600 journalists working with foreign powers, says Iranian intelligence minister

This article was last updated on May 25, 2022

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‘Network plotting ahead of June election’

The Iranian security forces have dealt a heavy blow to a network of 600 journalists operating against the regime, says the country’s intelligence minister.

According to the official news agency Irna, Heidar Moslehi claimedthat 150 of journalists had been working from inside the country and the rest from abroad.

“Some elements of the domestic media were linked with anti-revolutionary networks and their identification led to the defeat of the enemy’s plots,” he told a group of clerics from Isfahan Province.

Referring to the unrest that followed the widely disputed 2009 presidential elections, Moslehi claimedthat the sedition now comprised domestic and foreign “rings” and their main goal in the upcoming elections in June was to mount a comeback and to strike at the heart of the revolution and the establishment.

“Our goal is to prevent a sedition in the lead-up to the elections,” he continued.

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry recently accused the Green Voice of Freedom and a number of other Persian-language media outlets of being part of network set up by British intelligence.

“Sedition,” is the Iranian regime’s epithet for the opposition Green Movement.

In its third statement after the government’s rounding up of journalists working for pro-reform publications, the Intelligence Ministry said that opposition websites such as the Green Voice of Freedom were tied to a “psychological” war waged by British intelligence. The statement claimed that “new and credible evidence” showed that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was now managing “a number of radio and television networks, as well as anti-revolutionary websites linked with elements from 2009 sedition who have fled” the country.

Sixteen journalists were arrested in late January as part of the regime’s recent crackdown on journalists. The Intelligence Ministry’s latest statement notes that since then, more journalists have been summoned and questioned about their alleged links with the so-called “British government spy organisation.”

Mohammad Javad Rouh, an editor working for the Mehrnameh monthly, is the latest victim of the authorities’ campaign against journalists working with dissident publications. He was arrested after a recent raid on his home.

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