July 28
* Serial murders' committee asked to clarify cause of death of "dissident"
July 28, 1999, Domestic Desk (Neshat - BBC worldwide Monitoring): In
a statement a group of nationalist and religious personalities have called
on the Serial Killings' Follow-up Committee to clarify the cause of the
death of Dr Majid Sharif.... FULL
TEXT
* Assault on independent press in Iran intensifies
New York, July 28, 1999 (Human Rights Watch -- The assault by Iranian
authorities against publishers and editors associated with the country's
independent press has become wider and more intense in recent days. On
July 25, the Special Court for the Clergy convicted Hojatoleslam Seyyid
Mohamed Musavi-Khoeiniha, publisher of the daily newspaper Salam, on charges
of misinforming the public ... FULL
TEXT
* Iran students file libel charges against dailies
TEHRAN, July 28 (Reuters) - An Iranian umbrella student organisation
with 50,000 members has filed suit in a criminal case against three hardline
dailies, a newspaper said on Wednesday. The Office to Consolidate Unity,
which led widespread pro-democracy student protests amid attacks by police
and hardline vigilantes this month, has accused Kayhan, Resalat and Abrar
newspapers of libel, the daily Iran said ...
FULL TEXT
July 27
* Khatami says no turning back on justice
HAMADAN, Iran, July 27 (Reuters) - President Mohammad Khatami, his reformist
policies under attack by hardliners after some of the worst unrest since
the 1979 Islamic revolution, pledged on Tuesday to stand by his election
promise to protect civil liberties. Khatami kicked off a three-day tour
of the western province of Hamadan with an address to a capacity crowd
in the local sports stadium, his first public appearance since pro-democracy
student protests on July 8-13 ... FULL
TEXT
July 26
* Iran reformists hit ruling on moderate daily
TEHRAN, July 26 (Reuters) - Pro-reform Iranian newspaper editors on
Monday condemned the guilty verdict of a clerical court against the editor-in-chief
of the leading daily Salam. Mohammad Mousavi-Khoeiniha, a leftist Shi'ite
Moslem cleric, was convicted on Sunday for publishing an allegedly classified
document, slandering officials and linking MPs to a rogue secret agent
accused of masterminding murders of dissidents last year ... FULL
TEXT
July 25
* Clerics court convicts reformist publisher
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's special clerical court Sunday found the publisher
of the leading pro-reform newspaper Salam guilty of printing classified
material and defamation, the official IRNA news agency said, raising the
prospects the influential daily will be silenced for good. The agency said
Mohammad Mousavi-Khoeiniha, a powerful leftist cleric, had also been found
guilty of publishing insulting language and misleading the public ... FULL TEXT
July 22
* `Salam' closure illegal, editor says
July 22, (Hamshahri - BBC Worldwide Monitoring) - At a meeting with
the staff of the daily `Salam', Hojjat ol-Eslam val-Moslemin Musavi-Kho'iniha,
the managing-editor of `Salam', spoke about the closing down of the daily
... FULL
TEXT
* Journalists protest at colleague's arrest
July 22, daily Iran - BBC Worldwide Monitoring) -- In separate communiques
to their colleagues in 'Emrooz' daily, the journalists and correspondents
of ' Iran ' and 'Hamshahri' dailies called for the release of Kazem Shokri,
a member of that daily's ['Emrooz'] editorial board ... FULL
TEXT
* Iran's pro-reform press warns crackdown could spark more unrest
TEHRAN, July 22 (AFP) - Iran's pro-reform press on Thursday demanded
the immediate release of a jailed newspaper editor and warned the growing
conservative crackdown on journalists could lead to more unrest. ewspapers
that support reformist President Mohammad Khatami blasted the regime's
conservatives over Tuesday's arrest of Kazem Shokri, a senior editor with
Sobh-e-Emrouz, a moderate daily close to the president ... FULL TEXT
July 21
* Khatami turns on hardline critics
TEHRAN, July 21 (Reuters) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and his
reformist allies, accused of failing to defend the Islamic system during
recent unrest, on Wednesday moved against hardline publications that had
challenged him. The Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, firmly under
Khatami's control, said it had moved against three newspapers after they
published a letter by Revolutionary Guards commanders criticising Khatami
and warning their patience with ``insults against the system'' was running
out ... FULL
TEXT
* Sobh-e Emrooz editor arrested
July 21, (BBC) - The editor of a moderate Iranian national newspaper
has been arrested for allegedly insulting Islam in an article. The editor,
Kazem Shokri, of the daily Emrooz was charged on Tuesday with having authorised
the publication of an article offensive to the Koran ... FULL
TEXT
July 20
* Five Iranian Pressmen Arrested for Role in Unrest
TEHRAN (July 20) XINHUA - Five persons working for moderate dailies
have been arrested on charge of involvement in recent unrest in Tehran.
