{"id":3619,"date":"2026-05-09T11:47:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T11:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/?p=3619"},"modified":"2026-05-09T11:47:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T11:47:54","slug":"continuation-of-the-suppression-of-journalists-and-disruption-of-free-information-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/continuation-of-the-suppression-of-journalists-and-disruption-of-free-information-in-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Continuation of the Suppression of Journalists and Disruption of Free Information in Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Security forces in Arak arrested Amirhossein Rezaei, a journalist and political science student at the University of Tehran, on Wednesday, May 6, 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a report sent to the DeFFI Organization<\/a>, security forces searched Rezaei\u2019s family home during the arrest and seized some of his personal belongings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amirhossein Rezaei is a political science student at the University of Tehran and a former reporter for Donya-ye Eghtesad newspaper. His arrest comes amid ongoing nationwide internet shutdowns in Iran and an unprecedented wave of repression against free information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran is now entering its third month of internet blackout. The Islamic Republic imposed the shutdown from the first day of the war with the Israel-U.S. coalition. Despite more than a month having passed since the ceasefire, the internet remains largely cut off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside the continued suppression of free information inside Iran, financial difficulties facing media outlets and widespread journalist unemployment have reached a critical level. The seizure of assets belonging to employees of Persian-language media outlets abroad has also entered the enforcement phase. According to the latest statement by the spokesman for Iran\u2019s Judiciary, 262 properties belonging to opponents of the Islamic Republic – including journalists and staff of Persian-language media based outside the country – have been confiscated. The Judiciary has charged these individuals with \u201caiding the enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, Iranian citizens have been experiencing the most severe disruption in the free flow of information in the history of the Islamic Republic – a situation unprecedented in scale, duration, and intensity compared to previous nationwide protests or earlier internet shutdowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although some newspapers continue to publish inside Iran and a number of news websites remain active, heavy oversight by judicial and security institutions is imposed on all media. At the same time, while ordinary citizens have no access to the internet, the Islamic Republic has intensified its rollout of controlled, restricted internet access. Currently, select political activists, regime officials, state-affiliated media and their journalists, pro-government users, as well as certain companies, startups, and merchants have limited access. The Iranian government has named this restricted and heavily monitored service \u201cPro Internet\u201d or \u201cWhite Internet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current situation in Iran can no longer be adequately described using traditional press freedom indices. The combination of a nationwide internet blackout, severe restrictions on independent reporting, and judicial-security crackdowns on both domestic and exiled Iranian media and journalists has effectively plunged the country into an information blackout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Security forces in Arak arrested Amirhossein Rezaei, a journalist and political science student at the University of Tehran, on Wednesday, May 6, 2026. According to a report sent to the DeFFI Organization, security forces searched Rezaei\u2019s family home during the arrest and seized some of his personal belongings. Amirhossein Rezaei is a political science student […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3620,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,25],"tags":[461,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-3619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-repression-of-journalists","9":"tag-amirhossein-rezaei","10":"tag-imprisoned-journalists"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3621,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions\/3621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}