UPDATE, JAN 20: Journalist Amir Abbas Azarmvand (pictured) has been given a 43-month prison sentence for “spreading propaganda against the system”.
The reporter for state-run financial newspaper SMT is banned from leaving the country for two years.
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned Azarmvand’s detention, emphasizing that the imprisonment of journalists for doing their jobs is “an outrageous form of censorship that must end”.
ORIGINAL ENTRY, SEPT 3: Prominent financial journalist Amir Abbas Azarmvand has been imprisoned in Iran.
Azarmvand, who works for the State-run newspaper SMT, was seized at his parents’ home in Tehran on Wednesday by security agents of the Intelligence Ministry. His laptop, cellphone, and some books were confiscated.
According to a colleague, the journalist was arrested for reporting on the “difficult economic situation of union workers and some of the new economic decisions by the government”. He has been charged with “spreading propaganda against the system” and transferred to Evin Prison in Tehran.
Contract workers across Iran have been protesting periodically over poor conditions and unpaid wages.
See also Oil and Gas Workers Strike Across Iran
Azarmvand was also reportedly arrested in 2018 and 2020 over his journalism.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Iranian authorities to release Azarmvand immediately and unconditionally, citing the imprisonment of reporters as “an outrageous form of censorship that must end.”
