In a recurring pattern that has sharply escalated in recent months, the SIM card of Saeideh Shafiei, a Tehran-based journalist, was blocked by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Cybersecurity Command (Gerdab).
Hassan Homayoun, Saeideh Shafiei’s husband, announced in a tweet on his account: “A judicial-security institution blocked the SIM card of Saeedeh Shafiei, a journalist and former political prisoner. She has also closed her social media accounts. The charges stem from tweets and posts for which she was previously imprisoned.”
According to Homayoun, Shafiei was coerced by security institutions into signing a commitment letter, one clause of which required her to post 20 messages in support of the Islamic Republic. Homayoun did not specify the involved security institution. However, the blocking of SIM cards belonging to political activists and journalists in Iran is typically carried out by the IRGC’s Cybersecurity Command (Gerdab), an entity affiliated with the IRGC Intelligence Organization.
Saeideh Shafiei, a journalist and fiction writer based in Tehran, was released from Evin Prison on February 9, 2024, after serving a nine-month sentence, despite suffering from an illness during her imprisonment.
Over the past decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has developed and implemented various methods to suppress freedom of expression and disrupt the free flow of information, each making independent journalism more challenging and further restricting the freedom of expression for Iranian citizens.
In recent months, the SIM cards of several journalists and political activists have been blocked without judicial orders due to their reporting on various events or posting critical content on social media. This extrajudicial action by security institutions indicates that the Islamic Republic is expanding its methods to suppress free information dissemination in Iran.