Month: May 2019

Iran To Block Social Media In Case Of War With U.S.

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Iran would block its citizens’ access to social media if war were to break out with the U.S., the head of the country’s Passive Defense Organization has said. In a speech on Sunday, May 26, brigadier-general Gholamreza Jalali of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said, the U.S. “uses social media for media and psychological operations to influence Iranians’ minds.” He added that Washington has the opportunity to exercise soft power in exploiting both Iran’s lack of a defensive national intranet and its weakened economy, using “social media for placing its…

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Amnesty: Proposed Iranian Law Restricting Access to Lawyer Would Be Crushing Blow for Justice

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A contemptible amendment to the Iran’s code of criminal procedure could effectively strip detainees who are facing punishments such as the death penalty, life imprisonment and amputation, of the right to access a lawyer while they are under investigation, Amnesty International announced on Thursday, May 16. An analysis of the bill published by the organization Thursday details how, if passed, the amended law would permit the prosecution to immediately deprive individuals arrested on “national security” and certain other serious criminal charges of access to a lawyer for 20 days, which…

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Journalists Condemn Arrest of Reformist Reporter Ahead of World Press Freedom Day

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Marzieh Amiri, a reporter for the reformist Shargh newspaper, has been in Evin Prison’s Ward 209 under the control of the Intelligence Ministry since she was arrested while covering a Labor Day protest in Tehran on May 1, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. Amiri was detained after she went to a detention center on Vozara St. to inquire about workers’ rights activists who’d been arrested at a rally near Iran’s Parliament, according to tweets by Shargh reporters. Judicial authorities have not commented on the reason…

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