Watchdog slams Iran ‘false news’ court ruling

In this Sunday, Oct. 20, 2019, Tehran resident Hossein Ranjbar rides a bicycle rented from GPS-enabled bicycles station with his smartphone in Tehran, Iran. (AP)

• The CPJ has documented a significant number of other cases of Iranian journalists being imprisoned for exposing corruption

LONDON: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has criticized a Tehran court ruling that found three newspaper editors guilty of “spreading false news and defamation.”
The court refused to disclose details of the cases or sentencing. The three charged worked at the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA), the Bultannews news website, and the energy news website NeftEMA.
The CPJ has called for the charges against the journalists to be dropped. “If the Iranian government has a credible case against the editors, they should try them open and publicly,” said Sherif Mansour, the CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator.
“Closed door trials of journalists cannot be considered fair or impartial and the Iranian judiciary has a history of holding opaque judicial proceedings that lack credibility.”
ISNA reported that the case is related to a complaint filed against NeftEMA by a subsidiary of Iran’s Oil Ministry, which accused the website’s editor in chief of “spreading misinformation, defamation, and insult.”
The CPJ has documented a significant number of other cases of Iranian journalists being imprisoned for exposing corruption.