🔶 New parliamentary approval: interviewing foreign media is a crime

Abbas Goudarzi, spokesperson of the presidium of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, announced that the bill titled “Countering the influence of intelligence services and governments or foreign institutions in the country” was approved in the open session of the parliament with 183 votes in favor.

Under Article 6 of this bill, interviews, participation in discussions, or any form of communication with media that are described in the text of the bill as “hostile” are prohibited.

In this article, American and Israeli media, as well as media funded by the United States or Israel, are introduced as examples of this prohibition. The punishment envisaged for this action is prison sentence of grade six; a penalty which, under the Islamic Penal Code, can entail more than 6 months up to 2 years in prison.