Iran

2012

  

State-sponsored attacks: open season on online journalists

The last few weeks have offered the strongest indications yet that nation-states are using customized software to exploit security flaws on personal computers and consumer Internet services to spy on their users. The countries suspected include the United States, Israel, and China. Journalists should pay attention–not only because this is a growing story, but because…

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Iran has invested in technology with the explicit intent of restricting Internet access. (Reuters/Caren Firouz)

Most censored nations each distort the Net in own way

One big reason for the Internet’s success is its role as a universal standard, interoperable across the world. The data packets that leave your computer in Botswana are the same as those which arrive in Barbados. The same is increasingly true of modern mobile networks. Standards are converging: You can use your phone, access an…

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Chinese official Jia Qinglin, fifth from left, hands over keys to the China-built African Union headquarters to AU Chairman and Equatorial Guinea President Theodoro Obiang. (AFP/Tony Karumba)

China not most censored, but may be most ambitious

China didn’t make the cut for our 10 most censored countries. While the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship apparatus is notorious, journalists and Internet users work hard to overcome the restrictions. Nations like Eritrea and North Korea lack that dynamism.

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Javad Moghimi Parsa is one of many Iranian journalists forced to flee his heavily censored country. (Javad Moghimi Parsa)

Assisting journalists forced to flee censorship

CPJ’s Journalist Assistance Program supports journalists who cannot be helped by advocacy alone. In 2011, we assisted 171 journalists worldwide. Almost a fourth came from countries that made CPJ’s Most Censored list. Eight journalists from Eritrea, five from Syria, six from Cuba, and a whopping 20 from Iran sought our help after being forced to…

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Google+, real names and real problems

At the launch of Google+, Google’s attempt to create an integrated social network similar to Facebook, I wrote about the potential benefits and risks of the new service to journalists who use social media in dangerous circumstances. Despite early promises of relatively flexible terms of service at Google+, the early days of implementation were full…

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Online publishers, developers sentenced to death in Iran

Politically-related Iranian prosecutions often take place in near secrecy, with unclear charges morphing and changing over time. It doesn’t get any easier to work out the motivations of prosecutors when the charges are connected to technology.

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2012