Iran Bans TV Chief From Meetings
January 19, 1999, TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- The head of Iran's state television
has been banned from attending Cabinet sessions for airing a broadcast
that blamed supporters of the country's moderate president for a string
of recent slayings, newspapers reported Tuesday.
Ataollah Mohajerani, minister of culture and the government's spokesman,
demanded a public apology from Ali Larijani, who heads the country's radio
and TV network.
``Larijani should offer an apology to the president and the people
before he is allowed to participate in the Cabinet meetings again,'' the
English-language Iran News quoted Mohajerani as saying.
Larijani is not a minister but sat in on Cabinet sessions in his capacity
as head of the broadcast network.
Recent revelations that a rogue group inside the Intelligence Ministry
was involved in the slayings of five dissidents and writers late last year
have shaken both hard-line and moderate factions inside Iran's Islamic
government.
Both sides, locked in a bitter power struggle, have tried to distance
themselves from the killings, which are widely blamed on hard-liners opposed
to President Mohammad Khatami, a moderate.
In a broadcast on state television last week, Ruhollah Hosseinian,
a former deputy intelligence minister, said the killings were carried out
by Khatami's supporters.
The statement outraged moderates, who attacked Larijani, a hard-liner,
for allowing the program.
However, a three-member committee concluded Tuesday that Larijani was
not aware of the content of Hosseinian's comments before they were aired,
Tehran radio reported.
The committee called for unspecified disciplinary measures against
those directly involved in producing the show and recommended tighter supervision
of programming. It was not clear what effect the committee's conclusion
would have on the Cabinet ban.
Following the committee's findings, Khatami called for protecting freedom
of speech.
``We all should safeguard this divine gift and avoid transforming it
into the arena of defamation, baseless and unsubstantiated judgments, slander
and accusations,'' he was quoted as saying by the radio.
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