Foreign media prohibited from working in downtown Tehran for 3 days

Dec 5, 2009, 17:00 GMT

Tehran ­ The Iranian government, in an effort to prevent coverage of renewed protests, has on Saturday announced a prohibition on all foreign reporters and photographers from working in downtown Tehran for three days.

The Culture Ministry's Foreign Press Department informed the foreign media in a SMS that all permits issued for work in the city have been revoked from December 7-9, a de facto prohibition of covering protest rallies scheduled for the annual Students Day on Monday.

According to websites, mails and messages in social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, supporters of the opposition - especially the Green Movement supporting former premier Mir-Hossein Moussavi - plan to avail themselves of Students Day and resume protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his government.

According to several foreign press offices in Tehran, internet connections are either very slow or completely down and it is said that the problems are less of a technical than a political nature.

It is believed that in addition to the internet, the Tehran cellular phone network will be cut Monday to prevent communication among protestors and the foreign press.

Moussavis website warned supporters to be very careful after police and Revolutionary Guards warned of harsh action to be taken against protestors who would 'misuse' the annual event for political aims.

The last protest demonstration was on November 4 on the occasion of the annual anti-US day. More than 100 protestors were reportedly arrested but most of them released after a few days.

The wave of protests commenced after the June 12 presidential race which led to President Ahmadinejads re-election.

The opposition quartet led by Moussavi, former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi and the two ex-presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani accused the government of fraud and have not yet recognized Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Street protests since then have led to a mass arrest of demonstrators, dissidents, journalists and former reformist officials.

More than 80 of them, including former officials, were sentenced to jail terms of up to 15 years. At least five have been sentenced to death, although all of them have the right to appeal the verdicts.