On the eleventh day of the Iran-Israel war, the Entekhab news website in Iran was seized and taken offline on charges of “disrupting public psychological security.” Concurrently, the websites of Etemad Online and the ILNA news agency were targeted by cyberattacks.
Mizan, the official news agency of Iran’s judiciary, reported on 23 June 2025 that the Entekhab news and analysis website had been shut down. Mizan stated regarding the charges: “Due to Entekhab’s failure to heed repeated warnings against publishing news that targets public psychological security, the site was blocked a few hours ago.”
On the same day, ILNA (Iran Labor News Agency) and Etemad Online were subjected to cyberattacks by unidentified actors. As a result, some content published on these platforms was deleted, certain reports were altered, and new articles were posted on both outlets.
According to Mizan, amid the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict, the managing director of Entekhab had received “multiple warnings” from what Mizan referred to as “supervisory authorities.”
The term “warning” has become a frequently used keyword in news related to press suppression in Iran over the past year. It appears that, due to extensive extralegal actions against media and journalists, which have created a negative public perception of terms like “prosecution” and “legal case,” the judiciary is attempting to replace these legal terms with less negatively charged expressions such as “warning,” without altering the level of suppression or legal processes.
As the war between Iran and Israel continues, Iran’s judiciary has initiated legal proceedings against several media outlets and journalists, issued warnings to numerous media organizations, and sustained a widespread wave of arrests targeting citizens who expressed opinions related to the military conflict.