October 31
* Young Iran dramatist lands in big political drama
TEHRAN, Oct 31 (Reuters) - An Iranian student seeking to dramatise his
deep religious idealism in a small campus play has found himself at the
centre of a wider political drama and facing an uncertain future. An Iranian
court is due to issue verdict on Tuesday after a trial earlier this month
of the author, Abbas Nemati, and three others held for allegedly insulting
a Shi'ite Moslem saint in a satirical sketch published in an obscure university
journal ... FULL
TEXT
October 30
* Iran clerics group backs reformist colleague
TEHRAN, Oct 30 (Reuters) - A group of Islamic scholars in Iran have
voiced support for a maverick reformist cleric accused of political and
religious dissent, and questioned the legality of the hardline court which
began his trial on Saturday ... FULL
TEXT
October 28
* Verdict on ``blasphemous'' play expected soon
TEHRAN, Oct 28 (Reuters) - An Iranian court is expected to issue a verdict
on Saturday against three students and a professor held in connection with
a satirical play allegedly insulting a Shi'ite Moslem saint, the judge
said on Thursday. Hardline judge Saeed Mortazavi told reporters that his
verdict would be delivered to the defendants, still in jail, and their
lawyers, on Saturday before being released to the media ... FULL
TEXT
October 26
* Nouri says only prison can silence him
TEHRAN, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Reformist Abdollah Nouri defied his conservative
critics on Tuesday, warning Iran's hardline clerical court on the eve of
his dissent trial that the only way to silence him was to throw him in
jail ... FULL
TEXT
* Nouri faces hardline clerical court
TEHRAN, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Reformist cleric Abdollah Nouri, a vanguard
figure in Iran's pro-democracy camp, will on Saturday appear before the
Special Court for Clergy to answer charges of political and religious dissent
... FULL
TEXT
October 25
* Court jails cleric over protest letter- paper
TEHRAN, Oct 25 (Reuters) - A hardline Iranian court has jailed an outspoken
reformist cleric for one year for signing a petition against the house
arrest of Iran's leading dissident clergyman, a newspaper reported on Monday
... FULL
TEXT
* Khatami sues hardline newspaper
TEHRAN, Oct 25 (Reuters) - The head of Iran's leading hardline newspaper
was summoned to court on Monday on a complaint by President Mohammad Khatami's
office over the alleged publication of confidential material ... FULL
TEXT
October 24
* Court prepares landmark case against reformer
TEHRAN, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Leading reformist Abdollah Nouri goes on
trial later this week before a panel of hardline clerics in a case that
will help shape Iran's political and religious future. Nouri, a mid-ranking
Shi'ite Moslem cleric and close ally of President Mohammad Khatami, faces
charges of defaming late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,
challenging Islamic principles and backing renewed ties to Iran's arch-foe,
the United States ... FULL
TEXT
October 22
* Nouri takes message to hardline heartland
QOM, Iran, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Cleric and leading reformist Abdollah
Nouri on Friday carried his radical doctrine of religious pluralism to
this holy Shi'ite city, spiritual home to Iran's conservative establishment
... FULL
TEXT
October 22
* Iran shuts down student paper over attack photos
TEHRAN, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Iranian authorities have closed a student
publication for carrying photos of a bloody police attack on student dormitories,
which sparked widespread unrest in July, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
It was the second recent closure of a student magazine in Iran, where several
moderate dailies have been banned this year ... FULL
TEXT
October 21
* Iran court hears prominent blasphemy case
TEHRAN, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Iran's judiciary on Wednesday bore down on
four students and a professor charged with insults against one of Shi'ite
Islam's holiest figures, assembling a special panel of Supreme Court judges
and hinting it may hand down the death penalty. Lined up along one wall
of the crammed, top-floor courtroom were six senior clerics from the Supreme
Court acting as advisers to Judge Saeed Mortezavi, who under Iranian law
doubles as prosecutor ... FULL
TEXT
* New press jury elected
Tehran (Cinema) - Members of the press jury have been elected for a
new term. With its new members, the jury may not be as harsh toward the
moderate press. But some say there will be no significant change in direction
... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
October 18
* Nuri says Iran hardliners fighting Islam, history
TEHRAN, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Reformist cleric Abdollah Nouri on Monday
dismissed any attempt to halt Iran's move toward greater pluralism as a
vain effort to stem the tide of Islam and world history ... FULL
TEXT
* First woman editor jailed in Iran out on bail
