Government Threats Don't Faze Citizen Journalists in Iran

Protesters take to the streets of Tehran on Wednesday

The Iranian government's attempts to muzzle citizen journalists who are using Twitter, blogs and websites to spread the news about the protests in that country don't seem to be working.

Some of the most widely followed Twitterers and bloggers - including Tehran 24, Tehran Bureau and Change for Iran - appeared to be still up and running during a check Thursday morning.

The Revolutionary Guard, an elite military force answering to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned earlier this week that Iranian websites and bloggers must remove any materials that "create tension" - or else face legal action. The regime also barred foreign media from leaving their offices to report on the demonstrations.

The government reportedly tried to ban coverage of the demonstrations, arrested journalists, threatened bloggers and tried to block key websites like Facebook and Twitter.

And a prosecutor in the central province of Isfahan, where several demonstrations were held, even said protesters could be executed under Islamic law.

The scare tactics didn't seem to faze the blog known as Tehran 24, where pictures from Wednesday's protests had already been posted. On the Twitter site Change for Iran, a flurry of tweets from early Thursday morning were in evidence.

Still, the tweets reflected the growing pressure the government is applying to try to squelch dissent. "State TV & Radio went berserk today, all they saying are mousavi's s supporters are all criminals & they will stop us at any cost," read one tweet. Another said, "...state media censoring everything & Internet access is very limited..."

Yet another tweet read, "right now state TV is showing a program about how Evil Internet is and US & Britain & Israel are all behind this! this is ridiculous!"

But if anything, the influence of Iran's citizen journalists seemed to be growing. With the new restrictions on foreign journalists, mainstream media outlets began to rely more heavily on dispatches from citizen reporters.

CNN, for instance, was showing videos of protests posted by citizen journalists on YouTube. "We feel it’s important that people see this, see and hear what is coming in to us,” said Isha Sesay, a CNN correspondent.

The New York Times, meanwhile, began posting pictures and videos from Iranians on The Lede, one of the paper's blogs.

Photo by Getty Images

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