The Regime of Death Against the Right to Know: Press Freedom in the Grip of Censorship, Repression, and Internet Shutdowns
On the occasion of May 3rd, World Press Freedom Day, the Hana Human Rights Organization emphasizes the fundamental position of freedom of expression, media freedom, and free access to information. Press freedom is not merely the journalist’s right to publish news; it is the institutional manifestation of society’s right to know, to monitor power, to discover the truth, and to seek justice.
A society without free media remains defenseless against corruption, state violence, discrimination, and repression.
In the Islamic Republic, press freedom is not merely restricted but systematically suppressed. Independent media is regarded as a security threat, and journalists, writers, and citizen-journalists are targeted for prosecution, detention, threats, exile, and elimination under charges such as “propaganda against the state,” “publishing falsehoods,” “disturbing public opinion,” and “cooperation with the enemy.” In such a structure, news becomes a crime, and truth stands in opposition to the security and judicial apparatus.
Hana emphasizes that free, secure, and equal access to the internet is a fundamental pillar of the right to know and a practical requirement for press freedom in the modern age.
The prolonged shutdown and restriction of the internet in Iran is not just a communication disruption; it is an organized effort to sever society from the truth, prevent the documentation of human rights violations, silence the voices of victims, and cut off the people’s connection to the world.
The Islamic Republic knows that free media and a free internet bring torture, corruption, execution, and repression out of the shadows and present the structural discrimination against women, national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities, sexual and gender minorities, workers, political prisoners, and justice-seeking families to the public conscience.
Therefore, the government’s hostility toward free press and a free internet is, in reality, a hostility toward awareness, accountability, and the fundamental right of the people to know.
From a human rights perspective, no government has the right to fundamentally destroy freedom of expression, media freedom, and public access to a free internet under the pretext of national security, public order, or political expediency. Any restriction on expression and communication must be exceptional, legal, necessary, proportionate, and under the supervision of an independent judicial authority.
In the Islamic Republic, however, repression is the rule, and freedom has been reduced to something conditional, insecure, and temporary.
The Hana Human Rights Organization strongly condemns the systematic repression of media, journalists, writers, media activists, and citizen-journalists and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all those who have been detained, sentenced, threatened, or forced into silence due to their expression, reporting, or defense of society’s right to know.
Hana also calls for an immediate end to censorship and filtering, the removal of internet restrictions, the repeal of vague and security-oriented laws against the media, the guarantee of media independence, effective protection for the safety of journalists, and the accountability of officials involved in suppressing press freedom and depriving the people of their right to know.
Press freedom is not a privilege granted by the government; it is a right of the people. As long as truth is a crime in Iran, the journalist is the accused, and the internet is a tool for security control, speaking of justice, law, and accountability remains meaningless.