Lord Grade of Yarmouth – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Grade of Yarmouth on 2015-02-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of Iran about the detention of journalists in Iran.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Freedom of expression in Iran is severely restricted. Iran has one of the highest numbers of journalists in prison in the world. News outlets and online media are heavily censored and the majority of newspapers are now government controlled. The UK continues to urge Iran to guarantee the rights of all its citizens in line with its international obligations. We last raised our concerns around freedom of expression during Iran’s Universal Periodic Review during the UN Human Rights Council on 31 October 2014.