Image from Center for Human Rights in IranIn the labyrinthine, often dimly lit corridors of Iran’s newsrooms, a sound resonates louder than the headlines of the daily press: the heavy, suffocating sound of silence, a silence not born of a scarcity of subjects or a lack of events; the country is a land of unfinished crises, accumulated tragedies, and naked social contradictions. Rather, this silence is the product of a complex, multilayered, and deeply institutionalized process wherein the journalist, before even pressing a finger to the keyboard, convenes a summary court in his or her own mind—acting simultaneously as the accused, the defense, and the judge—and ultimately issues a verdict of condemnation by deleting their own words. We are witnessing a phenomenon that can be termed the “Syndrome of Trembling Pens,” a condition in which writers cease to be narrators of reality and transform into their own ruthless, vigilant censor, with the government using a combination of strict laws, arrests, physical intimidation, and extensive internet filtering to control the flow of information.Journalism in the current landscape of Iran is not merely a profession. It is a tightrope walk over a pit of sharpened blades. The greatest enemy of free speech is not necessarily the official censor nor the judge with his gavel; it is the internal policeman that has nested and multiplied within the collective unconscious of the journalistic guild. This internal officer is the offspring of years of strict oversight, administrative pressures, and gelatinous, interpretative laws that can transmute any media activity into a penal offense. When the law, instead of being a clear boundary, becomes an invisible and shifting trap, “courage” ceases to be a virtue; in the organizational culture of the media, it is viewed as “professional suicide,” or even folly.Photo from TNWFrom the moment a lead sparks in a reporter’s mind to the moment it is mutilated under the blade of expediency, it eventually becomes a neutral, sterilized text whose only function is to occupy white space on paper or pixels on a screen. These mechanisms by which the state structure—utilizing “legal ambiguity,” “job insecurity,” and “administrative warnings”—have raised the cost of truth-telling so asymmetrically that “The Stuttering Pen” has become the standard dialect of the press. This is the narrative of the metamorphosis of the Fourth Estate into the “Public Relations of the State”; a narrative in which prison is not merely a geographical location, but a mental state that haunts the journalist even in the safety of their own home.The Legal Labyrinth: Ambiguity as a Strategic WeaponThe foundation of caution is built upon laws that are masterpieces of ambiguity and interpretability. The Press Law, and specifically Article 6, draws a series of red lines so fluid that any article, report, or even photograph can be deemed an offense with merely a slight shift in interpretation. Terms such as “spreading falsehoods to agitate public opinion,” “acting against national interests,” and “painting a black picture,” are not precise legal concepts with clear definitions; they are administrative labels ready to be affixed to the forehead of any critic.Legal analysts note that this elasticity of legal language is not a flaw of draftsmanship but a deliberate feature. Ambiguity grants the enforcers, including various government monitoring bodies and state prosecution services, a free hand to interpret the law according to the climate of the day, shutting down outlets or prosecuting writers at will. This violation of the fundamental principle of legal transparency means that the journalist never truly knows the boundary between “constructive criticism” and “propaganda against the state.”In the absence of clear borders, the journalist, to ensure survival, draws a circle of caution far wider than the circle of the law. To avoid stepping on a mine, they choose not to walk on the ground at all. This is the moment self-censorship is born; where the law functions not as a protector of liberty, but as a generator of anxiety.One of the most potent control mechanisms is the Press Supervisory Board, composed of representatives from various state bodies, wielding quasi-judicial power that effectively acts in parallel to the courts. While the determination of guilt and punishment should legally reside with a competent court, the board can suspend a media outlet, effectively executing it before any trial takes place.More catastrophic than the power to ban is the process itself. The fundamental right to defense is often sidelined; decisions are made behind closed doors, frequently without the presence of the publication’s manager. This lack of judicial security sends a clear message to newsrooms: You have no shield against the administrative apparatus. A single interpretive slip regarding a headline on a Monday morning can end a publication’s life and leave dozens unemployed.Table 1: Ambiguous legal concepts and their control function“National Security:” The Code Name for SilenceThe charge of “Acting Against National Security” is perhaps the most overused phrase in indictments against journalists. It is an umbrella covering everything from reporting on homelessness to covering labor strikes. State intelligence departments interpret the laws so broadly that merely sending a video of a flood or protest to a foreign-based outlet is treated as a major crime, effectively blurring the line between “journalism” and “illicit activity.”The Moment of Freezing: When Words Die in UteroThe journalist suffers from a professional schizophrenia during the creative process. One half, loyal to professional ethics, seeks to reveal the truth: the other plays the role of investigator and warden. This internal policeman issues invisible warnings with every keystroke: “This word is sensitive,” “Do not name this official,” “Avoid this metaphor.” The result is a text that, having passed through multiple internal filters, arrives on the page lifeless, neutral, and hollow. Veteran journalists admit that self-censorship has become the “primary factor for survival.” This implicit knowledge of red lines constitutes a culture of caution, the fear that an investigative report will destroy not just a career, but a livelihood.Journalists have mastered the art of text sterilization, a lexical war to survive. Instead of “protests,” they use “unrest” or “scattered gatherings.” Instead of “killed,” they use “deceased” or, if the narrative demands, “rioters.” Economic “corruption” becomes “structural challenges.” This is not merely a change in vocabulary; it is a systemic distortion of reality. By attributing crises to vague “external factors” rather than specific policies, self-censorship transforms from a defense mechanism into unwitting alignment with the official propaganda machine.Ambiguity: The Management Strategy of the StateIn a transparent system, a red line is a solid wall; here, it is a moving rope. What is permissible today may be an offense tomorrow. This unpredictability is engineered to keep journalists in a state of perpetual suspension and anxiety. For instance, during major national incidents like the 2022 Metropol building collapse in Abadan, in which at least 41 people died and 37 others were injured, or aviation disasters, red lines shifted hourly. Initially, doubt was forbidden; later, limited critique was allowed, but pointing fingers at high command remained a strictly prohibited zone. This fluctuation leaves journalists disoriented, never knowing if the ground beneath them is solid or a swamp.Control is enforced not through public law, but through “confidential directives” issued by higher state councils and security committees. These orders, often delivered via phone to leave no paper trail, dictate exactly what news must be buried and which words are forbidden. Defying them means immediate closure. This mechanism effectively converts independent newsrooms into unofficial branches of the state information apparatus.The state holds an obsession with vocabulary. “Political prisoner” is banned; “security convict” is mandatory. “Strike” is forbidden; “trade union gathering” is used. Even literary terms like “Red Rose,” deeply rooted in Persian history and poetry and signifying deep emotion, have faced scrutiny for their potential symbolic connotations. During periods of social unrest, this war peaks. State media use terms like “riots” and “fake excitement” to strip protests of political legitimacy, while journalists using neutral terms face accusations of being “leaders of the unrest”.The Political Economy of Fear; Poverty as a LeashFear has economic roots as deep as its legal ones. Most journalists work under precarious conditions: temporary one-month contracts, “white-signed contracts” (blank contracts signed by employees), and wages often hovering near the poverty line. Managers use this insecurity as leverage. A journalist who rents his or her home knows that a single critical report could mean non-renewal of their contract. Given the poverty-level status of their incomes, they are forced to take second jobs or accept “reportage-ads” (soft bribery). Job security is near zero, and journalists are forced to prioritize survival over truth. When the primary concern is bread, “freedom” becomes a luxury item. Banning a newspaper doesn’t just silence a voice; it impoverishes hundreds. The structure has socialized the cost of criticism. The message is: “If you act the hero, you take bread from your colleagues’ tables.” This creates peer surveillance, in which colleagues pressure each other to be conservative to protect their collective livelihood.Neutered Journalism and a Deaf SocietyThe anatomy of fear in the press reveals a diseased body whose nervous system—the free flow of information—has been severed. The “Syndrome of Trembling Pens” is not a personal failing of journalists, but a structural affliction engineered by a centralized system. Through a potent mix of legal ambiguity, administrative pressure, and economic precarity, the state has successfully implanted the most efficient censor within the minds of the writers themselves.The strategic result is sterilized Journalism—media that looks like news but is void of its core function: truth-telling. As domestic media lose all credibility, the audience migrates to foreign-based outlets or social media rumors. This is the security paradox facing the government: the more it restricts domestic media, the more it loses control over the narrative.Ultimately, the journalist resembles a lone tightrope walker on a fraying rope; below lies the abyss of detention and unemployment; ahead lies a moving wall of red lines. Yet, amidst this pressure, there remain pens that do not tremble—or tremble, but write nonetheless. For they know that in the unequal battle between “forgetting” and “memory,” the only weapon is the written word.The author, an Iranian journalist, asked to remain unnamed out of concern over possible arrest.