Podcast: Journalism is not a Crime (script)

You’re listening to Iran’s Weekly Wire; I’m Roland Elliott Brown.

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Iran is one of the worst places in the world to be a journalist.

The Iranian government routinely harasses, imprisons, and even tortures journalists, just for doing their job.

The problem is so severe that it’s often hard to keep track of all the abuses.

This week, IranWire’s founder, Maziar Bahari, has launched a new online database that will profile every journalist imprisoned in Iran. It’s called “Journalism is not a Crime.”

For Bahari, the project is personal. He was arrested in Iran in 2009 for reporting on protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was imprisoned for 118 days. And that’s what inspired this project.

[Maziar Bahari] When I was in prison, and when I was in solitary confinement I promised myself that when I come out of prison, I will try my best to help people who are in the same situation as me. Even in the moments that my interrogator told me that no one cares about you, that you are alone, that you can rot in prison, I knew that my friends in the media, my employer, are campaigning for me. I knew that in my heart of hearts. I would like through our campaign for other journalists to have that assurance as well that someone outside of Iran, someone outside the prison is helping them.

Now, there are plenty of organizations that defend the rights of journalists. But Journalism is not a Crime is a different kind of project.

[Maziar Bahari] The main difference between our project and other human rights and advocacy groups is that we have a more personal approach. We document every journalist who's been arrested In Iran by the Iranian government, by this Iranian government and also previous Iranian governments We have documented almost 400 journalists who have been arrested by the Islamic Republic government since 2009, and we are going to go back to the beginning of the revolution, 1979, and even further back to 1905, the time of the Constitutional Revolution, when the modern Iranian media was born.

Iran, meanwhile, denies that it persecutes journalists. Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, and its foreign minister, Javad Zarif, have both told the world’s media that Iran doesn’t imprison journalists for doing their jobs.

But there is plenty of evidence that they are lying. And those lies affect how the international community views Iran.

Iran is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and it has clear obligations.

Journalism is not a Crime asked Helen Anthony, a lawyer with a background in free speech, to prepare a report about Iran and its responsibilities under international law.

[Helen Anthony] Iran's main obligation to journalists under international law is allowing them freedom of expression, which includes reporting facts and reporting opinion, but there are are other human rights that are relevant to journalists, for example, the right to privacy, freedom from arbitrary surveillance. The right not to be arbitrarily arrested, the right not to be subject to torture or inhuman treatment, and the right to be allowed a fair trial. So treating journalists in accordance with these latter principles is important to allow them to have freedom of expression because if journalists are in fear of their safety, they are not free to do their jobs. It's very clear from the work that I've done that there is a whole range of evidence that Iran is breaching international law, and that it's going to require a lot of work and a lot of effort to challenge those breaches, and to ensure that the situation in Iran improves in due course

IranWire has reported numerous stories of journalists being imprisoned on obscure and flimsy charges. The most prominent case is that of the Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who was arrested last July. He’s now being tried in closed court in Tehran.

But for every familiar name like Rezaian, there are dozens of lesser known journalists going through similar ordeals. There are about 45 journalists in prison in Iran right now.

A 56 year old journalist and activist named Heshmatollah Tabarzadeh is serving an 8 year sentence in one of Iran’s harshest prisons on vague charges like insulting supreme leader, and disturbing public order.

A 37 year old journalist named Masoud Bastani is serving six years in the same prison for a supposed conspiracy against national security, and “spreading propaganda.”

A 29 year old cartoonist named Atena Farghadani has just been sentenced to 12 years for depicting Iranian members of parliament as animals.

Every case is unique, but there are often depressing similarities. I asked Helen Anthony what Iranian journalists typically face when the state decides it doesn’t like their opinions.

[Helen Anthony] Journalists are arrested on many spurious charges, and it’s worth noting that journalists aren't actually often informed of those charges when they are arrested, or for some time afterwards. They are often held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods of time. 40 to 50 days isn't uncommon. Journalists are frequently subjected to torture, such as being beaten, and journalists have died in prison. A very common charge is "propaganda against the regime." Other charges laid against journalists include "espionage," or "activities against national security" and "cooperating with foreign governments."

Those charges show that Iran’s judiciary, and its security officials, regard journalists as enemies of the state.

Iran is politically isolated, and its Islamist style of government has only been in place for a few decades.

Many officials see themselves as defenders of a fragile state that could crumble under too much criticism. And they see journalists as the main source of that deadly criticism.

I asked Maziar Bahari what he thought of the security arguments the state uses against journalists.

[Maziar Bahari] I think you cannot really have a loose definition of state security and define it any way you want that serves your own purpose. There has to be a clear definition of state security in Iranian laws. Unfortunately, there is no clear definition. In the absence of clear definitions of state security and undermining state security, or propaganda, or propaganda against the government, we cannot really have a clear answer for this. So we have to go about our jobs as journalists, as press freedom advocates, and the Iranian government has to be accountable for its actions.

