Press freedom in Iran improves slightly under Rouhani
While Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index continues to give Iran a dismal rating, and Iran’s press is nowhere close to free, many journalists believe that conditions have improved somewhat under President Hassan Rouhani.
TEHRAN, Iran — In the 2014 Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, Iran ranked one place higher compared to 2013. Apparently, this change comes not as a result of any actual improvements but because one country was added to the list since last year. On the whole, 180 countries were assessed.
Vietnam, China, Somalia, Syria, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea were the seven countries that prevented Iran from being placed in the bottom of the chart.
Reporters Without Borders has traditionally used these criteria for assessing the freedom of press in each country: pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, clarity and infrastructure.
This year, violence against journalists, including imprisonment and murder, was added to the list. Therefore, when a government keeps journalists in jail for long periods of time, it will receive a worse ranking.
