Iranian Journalists: New Year, Same Old Fears

The last Iranian calendar year, 1396, that came to an end on March 20, was the first year of President Hassan Rouhani’s second term. It was not an easy year for Iranian journalists. Several newspapers were shut down, some journalists lost their jobs, others were arrested and still others were fined, banned from working and even sent to prison.

IranWire asked three journalists who work for the domestic Iranian media to assess the state of journalism in the first year of Rouhani’s second term. And the picture they painted was hardly encouraging.

The three journalists believe that the government is increasingly active in public relations and many journalists and media outlets have become dependent on the government and public funds. They say that the government has brought many journalists under its own umbrella and, consequently, this has created a conflict of interest that undermines their independence and their impartiality.

The usual “red lines” are also still in place – taboo subjects that define how Iranian journalists self-censor to preserve themselves. And, the journalists say, the government itself continues to intimidate and arrest journalists through its Intelligence Ministry. The government offers no support to journalists – especially those who are sent to prison.

But, compared to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, between 2005 and 2013, has the media environment improved or become more “moderate”?

No significant change has occurred, the journalists say, because the most important red lines — criticizing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, questioning the political or economic activities of the Revolutionary Guards, the military policies of Iran in the Middle East, or the denial of rights to religious minorities and the LGBT community, and certain women’s rights — have stayed in place for the media. These taboos persist and changes in the government have made no difference.

What has slightly changed the media environment, the three journalists say, is the spread of social networks that are not filtered and that report news that cannot be shared through the mainstream press. On the other hand, they believe that some journalists commit more self-censorship either because they have drawn closer to the government or because they are afraid that the hardliners will exploit their reporting for their own purposes.

Internalizing Self-Censorship

But how consequential is the role of self-censorship in Iranian journalism?

“The more they have resorted to self-censorship,” say the journalists who talked to IranWire, “the more they have internalized government’s restrictions. Reporters walk cautiously even when they could get closer to the red lines.”

They say that, under President Rouhani, self-censorship has played an important role in lowering the quality of work by reformist journalists and that “these journalists self-censor either because they are afraid Rouhani’s opponents would take advantage of their position or because they have become close to Rouhani’s government. Regime-friendly journalists have generally accepted censorship as part and parcel of their own work and identity. They even encourage others to self-censor.”

A Promise Not Kept

In August 2009, in the aftermath of the disputed 2009 presidential election, the Association of Iranian Journalists was shut down and the journalists who were its members were left without any support. One of Rouhani’s campaign promises was to restore the Association but this promise has yet to be fulfilled.

Why? These journalists say that the primary obstacle is the Islamic Republic’s fear of any independent “institution” beyond its control. Any institution that has the potential of becoming a base for activities that the regime deems undesirable is doomed — regardless of whether it is a political institution like the pro-democracy Freedom Movement of Iran or the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front, or a guild such as the Bus Drivers’ Labor Union or indeed the Association of Iranian Journalists.

“As long as the Islamic Republic mistrusts [such associations], there are no prospects for independent institutions. They allow them to exist only if they become tools in the hands of the regime or if they adopt a completely emasculated identity within the framework of the regime’s activities.”

These journalists believe that the Association of Iranian Journalists was the most important supporter of journalists. In 2016, several journalists tried to create a new trade union called the Association of Tehran Journalists, but they got nowhere and in 2017 its members resigned en masse to protest what they called the illegal behavior and the refusal of the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, that had pressured them to make changes to the Association’s board of directors.

In the meantime, Rouhani’s government set out to create a new trade association for those journalists that would work within the guidelines set by the government; but many journalists rejected it as a fake meaningless group. When some journalists wanted to participate in the project and, perhaps, play a part in shaping it, security agencies made it clear that they saw the new association with suspicion and skepticism. The few journalists who hoped to help shape the new body got nowhere.

No Options and No Alternatives

The journalists who talked to IranWire believe that a state-run association would mean the end of independent journalism in Iran. They say that many journalists are against it. But they have no other way of acting as a group.

Aside from all this, fear and censorship are still the main problems that Iranian journalists deal with. “Journalism in Iran,” the three reporters say, “is constantly tied to a dread of arrest and to contemplating how censorship can be bypassed. These two problems have cast a shadow over every kind of journalism. Efforts to hack the online accounts of journalists have continued unabated. When a journalist is arrested or, sometimes, summoned for questioning, the first thing that security agents demand are passwords to email and social network accounts. The judiciary has repeatedly demanded that Telegram’s servers be transferred to Iran or that Telegram be replaced with domestic alternatives. This has media activists and social network users worried.”

These journalists believe that the approach for now, to improve the situation for media professionals, is to ask government agencies to at least follow the Citizens' Rights Charter. But they also say that Rouhani’s administration is fighting for power not for the people. No one should expect much from it. And the military and judiciary have already said that they will pay no attention to Rights Charter.

The other recommendation by these journalists is for Rouhani’s government to allow the semi-independence of Iranian journalists and the media to continue and to not push every part of the the media into becoming mouthpieces of the government.