Iranian Journalists Behind Bars

Devastation in Iran. Plus: The death of a refugee in Buffalo, and the military’s “simmering white Christian nationalism.”

It has been almost a week since the United States and Israel began bombarding Iran in a coordinated military assault that President Donald Trump has said will last at least four weeks. The death toll in Tehran has already risen above a thousand people, and there is still a lack of clarity from the administration on the justification or objectives for the war. The country, battered from months of widespread government protests and a brutal crackdown that left more than seven thousand people dead, has been plunged into another near-total internet blackout. The ability of Iranians to communicate with one another or to get reliable information out of the country is severely limited.

As I wrote here in January, Iran was already an extraordinarily difficult environment for journalism. Since the offensive began, it has gotten dramatically worse. “Journalists are working under foreign bombs and receiving menacing phone calls from the authorities,” an Iranian journalist told Reporters Without Borders. For many, dedication to covering the news has meant time in jail: according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least fifteen members of the press in Iran are behind bars. Among them is Narges Mohammadi, a journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who is one of Iran’s most prominent human rights activists.