All media are definitely state-controlled, state-owned, and even if the authorities allow some private papers to exist, they put a lot of pressure on journalists. Recently, four lady journalists were investigated and essentially interrogated by the KGB for their coverage of corruption deals, but that was an excuse. The real reason was that they belong to the opposition media and they are quite authoritative.
As for Iran, as an economist I always wonder why some economic and investment projects exist. We have the assembly line of the Iranian car, Samand, that makes 250 cars a year, with a plan to make 30,000. There was an ongoing line of communication between Iran and Belarus; there was an Iranian bank and many projects inside Belarus.
Belarus is used as the country that may be an intermediary between Russia and Iran on the technologies that we all suspect to be somehow involved in producing nuclear weapons. Of course, we don't have evidence of that, but we have many rumours inside Belarus, and talking to people gives us evidence of something that is behind the official smokescreen for these economic relations. For example, I've heard of a deal that is being discussed for an oil swap among Iran, Russia, and Belarus.
If you do not have transparency of weapon flows and if you don't have transparency in finance flows, you definitely suspect these kinds of arrangements to be not just about economic operations.