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

Press Law after the Revolution of 1979 
Communists and other anti-kingdom and anti-western parties publications were under pressure 
and control during 
Pahlavi’s period. However, as Daryoush Homayoun - the journalist and the 
late prime minister of Tourism in Pahlavi II 
– said in an interview with the BBC Persian 
‘Sometimes journalists were forbidden to write for a while, but it was never the case that the 
newspaper was shut down by the government order or a journalist was dismissed
’. He added 
that there was always a way in which the press could open speak out
… Government officials 
had a good relationship with the press and wanted to attract them. Politically, the press at that 
time did not understand what they were doing. With shaping the Islamic revolution, the press 
hurt themselves most of all. (Ghavam M, 2010, BBC Persian, 
‘Hasasiyat hay-e Matbuati-e 

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Shah Che Boud?
’ 28 January 2010). However, the events after the Islamic Revolution showed 
that censorship of media and other forms of publications such as books, cassettes, videos, 
movies, and social media could be even much worse than before.
The first Press Law after the revolution was approved by Parliament in 1980 after Ayatollah 
Khomeini’s controversial speech ‘Break the Pens’. However, it was not sufficiently clear and 
accurate so it was changed in 1985 and then amended further 
in 2000. However, in Iran’s Press 
Law, assaulting the Supreme Leader of the revolution, the clergy, Islam, the prophet of Islam, 
all twelve saints of Shia and their families, and government officials was a crime. Furthermore, 
many other actions were also considered as 
‘against national security’ and ‘acting against the 
Islamic Revolution
’ and were forbidden. 
According to Press Law 1985 some of the forbidden subjects are:
• 
Discussing the conflict instead of the expression of the conflict and differences between 
men and women through non-Sharia law. 
• 
To publish any atheistic and anti-Islamic material that is harmful to the Islamic 
Republic of Iran. 
• 
Prostitution and the dissemination of photographs and images contrary to public 
chastity. 
• 
The promotion of lavishness and luxury. 
• 
To quote parties and anti-Islam oppositions (both domestic and foreign). 
• 
Publication of articles against the principles of the Constitution.
• 
To insult the authorities, institutions, organisations, and any individuals or legal entities 
in the country who were religiously respected - even by publishing photographs or cartoons of 
them. 
While the list of 
‘forbidden’ is long and limiting, it was still very ambiguous. There was a lack 
of a clear definition of some legal terms such as 
‘media crime’, ‘Press Court’, ‘blasphemy’, 
‘acting against the Islamic revolution’, and ‘acting against the national security’.
There is no clear guidance in the press law and the Constitution to determine what kinds of 
actions could be interpreted as 
‘insulting the Supreme Leader’, ‘insulting Islam’, and ‘acting 

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against the security of the regime
’. Many journalists have been arrested over these actions 
(Alipour, 2017, 
‘Azadi-e Matbuat in Iran’, Reporters without Borders, 18 December). For 
example, it is unclear why questioning the Supreme Leader is insulting. Since 1989, when Ali 
Khamenei became the Supreme Leader of Iran, no media has been allowed to interview him. 
Furthermore, why is asking a question about the occupations and assets of the Supreme Leader 
or his sons insulting? Why is challenging the veil of women, or writing about the equal rights 
of women and men, an act against Islam and the security of the regime? 
Another clear example of the lack of freedom of the press is the 
‘Press Supervisory Board’. 
The Press in Iran is supervised by this board. Its members are all government and religious 
authorities or chosen by the government and religious authorities. There is no independent 
journalist or institute in Iran.
Many lawyers believe that the inter-relationship between 
‘political crime’ and ‘press crime’ is 
the main problem with the press law in Iran (Tavasoli & Ghasemi 2017). Different judicial 
authorities have different interpretations and perceptions of these two terms in different places 
and different times. There is a great deal of historical evidence that shows that the Press Court 
or the Revolution Court sometimes make two completely different judgments for a similar 
press charge. Emadeddin Baghi, an editor-in-chief who was in Evin Prison for two years, 
supports this: 
‘It has often been seen that for a specific and unified action, at different times, 
the court issued different - even contradictory - judgments. Thus, this shows that these 
sentences are not so much legal but political
’ (Amouee 2016, p.69). 
In many cases, while the lawyer of a journalist might consider his or her client guiltless with 
respect to the press law, the court interrogator might believe that the published article is an 
exemplar of 
‘propaganda against the regime’. Furthermore, the prosecutor often believes that 
the article, in addition to being 
‘propaganda against the state’, is an act ‘against national 
security
’, ‘insulting officials’, or ‘disseminating lies’. In other words, one press article can have 
different legal interpretations (M M, 2016. Deutsche Welle, 
‘Mohakeme Se Ruzname Negar 
dar Dadgah e Enghelab
’, March 8).
With respect to 
Iran’s Press Laws, ‘punishment’ for offenders includes ‘stopping the 
publication, cancellation of the license, deprivation of press activity, imprisonment, the lash, 
ban on writing, exile, small or large fines, and execution
’ (Iran Press Law, Chapter Six, Crimes. 
Articles 26, 27, 28, 31, 35). Since 2009, after the controversial election of Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad which ended in massive protests across the country (the Green Movement), the 

