The reformist daily Yas No has been stopped from publishing, a day after it returned to news-stands following a six year ban, ISNA news agency reported yesterday.
Publication of Yas No (“New Jasmine”) was stopped in response to a “request” from Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi whose complaint six years ago led to the closure of the newspaper, Iranian Deputy Culture Minister Ali Reza Malekian said.
The newspaper was relaunched on Saturday.
“Mortazavi wrote a letter on Saturday, saying he was one of the main complainants against the newspaper [six years ago] and that the judge’s decision [taken a few months ago authorizing the relaunch] was not communicated to him so that he can appeal,” Malekian said.
Mortazavi has now filed an appeal and publication of the newspaper has been stopped at his request, the deputy minister said.
TIES
Yas No is seen as close to reformist former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami.
It was banned by the judiciary six years ago when it published a letter from reformist members of parliament questioning supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s role in the mass disqualification of candidates in the 2004 parliamentary election.
The judiciary is dominated by conservatives and closed scores of reformist titles during Khatami’s presidency between 1997 and 2005.
Iran goes to the polls on June 12 for a presidential election in which Khatami is backing moderate former Iranian prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi against hardline incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
CRITICISM
Meanwhile, Iranian presidential hopeful Mehdi Karroubi criticized Ahmadinejad for his denial of the Holocaust, saying it served Israeli interests, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
“Ahmadinejad has done Israel the greatest service by speaking of the Holocaust because now the world has risen to support Israel,” Karroubi was quoted as saying by his National Confidence party Etemad-e Melli newspaper.
“Why do we speak of the Holocaust, do we want to defend Hitler,” said Karroubi, adding that Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust has reinforced Iran’s international isolation.
The former parliament speaker and veteran reformist is one of the few politicians who has dared in the past criticize Ahmadinejad over his dismissal of the Holocaust as a “myth.”
Karroubi, 72, is one of two key moderate figures, with former Iranian prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who are planning to challenge Ahmadinejad in the June 12 election.
Karroubi contested the last presidential election in 2005 but lost to Ahmadinejad and as he registered his candidacy earlier this month he said he was “standing for change” and described the Ahmadinejad government as “incapable and unfit” to run the Islamic republic.
In his four years as president, Ahmadinejad has drawn condemnation abroad for his anti-Israel tirades and for doggedly pursuing Iran’s nuclear program, which global powers suspect is cover for a drive for the bomb.
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