Iran’s Ettelaat newspaper has strongly objected to the state’s ban on publishing the name or images of a former reformist President, Mohammad Khatami.
In an unprecedented move underlying the complexities of Tehran’s internal politics, the managing editor of the state-run newspaper with nearly 90 years’ history, wrote a front-page editorial on Wednesday stating that the ban is against the country’s Constitution, which prohibits censorship.
Letter to Rouhani
The article, published in the form of a public letter addressed to President Hassan Rouhani, is written by the editor Seyed Mahmoud Doaei, a reformist cleric who has urged him to intervene and defend the media against a serious threat to press freedom imposed by the hardline judiciary.
Ettelaat ’s article on Wednesday has mentioned Khatami’s full name no less than three times. It emerged earlier this year that a media blackout had been imposed regarding Khatami, who fell foul of establishment over his support for opposition leaders and former presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2015
