IWAC – Follow-up Report on Maryam Vahidiyan, labor journalist; arrested on Nov. 27, 2022, at her own birthday party by the agents of the intelligence division of IRGC, with all her electronic devices and that of her guests were confiscated; she was eventually temporarily released on bail on Jan. 11, 2023; however, recently, that is, on 4/13/2023, media outlets reported that this labor journalist working in Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA), is subpoenaed to attend a court hearing on Apr. 18, 2023, by the 26th division of the Revolutionary Court. Having been kept in detention for a month, she is now charged with “collusion and conspiracy against national security.” A day after her initial arrest, ILNA published a statement and announced that in pursuit of continuous pressures exerted on this labor news agency and labor reporters and journalists, a number of reporters associated with ILNA were summoned to intelligence organizations in different provinces and counties all across the country in order to give certain pledges about how to report relevant news. In addition to Maryam Vahidiyan, Reza Asadabadi, another labor journalist working at the same news agency, too, was arrested by the intelligence division of IRGC and got transferred to Evin Prison. His court hearing will be held on Apt. 16, 2023. Moreover, in late 2022 and early 2023, the supervisor of ILNA in Isfahan was arrested for a number of days and its Qazvin supervisor, too, was faced with a sentence of being barred from news activities for a month. ILNA had also reported the confiscation of the passport of the head of sport news department who was “departing to Qatar, after making all necessary arrangements to cover the World Cup news.”
