Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner

Q: How do you judge the performance of Rooz?

A: While censorship has a heavy reign in Iran and newspapers are not free in expressing their opinion, the existence of websites such as Rooz, which bring the news to the public in a fair way, is very important and effective. What is important for me is not taking a side when reporting, and I see that in Rooz. This website is filtered in Iran. Fortunately though, Iranian youth are more experienced than American or European youth in bypassing filters. But the fact that this website is being filtered and not all are able to bypass the filter is an important impediment. Another issue is that the government has not allowed fast internet to spread in Iran. Internet connection is very slow in Iran and that sometimes frustrates readers. This problem is not limited to Rooz, but is especially pronounced in the case of filtered websites, and prevents foreign-based websites from finding their maximal audience in Iran.

(R): To what degree do you trust Rooz and what criticisms do you have of it?

(SE): I have not seen an inaccurate report on this website. In other words, the owners of this website strive to report accurate news. The only issue is that they sometimes lag behind in transmitting news. Nevertheless, a news report can be published a day or two late, but I have not yet seen inaccurate information in the reports that have been published. To improve the website, the section for recent news must be updated by the second. The section dedicated to news analysis can stay the way it is, but the news section must be kept up to date more rigorously.