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government has arrested and imprisoned dozens of journalists and bloggers with charges such 
as 
‘acting against national security’, ‘acting against the Islamic Revolution’, ‘insulting the 
Supreme Leader
’, and ‘moral corruption’ (Mina 2007, p. 10). In 2017, Iran was one of the five 
largest prisons in the world for media activists (Human Rights Watch 2017; Reporters Without 
Borders 2017). Because of the extremely difficult conditions of prisons and the deprivation of 
prisoners, many prisoners - including journalists 
– have little choice but to go on hunger strikes 
for their most basic demands. At least ten journalists’ lives were threatened in this situation 
(Committee to Protect Journalism, 2018; Reporters Without Borders, 2017). Hengameh 
Shahidi, an Iranian journalist and supporter of the Green Movement, has been - and continues 
to be - imprisoned frequently since 2009 and has been forced to go on a hunger strike many 
times to gain access to her lawyer (Voice of America [VOA] 2017). Vahid Sayadi Nasiri died 
in prison after 60 days of a hunger strike. He was a human right activist through social media. 
In Iran, the worst scenario for dissident journalists and bloggers is death after torture and rape. 
According to the Committee to Protect Journalist (2018) and Reporters Without Borders 
(2019), since 1992 the torture and killing of ten people has been verified: Ebrahim Zalzadeh 
(editor-in-chief of
Meyar proiodical), Omidreza Mirsayyafi (journalist and blogger), Sattar 
Beheshti (blogger), Zahra Kazemi (Iranian-Canadian photojournalist), Saeed Soltanpour 
(writer and poet), Alireza Eftekhari (journalist), Simon Farzami (Iranian Jewish journalist), Ali 
Asghar Amirani (editor-in-chief of Khandani ha proiodical), Hoda Saber (journalist and 
activist), and Rahman Hatefi (editor-in-chief of Keyhan newspaper).
On February 7, 2019, the organisation Reporters Without Borders announced that it had access 
to an official document issued by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Judiciary. This showed that at 
least 860 journalists and citizen-journalists were arrested, detained, and executed between 1980 
and 2010. According to this document, journalists have been arrested and imprisoned with 
charges such as 
‘acting against domestic security’, ‘propaganda against the Islamic Republic’, 
‘cooperation with foreign agents’, and ‘espionage’. Other charges such as ‘insulting the Islamic 
sanctuaries
’ and ‘insulting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic or the founder of the 
regime
’ have also been used to arrest journalists and citizen journalists. In the document, the 
names of 1,700,000 people have been registered as being 
‘dissident’ by the Islamic Republic 
of Iran's Judiciary (Deutsche Welle, 2019, 
‘Efsha-ye Parvande Ghazaee ba Yek Million v 700 
Hezar Naam
’, February 7).

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