Pro-reform newspaper banned for 10 days in Iran
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's hard-line judiciary banned the country's most prominent reformist daily for 10 days for failing to follow instructions to print a statement for three days in a row, the paper's editor said Sunday.
Morad Veisi, editor of Yas-e-Nou, a daily close to Iran's largest reformist political party, said he received a letter Sunday evening from the judiciary ordering him to stop publishing for 10 days.
The letter -- signed by one of Iran's deputy prosecutor general _ cited Yas-e-Nou's failure to publish a 71/2-page judiciary statement issued by the judiciary over three days, Veisi told The Associated Press.
The statement, explaining the verdict against a member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front laid by the judiciary in February, was published in one issue over 10 pages.
Veisi said the judiciary wanted him to publish the entire statement for three days, with big chunks of it on the front page.
"We published the judiciary's statement to show our goodwill. That the judiciary issues an order and determines how we should publish its response ... is misuse of legal powers by the judiciary officials," Veisi said.
Abbas Abdi, a senior member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, was sentenced in February to eight years in prison for selling classified information to foreign intelligence agencies after a poll he conducted showed strong public support for dialogue with America. He is appealing the verdict.
In the past months, Yas e-Nou has been running a series of articles on Abdi's condition. The judiciary asked the paper to run its full report on the case. Veisi said the paper conceded the first day, but did not have to take its publication instructions from the judiciary.
Mass closures of newspapers began in April 2000, days after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said 10 to 15 reformist publications were "bases of the enemy."
Hard-liners have closed down over 100 pro-democracy publications and jailed several dozen writers and political activists since then, almost all of them without trial or in closed trials without a jury.
Security agents routinely visit the print shop in the evening to see if the papers are adhering to the ban. Newspapers normally observe the ban to avoid clashes with the security.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/09/28/iran.paperbanned.ap/index.html