Fourteen journalists in Iran were arrested this weekend [Jan. 26-27], and while Iranian officials say the mass arrests were not a result of the reporters’ “journalism activities” but security-related, reporters inside the country tell another story.

One reporter told Al-Monitor that intelligence is suspicious of the journalists' connections to Persian-speaking media outside Iran, and the arrests were meant to cut all such ties to the outside world.

On Sunday [Jan. 27], 12 journalists from four newspapers, Bahar, Shargh, Arman, Etemad and Aseman Weekly were arrested; just a day before, two other journalists, one from Bahar, and the other from the semi-official ILNA News Agency, affiliated with Iran's Labor Ministry, had been arrested.

All 14 journalists belonged to the so-called reformist camp. The raid is considered the most aggressive crackdown on independent media since the 2009 presidential election, which was followed with the arrests of hundreds of reformist journalists and political activists, many of them still in prison after receiving long-term prison sentences.