.This way it will be easier to close or filter sites.
Reporters without Borders is afraid that this provides legal basis for the online censorship that already exists in Iran.
Baztab.org, a conservative website that supports Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and often criticises President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies, has protested against the decision.

Shirko Jahani,the correspondent of the Turkish news agency Euphrat in the northwestern city of Mahabad, has been arrested November 27, in the local prosecutors office, for writing critical articles that were published in the foreign press. Jahani also belongs to an organisation founded by fellow journalist Mohammad Sedigh Kabovand that defends human rights in the Kurdish part of Iran.
Hussein Saidpour is arrested November 28,and the weekly he edits, Sepass, was closed for an alleged “ethnic insult” in one of the answers to the crossword in the latest issue.
He is reportedly being held in Tehran’s Evin prison.


Meanwhile, five pro-reform and independent weeklies in Zanjan province,


Payam-e Zanjan,
Bahar-e Zanjan,
Seda-ye Zanjan,
Alborz-e Khorram and
Mowj-e Bidari
announced in a joint statement that they have decided to suspend publication in protest against the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad government’s repressive policies towards the media, above all the restrictions and judicial harassment.


In Iran deathpenalty is in use. Also for child offenders.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl