Play prompts arrests in Middle East
Oct 4, 1999, DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Two more suspects have
been detained in connection with a satirical play deemed insulting to Islam,
Iran's Intelligence Ministry said, according to the official Islamic Republic
News Agency.
The ministry did not say in its report, which was carried by IRNA late
Sunday, when the suspects were arrested or whether they had been detained
with the co-editors of the play on Sept. 24.
But the report said that following ``a thorough cross-examination, the
accused confessed to being guilty of the profane acts,'' according to IRNA,
monitored in Dubai. It was not clear from the report how many have confessed.
``The publication of the sacrilegious play, which coincided with the
recommencement of the new Iranian academic year, seemed to be a premeditated
plot,'' said the report, according to IRNA.
The play, which was never staged, appeared last month in Mowj, a journal
of the Amir Kabir Technical University.
It was condemned as defamatory to the 12th Imam, one of the holiest
figures for Iran's majority Shiite Muslim population.
Officials have said the text involved the theme of faking religious
convictions for political gain.
The satire sparked factional tensions in Iran after hard-liners used
the play to condemn President Mohammad Khatami for allowing greater freedom
of expression and a senior police chief threatened to kill the play's co-editors
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, defused the tensions by
ordering the hard-liners to back off.
Authorities have been worried that the start of the academic year last
Wednesday could have sparked trouble similar to July's pro-democracy student
protests that swept several parts of Iran and raised tensions between the
two ruling factions.
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