Journalism watchdog urges Iran to free critics, stop criminalizing thought

The Norway-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said security forces arrested Hanieh Shariati Roudposhti, a taekwondo athlete and gymnastics instructor, on Sunday night and took her to an undisclosed location.

The group cited an informed source as saying the arrest was linked to a street performance deemed in violation of public dress regulations. It added that Shariati was allowed a brief phone call with her family after her detention but that her current whereabouts remain unknown.

Hengaw also said that since her arrest, Shariati’s social media accounts – including an Instagram page with about 160,000 followers – had been taken over by security officials and later disabled, displaying a message linked to Iran’s cyber police. 

In recent weeks, senior Iranian officials have repeated calls for stricter enforcement of hijab laws. Iran’s Prosecutor-General Mohammad Movahedi-Azad said on Monday that observing Islamic dress codes was a religious duty and that prosecutors were obliged to act firmly against noncompliance.

Earlier this month, Esfahan’s provincial judiciary chief also urged legal action against what he described as “immodest public behavior.”

Iranian clerics and some government figures have defended the hijab law as a social and religious necessity, while critics say it has become a symbol of broader state control over personal freedoms.

The dissident activist made the remarks in Berlin on the sidelines of the annual forum of the World Liberty Congress, a movement she co-founded in 2022 along with Russian activist Garry Kasparov and Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López.

“We intend to increase pressure on dictators by uniting opposition movements from different countries," she said.

Alinejad compared Iran’s compulsory hijab laws and political repression to the Berlin Wall, telling Iran International that Iranians are destroying this wall through their defiance.

The World Liberty Congress is holding its second annual gathering on the sidelines of the Freedom Week marking the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The gathering has brought together 180 participants from 60 countries including opposition figures, lawmakers, and rights activists from Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and China.

The event aims to coordinate global strategies to defend democracy and counter the spread of autocracy.

Practicing democracy in exile

Alinejad said the three founders of the World Liberty Congress had decided not to stand in this year’s internal elections to demonstrate democratic accountability.

“Mr. Leopoldo López, Garry Kasparov and I oppose Khamenei, Maduro and Putin, and to prove we are not like the dictators, we told the Berlin parliament that in the World Liberty Congress elections we will step aside so others can present themselves as the congress’s president, vice president and secretary this year.”

“This is an exercise to show democratic countries that we can hold elections and free ourselves from dictators,” added Alinejad.

The activist previously defined the World Liberty Congress as an alternative to the United Nations, which she said "has become a place to unite dictators."

The report appeared first on university channels and student groups, claiming that Iran's flagship institution of higher education had lifted the YouTube ban on its internal network, allowing direct access for "educational and research purposes."

Iran's communications regulator denied any formal directive or even plans for such move. But critics were unconvinced, not least because of Tehran's long record of quiet, selective exemptions.

Many activists, technologists and legal experts pointed out that the idea of selective access reinforces inequality by creating digital privilege for a small, already advantaged group.

Prominent jurist Mohsen Borhani described the concept as “a combination of internet apartheid and a control system.”

“Such class-based privileges gradually serve to justify the actions of anti-freedom controllers and their so-called councils,” he wrote on X.

Meshkat Asadi, CEO of the New Businesses Group, echoed the concern: “Allocating a higher level of access while the rest of society does not have it constitutes a form of class-based internet.”

Obstacles to digital freedom

For nearly two decades, initiatives such as “emergency internet for businesses” and “journalists’ internet,” along with unrestricted SIM cards for foreign tourists, have entrenched a divide in access based on occupation or status.

Such decisions are made by Iran’s Supreme Cyber-Space Council (SCC), formally chaired by President Masoud Pezeshkian but dominated by appointees of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and conservative bodies including the Revolutionary Guards and the Organization for Islamic Propagation.

This entrenched structure is widely seen as the key obstacle to any meaningful policy shift.

Abdolhossein Firouzabadi, the council’s former secretary said last week that at least ten members strongly oppose lifting major filters.

“The council’s composition should be reconsidered if we want to see real change in the country’s digital landscape,” he told moderate news-site Entekhab.

‘Fragmenting the nation’

Advocates of free access argue that those benefiting from such a system become complicit in the injustice imposed on the wider population.

“The authorities are fragmenting the nation into smaller and weaker groups in order to resist the collective will of the people,” Saeed Soozangar told tech outlet Zoomit.

Cybersecurity expert Vahid Farid told Zoomit that authorities appear to be considering limited openings to reduce the “growing damages caused by filtering,” even as they avoid a full reversal of the nationwide ban.

‘The right to learn’

Many also stress YouTube’s everyday educational value far beyond campuses.

“Someone may not have the opportunity to attend university, but they can learn through YouTube,” Pouya Pirhosseinlou of the Iranian E-Commerce Association pointed out on X. “When access to this resource is blocked, it effectively says: ‘You do not have the right to learn.’”

Legal advocacy group Dadban added that restricting online access endangers rights ranging from education to healthcare, employment, and a dignified life.

Internet-freedom collective Filterban asked: “If YouTube is safe and useful, why is it only good for a few universities? If it’s dangerous, why is it harmless for students but dangerous for ordinary people?

“ This isn’t reforming the filtering system,” the advocacy group said on X, “it’s the reproduction of discrimination in the digital age.”

Iranian security forces on Tuesday raided Tajzadeh's daughter's home and arrested him without providing any explanation, former fellow inmate Mehdi Mahmoudian said on X.

"The re-arrest of Tajzadeh reflects the Islamic Republic’s blatant disregard for human dignity and justice," the State Department said in a statement on its Persian-language X account.

"It also shows that, for the Islamic Republic, suppressing dissent takes priority over addressing Iran’s deeper crises."

Tajzadeh is a reformist politician who served as deputy interior minister during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005.

He has been imprisoned for 10 of the last 16 years, currently on charges including acting against the state, spreading falsehoods and propaganda.

Before being re-arrested, Tajzadeh attended the funeral of his brother and met several activists including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi in a move the State Department hailed as “a symbol of the resistance and courage of the Islamic Republic’s political dissidents.”

Mohammadi said on Tuesday that there was no prospect for reforming the country's Islamic theocracy and its downfall was assured.

“Reform has been dead for years. The time for reforms has long passed. The real main struggle is between the realistic survivalists and those seeking the end of religious despotic regime,” Mohammadi posted on X.

In July, Tajzadeh warned Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to pivot or resign.

"In this critical situation, Mr. Khamenei has no option but to apologize to the Iranian people and accept fundamental reforms in line with national demands, including by forming a constituent assembly based on completely free and fair elections," he said, "or to resign and step down."

In recent years, the pursuit of reform has shifted toward regime change, as seen in the 2017-18 and 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprisings, with many people viewing the system as irreformable.

Ahmad Baledi was hospitalized with about 70 percent burns and remains in critical condition, the rights group said.

The report said municipality workers, accompanied by police officers, arrived at the kiosk on Sunday without notice and began demolishing it.

Baledi's wife and son Ahmad staged a sit-in inside the kiosk to try to stop the demolition, but officers continued, Karun said.

The group said the deputy for municipal services in the district “behaved violently” and threw Baledi's wife out of the kiosk.

In protest at what was described as unjust and violent treatment, Ahmad Baledi poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire in front of the officers.

Witnesses cited by Karun said some of the officers made no effort to stop him and watched with indifference and mockery.

The incident comes amid deepening economic hardship in Iran, where soaring joblessness and inflation have pushed many households into street vending, peddling, and other informal work to survive.

The self-immolation also echoes, in unsettling ways, the act by Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi that helped ignite the Arab Spring in 2011.