A leaked document has revealed that Tehran’s Revolutionary Court convicted 44 foreign-based journalists and media activists in absentia two years ago over the allegation of “propaganda against the government.”
At the time of the verdict, the journalists were working for foreign-based Persian-language media outlets including Iran International, BBC Farsi, Manoto, Radio Farda, GEM TV and Voice of America.
The document was revealed among a trove of files accessed after the hacktivist group Edalat-e Ali, or Ali’s Justice, breached the servers of the Iranian judiciary on Tuesday.
Dated February 9, 2022, the leaked document concerns the legal proceedings which led to the conviction of the journalists in the 26th branch of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. According to the document, the verdict was issued in secret.
The names included renowned figures such as Mahmoud Enayat, Aliasghar Ramezanpour, Mehdi Parpanchi and Keivan Abbasi.
Following the revelations, Michelle Stanistreet, the secretary general of the UK-based National Union of Journalists (NUJ), called it “a flagrant abuse of press freedom". "It is deeply shocking that a state can act in this abhorrent way, putting journalists and their families in real danger,” she said.
Noting that the majority of those convicted are based in London, she called on the UK, the United Nations and the international community to condemn “this outrageous weaponizing of journalists.”
She warned, “Particularly worrying is the use by the regime of red notices through Interpol which can inhibit the movement of these journalists, as they travel abroad for work or to meet with family in third countries".
According to the NUJ, the 44 journalists and media activists had no information about their sentences prior to the release of the leaked documents by the hacktivist group. This shows they were convicted “without legal representation or access to the indictment,” the union stressed.
Meanwhile, another document obtained by the hackers revealed that the Iranian regime targeted dozens of Iran International TV staff with financial bans and threats to their families amid national protests in 2019.
Iran International was aware of the regime’s intimidation tactics at the time, but the documents offer indisputable proof that Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and judicial officials were coordinating the harassment efforts.
This is not the first time Tehran’s schemes to harass and target foreign-based Iranian journalists, especially those affiliated with Iran International, are disclosed.
In December 2023, UK’s ITV revealed that the IRGC was plotting to assassinate two Iran International television anchors in London in 2022 amid Iranian anti-government protests.
The situation is no better for journalists and media activists inside Iran. Earlier in the month, Defending the Free Flow of Information (DFI), a group monitoring freedom of speech and media in Iran, reported that over 20 journalists and media outlets and managers in the country underwent judicial scrutiny in January 2024.
Iran is a leading persecutor of journalists among the ranks of China, Russia, and Belarus, and one of the most oppressive regimes concerning freedom of expression and media liberties.
The documents, provided to Iran International by the hacktivist group Edalat-e Ali, reveal that immediately after her death on September 16, 2022, security forces sought to coerce her family and relatives into corroborating their claim that her death in the custody of the morality police was due to an "underlying medical condition."
The 22-year-old woman, from Iran’s Kurdish populated region, sustained serious injuries after her arrest for "inadequate" hijab and died three days later after falling into a coma at a hospital in Tehran. Her death sparked several months of protests across the country that were harshly suppressed.
The documents also shed light on the various measures authorities took to silence the media, control social media, and suppress any protests with an iron fist before they could spread further.
Among the millions of files released on its Telegram channel by Edalat-e Ali are highly confidential minutes of a meeting of the National Security Council held two days after Amini’s death. These minutes indicate that despite pressure from security forces, Amini’s family refused to endorse the official account of her death and insisted on disclosing the true cause.
“It would be very effective if the father mentions the [underlying] medical condition in a short interview,” Brigadier General Mehdi Sayyari, then acting chief of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) intelligence organization (SAS) said at the meeting.
Another official said that they were going to summon a half-brother of Amini’s mother for “warning” him, presumably about the family’s statements to the media.
Mehdi Mahdavi-Azad, a journalist based in Germany, told Iran International TV that various security and judicial bodies of the regime were aware of the truth behind Amini’s death but collaborated to pressure the family into covering it up. "They also knew well that the media only sought to reveal the truth but conspired to hide it from them," he said.
"The family played a pivotal role in the expansion of the Mahsa Movement because from the outset, they sought justice for her, refused to remain silent, demanded accountability from the Islamic Republic, and did not succumb to the ongoing pressures," said Avin Mostafazadeh, a human rights activist and spokesperson for the Kurdish rights organization Kordpa.
The same document also reveals that a medical professional identified as Dr Moradi declined an interview, presumably with state media, to confirm the authorities' version of events. This may refer to Dr Behzad Moradi, a forensic scientist.
Authorities expressed significant concern about the potential escalation of protests, fearing that they would not subside anytime soon, strengthen the movement against compulsory hijab rules, and eventually pose a more serious challenge to the regime than the 2019-2020 protests.
“The security system will get involved [in quelling protests] for weeks if we allow any protests to take shape,” an official said in one of the meetings of the National Security Council and stressed that the priority at that moment was to prevent people from convening to protest.
The Ministry of Intelligence, the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence organization (IRGC), and the police force also coordinated efforts to control and contain the activities of political figures, celebrities, journalists, and athletes whose support for the protesters could bolster their morale. This included psychological operations aimed at discrediting them.
Political activist Mohsen Sazegara commented on the regime’s attempts to isolate and silence such figures, saying, "They instill courage among the people when they stand against the government, and the government does not want that."