One reason it’s so hard to hold Iran accountable is that its government is chaotic. There are so many competing factions, that sometimes when a journalist is arrested, it’s not even clear who is holding them.

And when outsiders ask Iran’s high-ranking officials about the fate of journalists, they often portray the issue as a criminal matter that’s out of their hands. But this is really a sleight of hand.

[Maziar Bahari] The boilerplate answer of the official Iranian government, meaning the Rouhani government, is the judiciary is independent. But according to the Iranian constitution, the president of Iran is responsible for the execution of the constitution of Iran. So if any different branches of the government does not do its job well, it is the president's responsibility to ask them a question about that. The president either has to ask questions about the persecution of journalists, or the president has to be quite honest with people and say that I tried to ask questions, I tried to find out more about it, but they do not answer me.

So even as Iran portrays journalism as a criminal matter, it doesn’t observe its own laws. Here’s Helen Anthony again.

[Helen Anthony] There are many things within the Iranian constitution that would protect journalists if they were perhaps applied properly, and they don't appear to do so. There are lots of contradictions between the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and what actually happens in practice. So it's much more than challenging actually what's written down, much more than challenging the law in Iran, the actual penal code, the criminal code, the constitution. It's to do with what happens in practice as well.

Article 24 of the Islamic Republic’s constitution says, “Publications and the press have freedom of expression except when it is detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam or the rights of the public.”

That final caveat, which restricts speech along religious lines, is also part of the problem.

[Helen Anthony] International law allows for all ideas to be expressed, not just ones that are considered Islamic. The constitution of the Islamic Republic and international law are not compatible with each other. The constitution seeks to include references to international legal obligations. It almost pretends to abide by international law, but then it restricts it according to Islamic principles.

And it’s very easy for Iranians to offend the state’s conception of Islamic principles.

Take the case of Soheil Arabi. He’s a 30 year old citizen journalist and a blogger. He’s been sentenced to death for supposedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad on Facebook. He’s in prison now and he’s trying to appeal.

Iran’s judiciary often levels religious charges like “insulting Islam” and “insulting the sacred” along with political ones. And it’s been known to execute people for heresy.

Whatever the charges they may face, journalists in Iran are struggling to survive in a predatory environment.

The state imposes such legal and psychological pressures that hardly anyone could become a journalist out of self interest. Journalists live under fear of surveillance, arrest, and threats to their families.

But Journalism is not a Crime aims to help with those pressures. Here’s Maziar Bahari:

[Maziar Bahari] There are so many psychological and legal challenges they face that it is almost impossible to list them, because the list can go on and on. But we have devised almost 100 frequently asked legal questions, and about 50 frequently asked psychological questions. In terms of legal questions, it varies from anything, an point they are arrested, including arrest confiscation of property, eavesdropping to what happens after they come out of prison, being called back again to prison, being intimidated by their interrogators who treated them illegally inside prison.

If an Iranian journalist has a question about a legal matter not covered in the site’s FAQs, they can request a response by email from lawyers working with Journalism is not a Crime.

And they can also ask for help with the psychological consequences of imprisonment and interrogation.

[Maziar Bahari] When a journalist comes out of prison and she or he deals with anxiety or depression, it is very difficult for those journalists, especially if they are in Iran to seek psychological advice because many psychologists, many professionals are intimidated in Iran, and they may not want to provide help to those journalists. But we work with a team of psychologists who have worked with journalists in the past. They have created a list of frequently asked psychological questions and if a journalist cannot find the answer in that list, they can approach our psychologists with a specific question about their state of mind, and hopefully the psychologist can give some kind of answer, or can find a place where they live either inside Iran or outside of Iran, in Europe or North America to go to a place where they can talk to a professional.

Journalism is not a Crime is the first website to help Iranian journalists in this way.

But sadly,  journalism has been a crime in Iran for decades. Even before the Islamic Revolution, Iranian authorities treated journalists with suspicion.

Today, Iran’s politicians are doing nothing to change the situation. They constantly make a show of resisting outside pressure.

So what makes Maziar Bahari think Iran will ever accept the assertion that journalism is not a crime?

[Maziar Bahari] One thing you have to understand about the Iranian government is that it wants to be part of the international community. The Iranian government is not a government like North Korean government that really does not care about its status in the world. Because of that, because of the fact that the president of Iran, even the supreme leader of Iran, wants to be a legitimate official of the country, and at least on the surface they want to abide by certain laws of the land, and international laws, we can make them accountable. People outside of Iran, by campaigning, by naming and shaming human rights violators, through putting a face on the statistics, talking about different cases of different journalists, they can make a difference. The very fact that I am talking to you right now, and the very fact that I came out of prison because of an amazing campaign that my colleagues and my employers at that time had for me, it testifies to the fact that campaigning outside of Iran can be quite effective inside Iran as well.

Iran is still one of the worst countries in the world to be a journalist. But Journalism is not a Crime will make sure that every journalist now has campaign.

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That’s all from Iran’s Weekly Wire. If you want to find out more about journalism in Iran, visit IranWire.com and journalismisnotacrime.com