During a Jan. 14 news program by NHK, Shinnosuke Kawashima, the Japanese public broadcaster’s Tehran bureau chief, described the atmosphere in the Iranian capital following countrywide massacres of protesters on Jan. 8 and 9.

“The Iranian government has repeatedly emphasized ‘the situation is under control,’ but access to the internet remains largely restricted and the atmosphere is tense in Tehran,” he said.

The reporting came amid a campaign of denial and cover-up by Iran’s authorities in a bid to conceal the true scale of the atrocities they were committing. Soon after Kawashima’s broadcast, the authorities reportedly arrested him and transported him to Ward 7 of Tehran's Evin Prison on Feb. 23.

© The Japan Times