An informed source said the five people are from Zan (women), Khordad (name
of the third Iranian month), Neshat (Joy), and Azad (Freedom), the favorite
dailies of the Iranian people, particularly of the youth, the pro-conservative
daily Tehran Times reported on Tuesday ... FULL
TEXT
July 19
* Young poets
Tehran, (Hamshahri) - Mohammad Ali Zare has put
together a selection of poems from several young poets, showing that there
is real talent out there ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
July 16
* Araynpour on language & culture
Tehran, (Hamshahri) - If you are looking for an
English-Persian or Persian-English dictionary, nine out of ten you will
end up with one compiled by Manouchehr Aryanpour Kashani. Aryanpour, who
is also an authority on translation, speaks to Hamshahri about language
& culture ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
* Publish at home / new books
Tehran, (Hamshahri) - Slow business forced some
publishers to set up shot at home, illegally. Now the publishers guild
has made it official: a pubisher can be based at home. Also news about
new and notable books ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
July 15
* Remembering one of the students killed at
the dorms
Tehran, (Neshat) - Ezzatollah Ebrahim-Nezhad was
one of the students killed at the Tehran University dorms last week. He
was a friend of the poet Ali Salehi, and a bit of a poet himself... a gentle
soul ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
* Writers union takes a stand
Tehran, (Neshat) - The Iranian writers union has
issued a statement condemning the attack on students. This is one of the
first political statements by the grup since it was officially recognized
a few months ago ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
* CPJ protests campaign against media
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-governmental organization
of journalists devoted to upholding press freedom worldwide, is writing
to express its deep concern about the ongoing campaign to stifle the independent
Iranian press. Since January 1998, twelve newspapers have been closed for
printing material that members of the ruling elite deemed unacceptable,
and many journalists have been arrested and prosecuted for their reporting
on a variety of sensitive political topics ... FULL
TEXT
July 14
* Five Iranian writers win awards
New York, July 14, 1999 (Human Rights Watch) -- Of the thirty-two grant
recipients of this year's Hellman/Hammett grants, five hail from Iran.
They are Hamid-Reza Jalei-Pour, Masahallah Shamss-Ol-Vaezin, Seyeed Ebrahim
Nabvi, Akbar Ganji and Hojatolesam Mohssen Saeidzadeh. The grant program
began in 1989 when the estates of American authors Lillian Hellman and
Dashiel Hammett asked Human Rights Watch to design a program for writers
in financial need as a result of expressing their views ... FULL TEXT
July 12
* Orang Khezraie: Disrespect
Tehran, (Neshat) - The family of the poet Orang
Khezraie who died last week, was not able to bury him at the special cemetery
for literrary personalities in Isfahan. Municipality officials were demaning
a million tomans ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
July 11
* Iran papers to strike to protest at Salam closure
TEHRAN, July 11 (Reuters) - Iranian journalists plan to stage a one-day
strike on Tuesday to protest against the closure of the pro-reform Salam
newspaper, newspapers reported on Sunday. ``We will lay down our pens on
Tuesday...and invite our colleagues throughout the country to do likewise,''
said the statement signed by 583 journalists and carried by leading reformist
newspapers ... FULL
TEXT
July 8
* Iran ministry drops charges against newspaper
TEHRAN, July 8 (Reuters) - Iran's powerful intelligence ministry on
Thursday withdrew a complaint against a leading moderate newspaper, raising
hopes that the banned daily would be allowed to resume publication. ``The
intelligence ministry withdraws its complaint in line with its firm policy
of non-partisanship...and for the sake of maintaining calm, avoiding tension
and backing the government's policies on political development and legal
press freedom,'' it said in a statement carried by the official news agency
IRNA ... FULL
TEXT
July 7
* Salam daily banned as conservatives move to curb press
TEHRAN, July 7 (AFP) - Iran's state-run news agency announced the banning
of one of the country's leading reformist newspapers Wednesday just hours
after the country's conservative-dominated parliament approved fresh curbs
on the press. The Persian daily Salam, which is close to the reformist
government of President Mohammad Khatami, was banned on a "verbal
verdict of judicial authorities," the IRNA news agency quoted a "reliable
source" as saying ... FULL
TEXT
* Scandal rocks secret service
TEHRAN, July 6 (Reuters) - The case has all the elements of a classic
spy thriller -- serial murders, a mysterious suicide in the upper ranks
of the intelligence service and a missing body. Iran's widening security
scandal has sent government officials, leading politicians and senior clerics
scurrying for cover and raised doubts about the future of the country's
feared secret service ... FULL
TEXT
* Julaie was expecting something else
Tehran, (Neshat) - When Reza Julaie's "Jaameh beh Khoonaab"
(Bloody Clothes) was awarded the top award for Iranian fiction of the past
20 years he thought it was a sign of hope for authors. It hasn't happened,
he says in an interview ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
July 6
* Agent's alleged plan to suppress writers; similarties with current
Majlis bill
Salam newspaper has published excerpts from a letter allegedly written
by a top Intelligence Ministry official early last fall in which he suggests
new laws to clamp down on dissident writers. Salam says the letter was
written by Saeed Eslami, a.k.a Emami, who was arrested on charges of organizing
the infamous string of murders of dissidents ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
* Reformist press accuses MPs of preparing clampdown
TEHRAN, July 6 (AFP) - Iran's reformist press expressed "serious
concern" Tuesday as the country's conservative-dominated parliament
prepared to debate legislation tightening up controls on the media. Editors
from a dozen newspapers published a joint statement accusing the bill's
promoters of paving the way for "restrictions on the press, practically
no job security for the country's journalists and preliminary steps for
closure of various press institutions." ... FULL
TEXT
July 5
* Golshiri gets German award
Tehran, (Neshat) - Novelist Hushang Golshiri has
won a German peace prize for his collection of stories "Mardi baa
Keraavaat" (The Man with a Tie). The award includes a 26,000 deutch
mark cash prize ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
* Ahmad Shamlu's latest
Poet Ahmad Shamlu has recovered from his latest
ailments. To thank all the worried fans, his latest poem has been published
in Iran daily for the first time ... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
