TEHRAN: Iran has arrested the lawyer of two female journalists detained after reporting the death of a woman in custody, which sparked three months of protests, a newspaper said Saturday.
The Islamic Republic has been rocked by protests since Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on September 16 after her arrest for an alleged breach of the country’s dress code for women.
“Mohammad Ali Kamfirouzi, the lawyer for several activists and journalists, has been detained,” the Ham Mihan newspaper said.
The arrest brings to 25 the number of lawyers detained in connection with the protests, the reformist daily said.
Kamfirouzi’s lawyer Mohammad Ali Bagherpour was cited as saying his client had not received a summons, was unaware of the charges he faced and that he had been detained without any legal formalities.
Ham Mihan quoted Kamfirouzi’s brother as saying that the lawyer had been arrested on Wednesday. He said he held the judiciary was “responsible for protecting my brother’s life and health.”
Among Kamfirouzi’s clients were Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, the two female journalists arrested after covering Amini’s death and its aftermath.
Hamedi, who works at the reformist newspaper Shargh, was detained on September 20 after visiting the hospital where Amini had spent three days in a coma before her death.
Mohammadi, a journalist at Ham Mihan, was taken into custody on September 29 after she traveled to Amini’s hometown of Saqez in Kurdistan province to report on her funeral.
The pair were charged on November 8 with propaganda against the state and conspiring against national security — capital crimes under the sharia law in force in Iran.
On Tuesday, the Shargh newspaper published a list of nearly 40 journalists and photojournalists arrested in Iran in connection with the protests.
Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed concern about their fate and demanded their immediate release.
Iran said on December 3 that more than 200 people have been killed in the protests — which it describes as “riots” — including dozens of security personnel.
Norway-based group Iran Human Rights said Iran’s security forces had killed at least 469 people in the protests, in an updated toll issued on Saturday.
Thousands of people have been arrested since the protests erupted. Eleven have been sentenced to death, and two have already been executed.
Meanwhile, reformist newspapers reported that Iran has released two teenagers arrested on suspicion of taking part in the protests.
Amir Hossein Rahimi, 15, and Sonia Sharifi, 17, were both released on Thursday after almost two months in custody, the Etemad and Ham Mihan dailies reported.
Protest-hit Iran arrests lawyer of detained journalists
https://arab.news/pg8yc
Protest-hit Iran arrests lawyer of detained journalists
- Mohammad Ali Kamfirouzi has been detained without any legal formalities, his lawyer says
UK, France mull social media bans for youth as debate rages
- Countries including France and Britain are considering following Australia’s lead by banning children and some teenagers from using social media
PARIS: Countries including France and Britain are considering following Australia’s lead by banning children and some teenagers from using social media, but experts are still locked in a debate over the effectiveness of the move.
Supporters of a ban warn that action needs to be taken to tackle deteriorating mental health among young people, but others say the evidence is inconclusive and want a more nuanced approach.
Australia last month became the first nation to prohibit people under-16s from using immensely popular and profitable social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and YouTube.
France is currently debating bills for a similar ban for under-15s, including one championed by President Emmanuel Macron.
The Guardian reported last week that Jonathan Haidt, an American psychologist and supporter of the Australian ban, had been asked to speak to UK government officials.
Haidt argued in his bestselling 2024 book “The Anxious Generation” that too much time looking at screens — particularly social media — was rewiring children’s brains and “causing an epidemic of mental illness.”
While influential among politicians, the book has proven controversial in academic circles.
Canadian psychologist Candice Odgers wrote in a review of the book that the “scary story” Haidt was telling was “not supported by science.”
One of the main areas of disagreement has been determining exactly how much effect using social media has on young people’s mental health.
Michael Noetel, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia, told AFP that “small effects across billions of users add up.”
There is “plenty of evidence” that social media does harm to teens, he said, adding that some were demanding an unrealistic level of proof.
“My read is that Haidt is more right than his harshest critics admit, and less right than his book implies,” Noetel said.
Given the potential benefit of a ban, he considered it “a bet worth making.”
After reviewing the evidence, France’s public health watchdog ANSES ruled last week that social media had numerous detrimental effects for adolescents — particularly girls — while not being the sole reason for their declining mental health.
Everything in moderation?
Noetel led research published in Psychological Bulletin last year that reviewed more than 100 studies worldwide on the links between screens and the psychological and emotional problems suffered by children and adolescents.
The findings suggested a vicious cycle.
Excessive screen time — particularly using social media and playing video games — was associated with problems. This distress then drove youngsters to look at their screens even more.
However, other researchers are wary of a blanket ban.
Ben Singh from the University of Adelaide tracked more than 100,000 young Australians over three years for a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study found that the young people with the worst wellbeing were those who used social media heavily — more than two hours a day — or not at all. It was teens who used social networks moderately that fared the best.
“The findings suggest that both excessive restriction and excessive use can be problematic,” Singh told AFP.
Again, girls suffered the most from excessive use. Being entirely deprived of social media was found to be most detrimental for boys in their later teens.
’Appallingly toxic’
French psychiatrist Serge Tisseron is among those who have long warned about the huge threat that screens pose to health.
“Social media is appallingly toxic,” he told AFP.
But he feared a ban would easily be overcome by tech-savvy teens, at the same time absolving parents of responsibility.
“In recent years, the debate has become extremely polarized between an outright ban or nothing at all,” he said, calling for regulation that walks a finer line.
Another option could be to wait and see how the Australian experiment pans out.
“Within a year, we should know much more about how effective the Australian social media ban has been and whether it led to any unintended consequences,” Cambridge University researcher Amy Orben said.
Last week, Australia’s online safety watchdog said that tech companies have already blocked 4.7 million accounts for under 16s.
