At least 28 journalists have been detained in Iran since protests erupted over Amini’s death

Sep. 29 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported that at least 28 journalists have been detained since protests broke out in Iran over the death of the young Mahsa Amini, who died in police facilities on last September 16.

“Security forces create an environment of fear in neighborhoods when they raid journalists’ homes, chasing away families and neighbors to make sure no one reports the arrests or speaks to the media, especially the Persian-language media in the exile,” he denounced in a statement.

One of them would have been Elahe Mohamadi, from the pro-reformist newspaper Hammihan, as reported by his own media outlet this Thursday on his Telegram profile. Her sister, Elnaz Mohammadi, a political reporter for the bi-monthly magazine Andishepuya, was also arrested.

Photojournalist Aria Jafari was reportedly arrested in Isfahan on Wednesday, while the first journalist to be detained was Nilufar Hamedi, who is in solitary confinement at Evin prison in the capital Tehran, Bloomberg reported.

CPJ added two more names to the list on Thursday: freelance reporter Mobin Baluch, who has been detained in Baluchistan, and Farshid Ghorbanpur, who writes for the Persian news portal 7sobh.

Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died on September 16 while in the custody of the Morale Police after being arrested for improperly wearing the Islamic headscarf. The authorities have denied that she was the victim of a beating by the agents.

Her death has sparked a wave of protests in several cities across the country, including Tehran, in which many women have proceeded to remove their scarves and burn them in public. The authorities have virulently repressed the protests, leaving at least 76 dead, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR).