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Jafar Panahi’s 2025 thriller It Was Just an Accident. Photo: Handout “We are worried about what is going to happen. Every morning, we wake up to the sound of explosions. Many places have been destroyed, and I know that some civilians have been killed as well. However, the Islamic Republic does not give us any accurate information, and the domestic news agencies are only propaganda centres for the regime. Because of this, we truly don’t know what is really happening or what awaits us.” These are the words of an Iranian dissident who has managed to contact us from inside the country after Israel and the USA started bombing Iran. They are too concerned for their safety to be named. Iran’s internet has been blocked for days now. There are reports of people protesting from their homes being shot at. The UN has warned that imprisoned Iranian protesters face “expedited” executions. There are fears about conditions deteriorating in Evin prison where a lot of political opponents of the regime are being held. Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is currently in a jail in Zanjan, a city northwest of Tehran, and her situation is unknown. It is impossible to know exactly what is happening. In war the truth only comes out later – if at all – and disinformation is king. What is worrying is that there is such uncertainty about the outcome, and concern now that the USA and Israel don’t much care about the freedom of the people of Iran. Tens of thousands who bravely came out on the streets earlier this year to protest the regime were brutally murdered, many more arrested. Most shockingly, verified accounts have documented how the Revolutionary Guard swarmed hospitals, prevented medical care, took people off ventilators. Some doctors have even reported that wounded protesters who were being treated were later found with bullet holes in their heads. On Monday Index screened Jafar Panahi’s new film It was Just an Accident in advance of it coming out on Mubi this Friday, 6 March. It is a must-see if you want to understand the varying points of view of ordinary people in Iran. One of the people who talked on our panel discussion after the screening, Tara Aghdashloo, an Iranian writer, director and poet, wrote on Instagram of the current dilemma of those watching what is happening from afar: “Whoever we blame – this moment is overwhelming. There is pain, hoping for something good out of it, more pain, terror, remembering the mass murders by the regime yet fearing what these missiles and bombs could do to family and friends and innocent people, to our environment, infrastructure, our historic sites. Elation, even daring to hope that this fascist dictatorship might be gone once and for all. But remembering that the safety of my people is now in the hands of the same leaders, and that we’re expected to bet that our liberation is in a series of missiles that is shaking the city.” To be an Iranian dissident must be profoundly lonely and confusing. The autocratic ayatollah has been killed. But there is no succession plan for democracy. At Index we have always stood up for the people who want Iran to be finally free, for the women and young people, for the rappers, poets, artists and writers and all those who have put have themselves again and again in the firing line for the right to express their full selves without fear of torture and death. READ MORE

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Monday, March 23
Global Free Speech

CPJ welcomes Kyrgyzstan’s release of journalist Makhabat Tajibek kyzy, calls for charges to be dropped

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CPJ welcomes Kyrgyzstan’s release of journalist Makhabat Tajibek kyzy, calls for charges to be dropped

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New York, March 23, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Kyrgyz journalist Makhabat Tajibek kyzy’s release from prison and calls on authorities to drop all charges against her.

In 2024, Tajibek kyzy, the director of anti-corruption investigative outlets Temirov Live and Ait Ait Dese, was convicted on charges of calling for mass unrest and sentenced to six years in prison. Earlier this month, Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court overturned the decision, sending her case back to a lower court for review on the basis of a United Nations Working Group decision that said she had been arbitrarily detained.

“The release of Makhabat Tajibek kyzy from prison is a rare and significant step in the right direction in a country that has been making headlines in recent years for all the wrong reasons,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “But this is not enough. Tajibek kyzy should not have spent a single day behind bars on what are clearly trumped-up charges. Kyrgyz authorities should follow through by withdrawing all charges against her without delay.”

At an initial retrial hearing on March 23, the court in Bishkek rejected the journalist’s petition to dismiss the case but granted her request to be freed pending a verdict. She remains under a travel ban, however. The next hearing is scheduled for April 7.

Tajibek kyzy was among 11 current and former journalists from Temirov Live, a local partner of the global Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), arrested in January 2024 on allegations of incitement. Authorities argued that the outlet’s reporting, which frequently investigates allegations of corruption at the top levels of the Kyrgyz state, “discredited” the government, thereby “indirectly” calling for mass unrest. In October 2024, Tajibek kyzy was convicted alongside Ait Ait Dese presenter Azamat Ishenbekov, who was sentenced to five years in prison. Ishenbekov was later released after a presidential pardon.

The conviction of Tajibek kyzy is part of an unprecedented crackdown on investigative and independent reporting in Kyrgyzstan in recent years. In 2022, authorities deported Bolot Temirov, Temirov Live’s founder and CPJ’s 2025 International Press Freedom Award winner. Temirov, who is married to Tajibek kyzy, was effectively stripped of his Kyrgyz citizenship. In October 2025, authorities declared Temirov’s work, that of his outlets, and the work of another OCCRP member — investigative outlet Kloop — “extremist,” banning their distribution in the country.

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