By 357777_wd8vx3 The press regulation also permits government entities to act as complainants against newspapers, and often public officials lodged criminal complaints towards reformist newspapers that led to their closures. In November 2005 RSF accused Ministry of Intelligence officials of harassing journalists, claiming authorities officials had summoned at least 10 journalists for questioning and suggested them not to criticize the brand new president or write articles on sensitive issues like the nuclear program. In January the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance jointly instructed the semi-official news outlets Iranian Student News Agency and Iranian Labor News Agency to not report on the arrests and prosecution of student activists without coordinating with those ministries, in accordance with the news Web site Rooz Online. On January 29, Elham Afroutan and six other journalists from the weekly newspaper Tamadon-e-Hormozgan in the city of Bandar Abbas had been arrested for writing an article critical of Ayatollah Khomeini. On January 8, a courtroom in Mashhad gave blogger Ahmad Reza Shiri a three-year suspended jail sentence for articles revealed on his weblog, in line with Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Shiri was not jailed but should serve that sentence if he has additional hassle with government authorities.
Domestic press stories indicated the federal government attempted to limit the distribution of reformist campaign supplies within the December 15 municipal council elections. Domestic media later reported that Shahrudi instructed the public prosecutor’s office to transfer the circumstances to a particular committee. On September 19, authorities officials raided the workplace of Advar News, a information Web site affiliated with the student group OSU. Within the early a part of the year, at least two pupil activists affiliated with the reformist scholar group Office for Consolidation of Unity (OSU) had been expelled from their universities by the Education Ministry. On May 31, plainclothes safety forces detained Abdullah Momeni, a spokesman for the OSU. The OSU specifically reported harassment and detention of its members by authorities authorities, typically plainclothes security forces. The government increased control over the Internet in the course of the year as extra residents used it as a source for information and political debate.
RSF reported that through the year that 38 journalists were arrested and dozens of media shops censored. For instance, Yusuf Azizi was arrested in April 2005 for writing about ethnic points and released on bail in June 2005; as of year’s end, he had resumed writing. On October 12, three journalists from the Kurdish language weekly Rouji Ha Lat, Farhad Aminpour, Reza Alipour, and Saman Solimani, were arrested with out cost. On October 16, proreform weekly Safir Dashtestan was reportedly closed for publishing an article critical of Supreme Leader Khamenei, according to RSF. A research revealed by HRW in October 2005 listed Internet websites that had been blocked within the nation, including ladies’s rights websites, a number of overseas-based, Farsi-language information websites, some popular websites of Internet writers, the freedom Movement Party Web site, an online site selling the views of Ayatollah Montazeri, several Kurdish Web sites, Internet sites devoted to political prisoners, and a Baha’i Web site.
All ISPs should be authorised by the Ministry of Culture and Guidance, and the government used filtering software to block access to some Western Web sites, reportedly together with the Web sites of outstanding Western newspapers and NGOs. In certain cases the board might refer complaints to the press courtroom for additional motion, together with closure. Authorities cited a satirical cartoon revealed on September 7 as the explanation for the closure. The state-owned newspaper Iran was suspended following publication of a May 12 cartoon that incited riots among the nation’s Azeri minority (see part 5). On May 23, in line with RSFeditor Mehrdad Qasemfar and cartoonist Mana Nayestani have been arrested and taken to Evin Prison. The report on the treatment of the Internet writers was by no means publicly launched (see part 1.c.). A lot of the writers had been launched on bail by the top of 2005. After their release, RSF reported authorities summoned the bloggers for questioning a number of times every week, and authorities officials threatened them. Offending writers have been subjected to lawsuits and fines.