They are celebrated abroad. In April, "Time Magazine" named Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi among the hundred most influential people of the past year, and in early May, their work was honored with the Unesco Press Freedom Prize. And at the end of June, Hamedi is invited to Bern as a finalist for the True Story Award, a global journalism prize.
But neither Hamedi nor Mohammadi will attend. They have alternately been incarcerated in Evin Prison for Political Prisoners and Karchak Prison for Women in Tehran since late September 2022. What they are honored for by the rest of the world - doing their job as reporters without compromise - makes them enemies of the state in their own country.
Now, eight months after their arrest, the official trial against the journalists is starting, against Mohammadi on Monday and against Hamedi on Tuesday. The charges: cooperation with the "hostile" U.S., conspiracy against national security, and propaganda against the Islamic regime.
Journalists branded as spiesIf it weren't for the two journalists, the world would probably never have learned of Mahsa Jina Amini's death. The young woman had been admitted to a Tehran hospital after Iranian morality police detained and assaulted her during a family outing because of her "poorly tied hijab."
Shortly before she died on September 16, Hamedi, a journalist for the reform-oriented daily newspaper "Shargh," photographed her in a coma - the image showed clear signs of violence on Amini's head. Mohammadi, a journalist with the daily newspaper "Ham-Mihan", then reported on Amini's funeral in her hometown of Saqez.
The news of her violent death sparked intense protests across the country, some of which are still ongoing. Although there had been protests against the regime before, the anger was directed directly against the Islamist state order this time. Women burned their hijabs, young men knocked turbans off the heads of mullahs, religious seminaries went up in flames.
Even now that the situation on the streets has quieted down, many women refuse to wear the mandatory hijab, which has become a symbol of Islamist oppression in Iran, in an act of civil disobedience. The Islamic hardliners, however, are defending their power with unwavering fierceness: more than 500 protestors have been killed, and three were executed as recently as May 19.
The regime's rulesFrom the beginning, these repressive measures have also targeted critical reporters. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 95 journalists have been arrested since the beginning of the protest movement. Some were summoned to court and arrested there, like editor Mohammad Zare-Fumani. Others, like journalist Ehsan Pirbornash, were arrested by agents of the regime at home in front of their families. Photographer Yalda Moayeri and others, in turn, were kidnapped in the middle of the street.
Even before this new wave of protests, Iranian journalists were working in one of the most restrictive environments in the world. Although the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press, numerous amendments prohibit journalists from "endangering national security," "insulting the clergy," or "spreading false information."
What is considered true or false information is determined by the authorities themselves. Some topics are strictly off-limits for reporters: criticism of revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei, the revolutionary guards or religious dogmas, which include the unequal treatment of women, for instance. Often, however, it is not entirely clear what is allowed and what isn't.
So far, journalists have had to perfect the art of pushing these boundaries without crossing them. That's exactly what Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloofar Hamedi did, for instance when Hamedi researched the precarious situation of women undergoing risky and illegal procedures due to stricter abortion laws in early 2020.
But the boundaries keep shifting. The danger of going too far is therefore always present for journalists. As early as 2021, Mohammadi was banned from working for a year because of her reporting on the inhumane conditions in Karchak women's prison (where she herself was later held).
Foreign media channels are becoming increasingly popularRight now, the restrictions for journalists are tighter than ever - a fact which is exemplified by the show trial against Hamedi and Mohammadi. The trial will take place before a revolutionary court, a pseudo-judicial institution used in the Islamic Republic to punish political opponents without any obstacles from the rule of law.
"The defendants and their lawyers were not told the court date nor given the opportunity to meet and confer before the trial," Hamedi's husband wrote on Twitter. The lawyers were also unable to view the prosecution's files, relatives complain. They know that if judge Abolkasem Salavati, who is also known as the "blood judge" because of his disproportionate sentences, confirms the charges against them, the two journalists could face long prison sentences or even the death penalty.
By cracking down on critical journalists, the regime is obviously trying to regain control over a narrative which has completely slipped out of its grasp. It is questionable, however, whether this plan will succeed. Since even moderately critical, reform-oriented media outlets are being shut down, more and more Iranians are using VPNs to access social networks and Persian-language foreign broadcasters such as Iran International, Manoto, and BBC Persian. There, the rules of the Iranian regime do not apply; and Iranians are able to read about their government's lies and violent excesses on a daily basis - and their anger continues to grow.
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