On July 5, 2021, Judge Abbas Shaghaghi of Branch 6 of Tehran’s Media Court convicted four members of the press on criminal false news and defamation charges, according to reports by the exile-run news website IranWire and the semi-official Tasnim News Agency. The court convicted Mizenaft managing director Hamid Hajipour, Naftema managing director Mehdi Ghadiri, and two others whose names were not released, according to those reports. Mizenaft and Naftema are both state-run news websites that cover the energy sector, according to CPJ’s review of their content; the two other defendants were the managing director of Etelaterooz, another state-run energy news website, and a reporter at that outlet. CPJ could not immediately determine the Etelaterooz defendants’ names; an email to the outlet seeking comment was not immediately returned. According to IranWire, all three websites published stories on alleged corruption by Kamran Mehravar, one of the directors at Iran’s Ministry of Oil, who later filed a lawsuit against the websites and their managing directors. CPJ was unable to locate contact information for Mehravar; a person familiar with the convictions, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, said that Mehravar is currently in prison.
