Two female journalists who were instrumental in reporting the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman whose death in the custody of Iran’s morality police has sparked nationwide protests, have been labelled as CIA foreign agents by the Iranian regime

Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who were arrested shortly after news broke of Amini’s death and who are reportedly being held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, were accused of being foreign agents in a joint statement released by Iran’s ministry of intelligence and the intelligence organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards last night

The statement, which refers to the two women as NH and EM, also described the protests as a pre-planned operation launched by the CIA, Mossad and other western intelligence agencies

The statement, which accused both women of being “primary sources of news for foreign media”, accused Hamedi of posing as a journalist and of compelling the family of Mahsa Amini to release information about their daughter’s death[…]
Mohammadi has been accused by the IRGC and the intelligence ministry of receiving training as a foreign agent abroad for her reporting from Amini’s funeral in her home town of Saqqez

Mohammadi was arrested on 22 September and her lawyer said security forces broke down her door and took away personal items such as her phone and laptop

The statement, which was sent to Iranian news agencies on Friday evening, has been received with shock and fear by other Iranian journalists. The crime of spying for foreign governments carries the death penalty in Iran