TEHRAN, Oct 18 (AFP) - The first woman newspaper editor jailed in Iran,
Jaleh Oskui, has been released on bail, a journalist on her weekly Penj-Shanbeh-ha
(Thursdays) told AFP Monday. Oskui, 40, who was jailed last week for repeatedly
publishing "outrageous" articles, was released late Saturday
"after providing some 83,000 dollars bail," the journalist said
... FULL
TEXT
October 16
* Iran court orders liberal editor jailed
TEHRAN, Oct 16 (Reuters) - An Iranian court on Saturday ordered the
arrest of a leading pro-reform editor whose newspaper was recently banned
for questioning Islamic principles, his colleagues said ... FULL
TEXT
October 13
* Prosecutor charges reformist editor who repeatedly defied court
bans
TEHRAN, Oct 13 (AFP) - Iranian prosecutors have formally pressed charges
against leading reformist editor Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, who has defied
three court-imposed bans on his papers by bringing out new titles, the
judiciary announced on Wednesday. "The editor-in-chief of the (now
banned) daily Neshat will be prosecuted and tried in the presence of other
journalists," the judiciary said in a statement carried by the official
IRNA news agency ... FULL
TEXT
* Hard-liners fight for power
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Threatened by presidential reforms,
Iranian hard-liners have made an ambitious bid at preserving their power
by indicting President Mohammad Khatami's closest ally. A special clerical
court that operates behind closed doors indicted Abdollah Nouri on Monday
on some of the most serious charges ever brought against a senior politician
in Iran's Islamic government. Nouri, a towering figure in the reformist
camp and Khatami's right-hand man, was ordered to appear before the court
Oct. 20 ... FULL
TEXT
* Culture minister condemns summons against reformist editor
TEHRAN, Oct 13 (AFP) - Iran's Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani condemned
as "illegal and political" Wednesday a summons from the conservative
clergy court to a reformist newspaper editor and former vice-president
to answer a host of serious charges. Abdollah Nuri, who heads the leading
Khordad daily, has been ordered to appear before the special court for
the clergy on October 20, his paper said Tuesday ... FULL
TEXT
* Iran denies suicide of suspect in dissident murders
TEHRAN, Oct 13 (AFP) - Iran's military judiciary denied Wednesday a
press report that a second suspect in a wave of murders of dissidents here
last year has committed suicide in prison, the IRNA news agency reported.
A statement by the military coupled the denial of the report Tuesday in
the reformist Azad daily with a warning that the publication of "lies"
about the case could lead to prosecution for complicity ... FULL TEXT
* Tehran campus revue "blasphemy" trial to open next week
TEHRAN, Oct 13 (AFP) - Suspects held over a "blasphemous"
play published in a Tehran student revue which outraged conservatives and
hardliners here will appear in court next week, the official IRNA news
agency reported Wednesday. "The accused from the student magazine
Moj (Wave) will be publicly tried on Wednesday before Judicial Section
1,410," a section of the courts reserved for press cases, the news
agency said ... FULL
TEXT
* Condemnation of arrest of woman editor by Reporters Sans Frontieres
TEHRAN, Oct 13 (AFP) - Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), the Paris-based
press freedom watchdog, expressed concern Wednesday at the recent arrest
of an Iranian woman editor and called on Iran's president to use his influence
to have her released. Considering that the journalist had "not undergone
a fair trial", RSF said it regarded the arrest "as an arbitrary
detention and as a violation of press freedom", in a faxed statement
received by AFP here ... FULL
TEXT
October
"As Fragile as a Crystal Glass"
Press Freedom in Iran
Human Rights Watch
October 1999
Press freedom and state regulation of the press have emerged as crucial
issues in the struggle for power between reformists and conservatives in
Iran today. The independent press is the preeminent mouthpiece of the reform
movement, and thus a target for conservatives. Since coming to power in
August 1997, President Mohammad Khatami has been credited with presiding
over greater freedom of the press and more open public discussion on a
wide range of issues. But while the Iranian press has displayed great diversity
and vibrancy, basic legal safeguards for freedom of expression, the right
to which is enshrined in international law, are lacking. As a consequence,
the press remains vulnerable to the shifting currents of Iranian politics,
and journalists, writers and editors continue to be subject to recurrent
waves of repression ... FULL
TEXT
October 8
* Iran holds six new suspects for dissidents' murders
TEHRAN, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Iranian authorities arrested six new suspects
in connection with a series of dissidents' murders last year blamed on
rogue secret police agents, Iranian state television reported on Thursday.
