Iran's largest prison for journalists

A few days ago was the international media day, in the west, this is merely a day where we appreciate how far we have come in our human rights work.  Not all parts of the world are as Lucky as us. In Iran, it is dangerous, to tell the truth, if you disagree with the ruling mullahs terror regime. We read and see pictures in social media all too often about journalists that are flogged, imprisoned or tortured to death for disagreeing with the regime.  One of the most known deaths is that of blogger Sattar Beheshti.

Iran is the largest prison for journalists

  Sattar Beheshti was born in 1977 and lived in Robat Karim, 27 km southwest of Tehran. Opposition websites report that he had been detained in 1999 after student protests at Tehran University.
 His website "My Life for My Iran" at magalh91.blogspot.de was not a major blog, and had fewer than 30 viewers in October. Even if he was not a major blogger, Beheshti's death "has provoked outrage among both opponents and supporters of Iran’s leaders". On October 22, 2012, Beheshti posted a criticism of the Islamic Republic on his blog addressed to the Supreme leader.
 Beheshti stated that the judicial system of the Islamic Republic was "nothing but a slaughterhouse," and that "the sentences and ... the executions carried out ... were not out of a desire for justice – but were aimed at terrorizing the people! So that no one will complain!. In a blog post a day before his arrest, Beheshti wrote: "They threatened me yesterday and said, 'Your mother will soon wear black because you don't shut your big mouth'.
  His death in detention made the world aware of the abuse that is taking place against independent journalists in Iran. more recently we became aware of these two journalists: In  January  2017  we  could  read  this  in  the  news: Local  reports  said  that Iranian  journalists Mustafa  Barari  and  Arash  Shoaa,  from  Gilan  Noveen  and  Gilan  No  news  websites,  have received flogging sentences and a fine by the Revolutionary Court in Rasht city, north of Iran, following the complaint of one member of the Iranian Parliament over their publications.

A protest in front of an Iran Air agency in Paris, on July 10, 2012 

 The journalists, who were charged with spreading lies and publication without a license, now face  114  and  40  floggings as well  as  1  million  Rial  (almost  30,000  Euro)  fine for  the charge of insult. They have appealed the sentences and both websites are still controlled by the authorities, media added.

 I  am sorry  to say  that this  is just  the tip  of the  iceberg,  the number  of journalists  that are threatened to silence, or imprisoned is the highest in the world. Iran is a world leader when it comes to suppression and harassment of innocent journalists.  They are tortured for telling the truth and how many that have been threatened to remain silent we can only guess. But I believe the  number is thousand’s.  An  Iranian cybercrime  surveillance programme  entitled Operation Spider 2, which tracks and cracks down on social media users, has so far resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of several Internet users on charges such as insulting Islam, publishing immoral and corrupt material and encouraging individuals to commit immoral acts.
   The  Telegram messaging  application has  got its  voice app  blocked because of  the regimes fear over  an uprising  like the  one in  2009.  Facebook and Twitter continued  to be  entirely blocked for domestic users, and the authorities arbitrarily ban content under the justification of protecting families and Islamic culture.  The list of human rights abuse against journalists are long  and it  is getting longer.  This is because  the journalists  refuse to be silent,  and the regime are  afraid of  a  new uprising  like the  one in  2009.  To prevent  the event  they are prohibiting any media that can be used to gather protesters.