Iranian Journalists Arrested

Iranian Journalists Are Arrested and Accused of Links with Foreign News Media

By: Rick Gladstone

Published: January 28, 2013

An unsettling event happened in Iran today. Security forces arrested journalists from four Iranian newspapers. They accused them the journalists of consorting with hostile foreign news media. The Iranian rights advocates stated that the arrests were “part of a broader campaign of intimidation to forestall political unrest before the presidential election in June.”

It is unclear on how many journalists were arrested. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a media advocacy group based in New York, claims that at least eleven journalists were arrested today.

It was the largest “crackdown” the occurred in the last four years.

The Mehr news agency and many other journalists were taken into custody on Sunday after the raids on the outlets. None of the arrests were reported by the organizations that raided the journalists. The Mehr news agency stated that the journalists were accused of “collaborating with some of the Persian-language foreign media.”

Since this incident happened just earlier today, there is not a lot of information out about the arrests yet, but this is definitely a news topic that would be good to follow up on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/world/middleeast/iranian-journalists-arrested-accused-of-ties-to-foreign-media.html?ref=middleeast

-          Angela Squillante