Iranian Journalist Jaffari Jailed on False News Charges

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Iranian authorities to immediately release Seyed Mostafa Jaffari, a journalist who was re-arrested this week, and stop “arbitrarily locking up members of the press for reporting on matters of public interest.”

“Journalists must be able to work without fear that they will be subject to arrest and detention for covering news about officials and lawmakers,” Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, said in a statement on July 24.

Earlier on that day, Jaffari was arrested in the central city of Qazvin on charges filed by Branch 10 of the Revolutionary Court for allegedly publishing false news, according to media reports.

Authorities previously arrested Jaffari, editor-in-chief and publisher of the local news website Titrqavin.ir, on July 12, after he published an interview with a member of parliament from Qazvin province. He was released on bail after five days.

In that article, which has since been taken offline, Titrqavin.ir covered alleged hostility between the MP and Iran’s tourism minister.

In July 2022, Jaffari was charged with spreading false news and detained after publishing a report containing criticism of medical officials’ performance in Qazvin. 

The journalist was sentenced to two years in prison along with a two-year ban from practicing journalism, and had not begun serving his prison term as of July 24.

It was not immediately clear which case prompted his latest arrest.

Iran ranked as the world’s worst jailer of journalists in CPJ’s 2022 prison census, which documented those behind bars as of December 1. 

According to the New York-based media freedom watchdog, the Islamic Republic has detained at least 95 journalists during months-long nationwide protests sparked by the September 2022 death in morality-police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.