Iran was among the world’s top jailers of journalists this year, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in its annual report published on Tuesday, behind China, Russia and Myanmar.
Following the top three, RSF listed the next biggest jailers in order as Belarus, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Iran, Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia. 21 journalists are currently imprisoned in Iran, it added, and one remains missing.
“This is where impunity for these crimes leads us,” RSF Director General Thibaut Bruttin said in a statement.
“The failure of international organizations that are no longer able to ensure journalists’ right to protection in armed conflicts is the consequence of a global decline in the courage of governments, which should be implementing protective public policies,” it added.
The report dedicates separate sections to journalists working in war zones, including Russia, Ukraine, Sudan and Syria, warning that these environments have become increasingly deadly.
“About 43% of the journalists slain in the past 12 months were killed in Gaza by Israeli armed forces. In Ukraine, the Russian army continues to target foreign and Ukrainian reporters. Sudan has also emerged as an exceptionally deadly war zone for news professionals,” the report said.
Exiled journalists
RSF also places Iran among the top 10 countries whose journalists receive its assistance while in exile. The list includes Afghanistan, Russia, Sudan, Iran, Belarus, Myanmar, El Salvador and Kyrgyzstan.
“Out of over 40 media outlets supported by the RSF Assistance Office over the last 12 months, 19 were Afghanistan, Russia, Sudan, Iran, Belarus, Myanmar, El Salvador and Kyrgyzstan newsrooms that continued to produce journalism in exile,” the report noted.
More than half of the journalists who applied for RSF emergency assistance in 2025 had been forced into exile, coming from 44 countries.
“2025 will be remembered as the year press freedom died in plain sight,” the report concludes, urging targeted sanctions on officials and entities responsible for the surveillance and detention of journalists.
Following widespread protests that began in September 2022 in Iran, repression of the press intensified and shows no sign of easing.
The crackdown coincides with increased pressure after the outbreak of war between Iran and Israel in June, which over 700 people have been arrested on allegations of collaboration with Israel.
United Nations experts have urged Iran to end the post-ceasefire repression, warning that “post-conflict situations must not be used as an opportunity to suppress dissent and increase repression.”
“Unfortunately, in the past two weeks, I was summoned to these agencies because some fellow Jews posted comments and liked false content, causing misunderstandings among the country's intelligence agencies,” Najafabadi said in an open letter published on his Telegram channel.
Najafabadi called on members of the Jewish community in Iran to refrain from leaving comments or likes on social media that might cause suspicion.
“You are requested, if you have published any unusual, sensitive, or misconstruable comments or likes in cyberspace, to delete them as soon as possible,” the letter said.
‘Unfollow IDF’
“If you are a member of channels and pages of the Zionist regime, including Israel in Persian, and other hostile pages and channels, it is essential to immediately unfollow and cancel membership,” the letter added.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) maintains a series of active accounts and channels on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook and Telegram in Persian.
“Continuing membership in the mentioned channels or failing to delete comments and likes could lead to judicial problems, and pursuing and resolving the issue in the future will become much more difficult,” it said.
The letter is the latest document in an extensive campaign by Iranian intelligence agencies against the Jewish community, which has intensified after a 12-day war with Israel in June.
Since the recent military confrontation with Israel, dozens of Iranian Jews have been arrested on charges of "collaboration with hostile regimes.”
Kamran Hekmati, a 70-year-old Jewish man from New York, a father and grandfather who runs a jewelry business and holds dual American-Iranian citizenship, is currently detained. Rights groups, colleagues, and friends say he is being questioned over a past trip to Israel.
Hekmati was sentenced to prison in Iran for a trip he made 13 years ago to Israel to hold a ceremony for his son.
According to Israeli media reports, before the 1979 revolution, about 80,000 to 100,000 Jews lived in Iran, but today their number has decreased to fewer than 10,000.
Iranian media on Monday described the charges against Esmail Kahrom as relating to making “false statements” and actions “against national security.”
Prosecutors also opened a case against the editor-in-chief of the Jamaran news site, which published Kahrom’s interview.
In the November 30 conversation, Kahrom said that each missile costs roughly two million dollars and argued that if public health mattered to officials, they could redirect the equivalent of 10 missiles to upgrade fuel standards. He said authorities refused because “their priorities lie elsewhere.”
Iran, one of the largest oil and gas producers in the world, is facing a severe natural gas shortage. That shortage has prompted refineries to bulk out the fuel's volume with other substances, like mazut which environmentalists believe has played a major role in Iran's worsening air pollution.
Kahrom warned that the mazut used in Iran contains sulfur levels “seven times the global standard,” and that domestic fuel quality is also inadequate. His comments triggered sharp pushback from state-affiliated outlets.
Mazut, the non-standard gasoline contains harmful additives and has significantly contributed to the air pollution crisis in the country.
The use of the low-grade fuel mazut by power plants in Iran has been linked to severe harm to public health and even fatalities, with Iranians frequently expressing frustration over the worsening air quality and pollution in many cities.
State media dismiss environmental concerns
Young Journalists Club, tied to state broadcaster IRIB, wrote that “certain groups believe defense budgets should be spent on the environment,” calling national security a nonnegotiable necessity and portraying environmental debates as a distraction.
Farhikhtegan, a newspaper affiliated with the state-run Islamic Azad University, similarly argued – referencing the 12-day war with Israel – that critics forget “without deterrence, the cost of war would far outweigh any air pollution.”
Environmental warnings have frequently been downplayed or mocked by officials and pro-government media. Past concerns over water scarcity, energy crises, deforestation and land subsidence have met similar resistance.
A prominent example was the campaign against hydrologist Kaveh Madani, who faced accusations of espionage after warning of impending water collapse and ultimately left the country.
Iran has faced worsening air pollution in recent years alongside severe water and energy shortages, with experts tracing the crisis to aging infrastructure, poor fuel quality and policy inaction.
