Baztab ( meaning ''reflection'') is an Iranian,
Persian language
Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision ...
,
Tehran
Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...
-based news website. The
English service of the site has been published since January 2007. Although Baztab is an anti-
reformist
Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution.
Within the socialist movement, ref ...
website, it sometimes criticized
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (born Mahmoud Sabbaghian on 28 October 1956) is an Iranian Iranian principlists, principlist and Iranian nationalism, nationalist politician who served as the sixth president of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He is currently a mem ...
's government's policies and unveiled corruption cases inside the government. Baztab is widely believed to have close ties with (or be managed by)
Mohsen Rezaee
Mohsen Rezaee Mirgha'ed (, born Sabzevar Rezaee Mirgha'ed (); born 1 September 1954) is an Iranian conservative politician affiliated with the Resistance Front of Islamic Iran and senior military officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ...
, a conservative politician.
Baztab was
filtered and suspended for a few weeks in October 2005 for allegedly insulting the former secretary of the
Supreme National Security Council
Supreme National Security Council (SNSC; ''Showrāye Āliye Amniyate Mellī'' also ''Supreme Council for National Security'') is the national security council of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The current secretary of the Supreme National Securi ...
,
Hassan Rouhani
Hassan Rouhani (; born Hassan Fereydoun, 12 November 1948) is an Iranian peoples, Iranian politician who served as the seventh president of Iran from 2013 to 2021. He is also a sharia lawyer ("Wakil"), academic, former diplomat and Islamic cl ...
. Baztab's suspension was rescinded after the site's editor, Foad Sadeghi, stepped down.
In February 2007, the website was banned and filtered in Iran for the second time. In September 2007, a court in Tehran ordered the website to be shut down indefinitely for threatening the national security of Iran by "exaggerating the foreign threat to Iran and the possibility of war."
In the same month, members of Baztab started the
Tabnak news website, following the same policies as Baztab.
Baztab came back online in 2011 with the key people of the first version and a minor change in the domain's address. It was then blocked by the Iranian authorities again and attacked by pro-government hackers.
See also
*
Media of Iran
The mass media in Iran is both privately and publicly owned but all channels are subject to censorship. In 2016, Iran had 178 newspapers, 83 magazines, 15,000 information sites and two million blogs. A special court has authority to monitor ...
References
External links
Official website
2007 establishments in Iran
Iranian news websites
Mass media in Tehran
{{Iran-stub