Iran is amongst those unfortunate countries of the Middle East where authoritarian regimes frequently use unyielding measures to gag the press in order to prevent free flow of information. Media watchdog Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Index puts Iran at number 152 out of 173 countries. The Freedom House 2009 Report ranked Iran 181 out of 195 countries for media openness. Recently, Iranian authorities have shut down the office of the Association of Iranian Journalists (AoIJ) and arrested three more journalists, raising the number of imprisoned journalists to 37 which is the largest in the world. In this backdrop, admittedly it is accurate to proclaim Iran as ‘world's leading jailer of journalists’ which have also been termed as “prisoners of conscience.” by the Amnesty International.
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