Communication (Journalism) Honours Thesis at Deakin University, Australia Faculty of Arts and Education June

Press Law before the Revolution of 1979 
Between 1941 and 1953, there was no censorship in the media. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi 
(Pahlavi II, the son of Reza Pahlavi, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty) was young, educated at 
the Institute Le Rosey in Switzerland, popular, and promising (Milani 2013). These twelve 
years were booming with political parties and newspapers. Abbas Milani, professor of Political 
Science and the director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University, made an 
important point in his book Negahi be Shah. That is, according to an estimate by the British 
Embassy in Iran, about 100 political parties were set up during this time; most notably the 
Tudeh Party which was founded with the direct support of the Soviet Union (Milani 2013).
It is important to know that in 1957, only 15% of Iran's population was literate. The journalism 
industry was still very young and only a small group of Iranian professional journalists had 
studied in the field. It was only in 1966 when the first Journalism and Social Communication 
School was opened in Tehran. Moreover, the first group graduated five years later (Mohseninan 
Rad 1994). In other words, most of the journalists had minimal information and knowledge 
about ethics in journalism and the confines of freedom of expression.
A scan of newspapers between the 1940s and the 1970s suggests that many political articles 
and headlines were biased. Many journalists were members of political parties; in particular, 
communists and anti-kingdom. Therefore, the media was of a low standard or they did not 
implement ethics in journalism in terms of bullying, political agitation, state secrets disclosure, 
communism propaganda, insults towards the family of the king, and support for the Soviet 
Union and Iranian guerillas. Majid Tafreshi, who was a historian researcher in London, 

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Wasted Lives 7 
describes these days as follows: 
‘On August 18, the pro-Mossadegh newspapers, in a strange 
and unexpected way, begin to insult the Shah
’ (cited in Hoseini 2016, p. 152).
The chief editor of Bakhtar-e Emrouz, Dr Hossien Fatemi, who was also the Foreign Minister 
of Iran at the time, wrote a provoking editorial: 
‘The British think that from a despicable court, 
from a shameless court, from the court of the enemy of the nation, a dirty and extinct law, can 
anything good come out?
’ He also went further and wrote: ‘He (Mohammad Reza Shah 
Pahlavi) would be able to dagger the hearts of his compatriots ... He is putting a dagger through 
the heart of his compatriots ... he prefers to be a British slave than be the king of his nation 
(Bakhtar-e Emrouz 1953).
Mohsenian Rad, a sociologist and Professor of Communication Science, describes this short 
period of media freedom as 
‘free and vituperative media’. He argued that: ‘The 141 years of 
censorship of press, created journalists who did not know how to act in an uncensored 
condition. Therefore, the press in this period is free but insulting; journalists use freedom of 
speech for insulting
’ (Mohsenian Rad 2016, p. 600).
According to the press laws of 1956, insults to the Pahlavi family, top clerics of the country, 
religious and ethnic minorities, and foreign authorities were crimes. The security and protection 
of foreign authorities against the Iranian Communists and extremist Islamists insults was 
essential because Mohammad Reza Pahlavi intended (and to a great extent succeeded) to make 
Iran a tourist destination. Iran at that time had a record of 380,000 tourists per year (Cooper 
2016). Furthermore, 100,000 western people from America, England, Germany, Italy, and 
Greece lived in Iran at the time of revolution in 1979. Americans living in Iran were the largest 
American community outside the US with a population of over 50,000. Iran was seen as heaven 
for Western job seekers (Cooper 2016).
Another noteworthy point in the press law during the period of Pahlavi II is that government 
officials were not allowed to own private media or write as a journalist. This article was added 
to the press law after the events of August 1953 and the arrest of Dr Hossein Fatemi (the 
Foreign Minister and Editor-in-Chief of the Bakhtiar-e Emrooz). Another reason for adding 
this article to the press law was that the government employees who had access to secret 
government documents had published them in their own publications (Paygah-e Jame-e 
Tarikhe-e Moaser-e Iran, Tahdid-e Matbouat dar Pahlavi II).

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Wasted Lives 8 
August 19, 1953, was the culmination of a confrontation between two groups. The first group 
was in favour of the kingdom 
and the second was the kingdom’s opponents. This confrontation 
was seen in the newspapers during the preceding twelve years. Massive demonstrations took 
place on both sides, and Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, who demanded limitations of 
the Shah's power, was arrested and detained until he died in 1967. This period was the 
beginning of long-term press repression during the Pahlavi II era. Later, between 1960 and 
1963 when the country was in peace again, the press experienced more freedom but it had a 
similar result for the kingdom of Iran why as he was the main target of oposstion critics. 
Censorship returned until 1978. press was once again released from censorship. This time it 
had no result exept the fall of the kingdom of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and the 
establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.
Javad Talei, Member of the Board of the Syndicate of Journalists and Reporters of Iran from 
1977 to 1980, argues that in 1978 the prime minister of Iran had stated that no censorship is 
applied in the press, but the content of the press had not changed, and moreover, several 
journalists were banned from writing. The press started struck against this circumstance. The 
last strike lasted 64 days, after which the Islamic revolution took place in 1979 (Noghrehkar, 
2002, Volum 2, pp308-313).
In sum, a set of factors came together so that the press during the Pahlavi II era experienced 
temporary restrictions on freedom of expression. Some of those factors included the expansion 
of communism among the Iranian people - especially journalists and educated people, the 
expansion of slandering and vilification against the Shah and his modernisation, and the efforts 
of the Shah to control and suppress communism in Iran.