Middle East
Iran
Press Freedom Rout
Like a champion matador vanquishing an unruly bull, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, struck a damaging blow to Iran’s reformist press in a parliamentary hearing on Aug. 6. With cautious optimism, the reformist majority of Iran’s 290-seat parliament, or Majlis, had hoped to introduce a bill that would enact modest measures to protect press freedom. But in a letter read aloud in the Majlis, Khamenei, who holds the ultimate veto, banned either a vote or even discussion of the bill, which he deemed a threat to national security and the faith of the masses.
The surprise announcement caused chaos at the assembly; fights broke out between opposing parliamentary camps. Two days later, Bahar, Iran’s most prominent remaining reformist newspaper, was ordered to cease operations, which effectively eliminated any dissenting voice in the press and sent a message to reformist President Muhammad Khatami that he was powerless to enact concrete reforms.
The press crackdown intensified with the jailing of renowned journalist Masud Behnud on Aug. 9, two days after Iran’s Journalists Day, which has been officially recognized by the government.
For the conservative press, these moves came as long-overdue retribution for months of sniping and mutual recriminations with the surviving reformist newspapers. Kayhan, the largest conservative daily, printed an editorial on the day after the parliamentary fracas, which claimed that Khamenei had the “support of the masses” and that no insult to religion should be tolerated. Similarly, an Aug. 12 editorial in the conservative Resalaat defended the press crackdown and said the general public should “shout out in defense of religion.”
In an attempt to hedge Khamenei’s legal slap, the moderate Hamshari printed an interview with Ahmad Pournejati, the head of the Parliamentary Culture Commission, on Aug. 9, the day after the closure of Bahar. Pournejati was quoted as saying that he had no quarrel with Bahar and was surprised by its closure, implying that the order had come from higher authorities.
Hayat-e-No, another moderate paper, also tested the narrowed press boundaries in an Aug. 7 article, quoting reformist parliamentarians who questioned both the cogency of Khamenei’s position and the ban’s legality.
But the most important voice of all was silent: President Khatami kept a conspicuously low profile on the controversy, and opted for damage control instead of confrontation. In an April 7 speech, which was quoted in the reformist Iran, Khatami advised that “cultural freedom and other demands of youth can only be achieved by working within the framework of the law.” Yet, it is unclear how far Khatami’s promised reforms can go when his opponents hold the legal reins.
In the weeks preceding the Aug. 6 parliamentary session, a public feud emerged in print between Kayhan, and Iran and the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) when Kayhan’s editors, who align themselves with Khatami’s opponents, showed their willingness to play ball with the conservatives. In mid-July, Kayhan journalists had logged on to the Web site for Human Rights Watch and downloaded a list of names of Iranian scholars, lawyers, journalists, and intellectuals who had been recipients of Hellman/Hammett grants given by Human Rights Watch to “writers who have been targets of political persecution.” The paper published the names, branding them as U.S. lackeys and potential spies, and referring to Human Rights Watch as “the United States Department of Human Rights.”
Surprisingly, both IRNA and Iran, neither of which is known as a bastion of liberalism, hammered Kayhan for overstepping its role as a newspaper and fueling an intellectual witch hunt. Many newspaper readers also lashed out at Kayhan for its unprofessionalism in targeting respected intellectuals, some of whom are now dead. There were reports of young protesters demonstrating against the sale of Kayhan at newsstands around Tehran, and a letter to the editor on July 29—which Kayhan surprisingly published—said that the newspaper should be used only as diapers for babies.
Irrespective of the outcome of these skirmishes, there is little doubt about who currently holds the upper hand in the battle for freedom of the press. And with Iranian presidential elections scheduled for next year, the latest attack on free speech casts a shadow on the future of the reform movement in Iran and of President Khatami himself.
