
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard intelligence organization have accused journalists Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who reported on the death of Masha Amini that has sparked weeks of protests in the country, of being foreign CIA agents.
In a joint statement released Saturday, they also described the demonstrations as a pre-planned operation launched by the U.S. and other international intelligence agencies and the Mossad, an Israeli intelligence agency.
In the statement, they point to them as the main source for the international media and reproach Hamedi for pretending to be a journalist in order to «force the family» of Amini to divulge information about the death of her daughter.
Hamedi was the first journalist to report on Amini’s case from the hospital where she remained in coma, broadcasting images of the young woman’s family surrounding the bed of the health center, according to the newspaper ‘The Guardian’.
For his part, Mohammadi wrote a report on the funeral of the young woman who was arrested for not wearing the Islamic veil correctly and has been accused by the regime of receiving training as a foreign agent.
More than 40 journalists have been detained since protests broke out in the country and more than 220 people have been killed by security forces according to the Human Rights Agency HRANA.