The Smell of Death In the Press Room

Roozonline -Babak Mehdizade
30 Oct 2006

“Roozegar” daily was shut down after publishing only five issues. It received a warning earlier last week from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance for not having a permit to publish political stories. The daily removed its political pages but was shut down after publishing two more issues.
“Roozegar” daily was shut down after publishing only five issues. It received a warning earlier last week from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance for not having a permit to publish political stories. The daily removed its political pages but was shut down after publishing two more issues.
A number of Roozegar’s prominent writes including Mohammad Ghoochani, Ahmad Zeidabadi, Reza Khojaste Rahimi, Mohammad Javadrooh and Abdolreza Tajik left the daily after the ministry’s warnings. However, Roozegar was still shut down and the “smell of death permeated in the press room” once again, according to Farid Modaresi.
Although the Islamic Republic cannot tolerate professional publications such as Roozegar and Shargh, there are other avenues for doing journalistic work. As Mohsin Armin tells Rooz, “Things can be said on the internet or satellite instead of newspapers.” Some Roozegar workers – those who had blogs – did just that.
Mohammad-Javad Rooh writes in his blog Samimanetar, “Apparently prior to Roozegar’s publishing, one of its editors had a meeting with Mokhtapour, deputy minister of culture. Mokhtapour tells him in that meeting that he cannot work with the Shargh people. He said he will have enough oversight on them. But Mokhtapour responded, no matter how much you try, Ghoochani, Khojaste and Rooh will do their own thing!”“Although this semi-warning did not prevent us from working with Roozegar,” continues Rooh, “Even in the first three issues [which did not have important political stories anyway] the officials smelled Shargh’s footsteps and ultimately, without finding a smoking gun, shut down the newspaper.”
Akbar Montajebi, political correspondent for Shargh and Roozegar writes in his blog Doran-e Emrooz, “Who would have thought that the Ahmadinejad government would give this kind of present to journalists on the eve of Ramadan’s holy end? The argument was that Roozegar resembled Shargh too much. But that is not important, since a lot of newspapers that are being published now have copied Shargh’s style after its success. Aftab-e Yazd, Hambastegi, Seday-e Edalat, Etemad and a number of other newspapers have copied Shargh’s style. So why didn’t anyone confront them?”
In Montajabi’s view, the real reason for confronting Roozegar is the upcoming city council elections. He adds, “They don’t want an influential paper to be published on election time. It is not a secret that tensions have increased recently between the conservatives and supporters of the president. Amidst these tensions prominent reformists such as Mohammad Ali Najafi, Masjed Jameii, Ebtekar, Jahangiri… have announced their candidacy. This has added to the concern of many that the reformists have come this time, organized, united and ready to conquer the city councils without any divisions. In their view, Roozegar’s existence was dangerous because it helped bring this coalition and unity into being.”
Farid Modaresi, the other political correspondent for Shargh and Roozegar writes in his blog Azar, “People are moving their belongings out of the room and the smell of death has permeated in the press room of Roozegar. Only hopelessness towards the current situation is present in the room. Dying at the hands of despicable rulers is so abominable. Those who did not pay a price for neither the revolution nor the war nor anything else are telling us today that our hands should be clubbed and our pens be broken.”

Link to this news in Roozonline:
http://r0ozonline.com/english/018309.shtml