Reporters Without Borders criticizes reporting in Iran

The journalists' organization Reporters Without Borders has criticized the Iranian media's coverage of the presidential election as unbalanced. Iranian journalists are controlled by the authorities and are unable to report objectively on the event.
According to SDA, Reporters Without Borders complained that at least 15 journalists had been threatened or summoned by the authorities for questioning in the past three weeks. The journalists were prosecuted after criticizing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or expressing their political opinions in articles. In the election campaign coverage, information about Ahmadinejad's political program and the president's self-portrayals clearly predominated. His opponents each received less than two hours of speaking time on national radio and television programs, while the president received ten times that amount. A similar picture emerged in the state newspapers.

Access to Facebook blocked
In addition, the internet is being increasingly censored. Access to the social network Facebook, for example, was blocked from May 23 to 26 on the initiative of the Ministry of Information. Ahmadinejad had called on his supporters to set up blogs: According to him, there should be "10,000 militiamen for 10,000 blogs". Opposition or independent websites and blogs had been subject to hacker attacks.
Finally, embassies of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Berlin, Paris, Rome and Madrid had rejected some applications for accreditation from foreign journalists who wanted to travel to the election. In some cases, the press attachés had demanded an "editorial quid pro quo" for a visa.