Iran charges journalists amid mounting protest toll
While the death toll from nearly two months of consistent protests continued to rise, the government was pushing to contain the unrest with severe judicial measures.
Iran’s judiciary said female journalists Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi have been charged with “collusion to act against national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.”
The two have been in detention over their reporting on Mahsa Amini’s case, the 22-year-old woman whose death in morality police custody in September has triggered a popular protest movement.
“A decision on their cases is nearing the final stages,” judiciary spokesperson Masoud Setayeshi announced at a press briefing in Tehran on Nov. 8, without specifying if proceedings against the two journalists will be public. Under Iran’s penal code and given past instances of political dissidents with the same charges, the two reporters could face up to five years in jail if convicted.
Both journalists unsettled Iranian intelligence authorities by lifting the lid on Mahsa’s death. Hamedi wrote about how Mahsa slipped into a coma following her arrest by a hijab-enforcing squad. And Mohammadi fully covered Mahsa’s funeral in her Kurdish hometown of Saghez, where protests gathered steam and ballooned into nationwide unrest.
