Reporters Without Borders is very disappointed by President Hassan Rouhani’s record on freedom of information during his first 100 days in office and again urges him to keep his promises to end abuse of authority, impunity and censorship.
In a statement the group said: “at least 10 more journalists and bloggers have been arrested since his election victory, 10 others have been sentenced to a combined total of 72 years in prison and three newspapers have been closed or forced to suspend publishing under pressure from the authorities.”
According to the RWB, despite promises made by Hassan Rouhani, “Iran continues to be one of the world’s biggest prisons for journalists and netizens, with around 50 currently detained.”
In RWB’s views, one of the notable changes “in the past 100 days have been the Twitter and Facebook accounts of Hassan Rouhani and some of his ministers.”
“But, except for foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and some of the regime’s closest allies, social networks are still banned in Iran and Iranians have to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access them.”
Classified by Reporters Without Borders for years as an “Enemy of the Internet,” Iran continues to impose draconian restrictions on the Internet and netizens. Censorship is supposed to protect the public from immoral content but it covers political content as well. In fact, it is easier to access porn sites that censored online content critical of the regime.