Tehran Emrooz newspaper was suspended by the Press Oversight Committee of Iran’s ministry of Islamic guidance that monitors the media and issues their licenses, Fars News Agency reported.News of Tehran Emrooz’s suspension was announced after the daily published a 16-page special issue on June 24 (third anniversary of Ahmadinejad’s election to presidency), criticizing the ninth administration’s economic, cultural and political policies.
Tehran Emrooz’s special issue, which was published as an attachment to the 443rd issue of the daily and paved the way for the daily’s suspension, contained a front-page article titled, “No Money in Years of Abundance of Cash.” In another article titled, “I and Mafia,” the daily examined Ahmadinejad’s accusations against economic profiteers and concluded that the accusations were voiced to acquit the government of responsibility and, are baseless and unfounded.
In another article titled, “Favor for Others,” the paper criticized the ninth administration’s posture on the Holocaust and argued that the policies harm the nation.
An interview with Hassan Sobhani, a long-serving Majlis assembly representative and member of the Majlis Economic Committee was among the pieces in the special report. The piece was titled, “We Sell Wealth, And Remain Poor.”
But the article titled, “Ahmadinejad’s Souvenirs in the Capital,” was among the special issue’s most critical pieces. It examined issues such as Tehran municipality’s “350 billion Toman expenditure without adequate financial receipts,” “expenditure of city of Tehran’s budget on wedding ceremonies,” “municipality’s cultural and artistic organization’s record-breaking financial irregularities,” “Monorail as the symbol of Ahmadinejad’s management of municipality,” and “fate of souvenirs, fate-shaping souvenirs.”
The last report in the special issue dealt with the conditions of 12 officials in the ninth administration, referring to them as “these few people, men fitting two administrations.” ”These few people” was the title of a television show that was broadcasted a few years ago and revolved around stories of three incompetent people.
The twelve officials included were “Mojtaba Hashemi Samareh, Ali Saeedloo, Rahim Mashai, Sadegh Mahsouli, Gholamhossein Elham, Mehrdad Bazrpash, Masoud Zaribafan, Morteza Agha Tehrani, Mohammad Ali Ramin, Mehdi Kalhor, Davoud Ahmadinejad, and Ali Akbar Javanfekr.”
News of Tehran Emrooz’s suspension was reported on Saturday even though the Press Oversight Committee meets on Mondays only. Tehran Emrooz newspaper was set up by the group that headed the current mayor of Tehran Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf’s 2005 presidential bid (against Ahmadinejad). The newspaper’s reports often glorified Qalibaf’s management in driving urban development in Tehran. The paper also supported Qalibaf’s candidacy during the third Tehran city council and eighth Majlis elections.
One of the paper’s major projects is to support Qalibaf in the tenth presidential elections coming up in 2009.
Amin Sarbandi
Rooz
one must not forget that one aspect of “security” cases is the image that they carry for the groups that advance such issues. Therefore, before fake charges take to the news-media and become public, those who have had a hand in arresting the students must be weakened. Otherwise, after the severe charges are made public, repeated and are tied to the image of the actors, even the intervention of the head of the judiciary (as history demonstrates) cannot be of much help to the detainees.
How can we tell the judiciary officials of Iran that according to law juveniles can stay alive and continue to live with appropriate and suitable punishment? How must one make this request from the judiciary a public and wide-spread demand and point out that killing a juvenile who has not wholeheartedly committed an act does not solve any of the real problems facing the country?
it is easy to predict that the success of student activists in imposing their will and demands on government officials at academic institutions, such as the Teachers Training college and Zanjan University (where the students boldly took the initiative into their own hands), would result in a backlash by extreme right-wing officials who would plan an “instructive” counter-attack against the student movement.Hopefully such a reaction will not come. But from an analytic perspective, one must not negate it altogether.
This is the reason that the moment imprisoned students step out of prison, it becomes clear to every one why they were put behind bars: for simply criticizing the president. It becomes instantly clear why they were subjected to interrogations and what questions were asked of them. These are the events that portray the image of this country. Students, social activists and journalists are certainly not on the list of those that dent this image. The publication of the arrest of students because of their criticism of the president brings forth a caricature image of Mahmud Ahmadinejad which does not match the claims that he made at Columbia University or the image that the regime strives to present about its standing.
There are at least 70 young people on death row who at the time of their arrest were under the age of 16. In the past 12 months, Iranian organisations claim that 80 feminists have been arrested and 20 of them have been sentenced from three to five years in jail. A total of 54 journalists have ended up in prison, several were released without trial after serving jail time, while others remain behind bars. In the past 12 months, 34 newspapers and magazines, among them the feminist magazine Zanan, have been shut down.