It quoted a statement from the military courts as saying an investigation
had been launched into the role of the six in the murders of veteran opposition
leader Dariush Forouhar, his wife Parvaneh, and two outspoken dissident
intellectuals ... FULL
TEXT
October 7
* Banned daily returns to news-stands under new name
TEHRAN, Oct 7 (AFP) - Senior staff members of the leading reformist
daily Neshat, banned for "insulting Islam," defied the conservative-led
clampdown against the moderate press Thursday by bringing a new daily to
the newsstands. "Asr-e Azadegan (Era of the Freed) is Neshat's replacement,"
a staff member told AFP. Editor-in-chief of the new moderate paper, Mashallah
Shamsolvaezin, and his main deputy, Hamid-Reza Jalaipur, retained the positions
they had held at Neshat on the new newspaper ... FULL
TEXT
* Why we keep publishing
Neshat's successor hits the news-stands
Editorials (in Persian) by:
- Mashallah
Shamsolvaezin
- Hamid-Reza
Jalaie-pour
October 6
* Pro-reform Iran editors ready new daily after ban
TEHRAN, Oct 6 (Reuters) - A team of reformist Iranian editors was busy
on Wednesday preparing to launch yet another newspaper after hardliners
banned three previous dailies, a source in the newsroom said. ``God willing,
Asr-e Azadegan newspaper will be on the newsstands on Thursday,'' the source
close to publisher Ghafour Garshasbi told Reuters. ``This newspaper will
continue the same reformist line as its predecessors,'' he said ... FULL
TEXT
* Iran arrests relatives of dissidents' murder suspects: paper
TEHRAN, Oct 6 (AFP) - Iranian police have arrested relatives of the
alleged murderers of several intellectual opponents of the regime, including
the wife of the man charged with killing a leading dissident couple, the
press here said Wedndesday. The relatives are being questioned by police,
the English-language Tehran Times said, quoting an "informed source."
... FULL TEXT
October 5
* Iran closes publisher over ``blasphemous'' book
TEHRAN, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Iran has suspended the licence of a publishing
house which printed a book deemed blasphemous to Shi'ite Islam, an official
at the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry said on Tuesday. The official
told Reuters the book Divaneh-ye Dovvom (The Second Lunatic) was written
in what he termed a ``cryptic style'' and disparaged the 12th Imam, whose
return to earth to usher in an era of perfect justice is eagerly awaited
by pious Shi'ites ... FULL
TEXT
October 3
* Iran recommends legal action over satirical play
TEHRAN, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Iranian authorities said on Sunday they had
completed an investigation into a satirical play, which had caused an uproar
among hardliners, and transferred the files of four suspects to the judiciary
for legal action. The official IRNA news agency quoted a statement by the
intelligence ministry as saying the suspects had confessed ``to being guilty''
over the play ... FULL
TEXT
* Leading liberal editor summoned to Iranian court
TEHRAN, Oct 3 (Reuters) - A leading pro-reform editor was summoned to
Iran's press court on Sunday in connection with an earlier case that saw
his newspaper, Neshat, banned for insulting Islam, a newspaper colleague
said. Mashallah Shamsolvaezin's court appearance comes a day after he and
a colleague appealed to reformist President Mohammad Khatami to break his
silence on the mounting pressures against the pro-reform press ... FULL TEXT
October 2
* Editors ask Khatami to defend the press
TEHRAN, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Two leading Iranian journalists appealed to
reformist President Mohammad Khatami on Saturday to break his silence on
the mounting pressures against his allies in the press. In an open letter
to the president, Hamid Reza Jalaiepour and Mashallah Shamsolvaezin asked
Khatami -- who has fostered Iran's independent press in his campaign for
a civil society -- to shield them from their powerful critics ... FULL TEXT
