The war on Iran’s journalists

Over 30 years ago, in the northern Iranian city of Rasht, Seyed Hossein Ziabari decided to launch a magazine. Called Hatef, the Arabic and Persian for “Voice”, it was a journal of culture and society, focused especially on the endangered Gilaki language spoken in this rainy, lush valley by the Caspian. Hatef grew swiftly into a serious operation, with a large newsroom of young journalists, all squeezed into the basement of a low-rise apartment. Ziabari also had an editor-in-chief, Nasrin Pourhamrang, a calligrapher-turned-writer. Conveniently, she was also his wife.

I know Hatef very well, and not just because it became the longest-running weekly in my native Guilan province. It was run by my mother — and my father, until he died suddenly in March, at the age of 57. And so, in the most literal sense, I grew up with Iranian journalism, and all its triumphs and challenges. I saw censorship and financial hardships, outdated labour regulations and corruption.