Students Blame Iran Supreme Leader |
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| January 17, 2001 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 5:06 p.m. ET TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- A leading reformist student group has accused Iran's supreme leader of trampling on press freedoms, blaming him for newspaper closings and critics being arrested. The group made its criticisms of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an unusually blunt letter sent to him and made available to The Associated Press on Wednesday. Khamenei has generally backed hard-liners in their power struggle with President Mohammed Khatami, who is trying to push reforms in the Islamic government. Khamenei has final say in all state matters, and hard-liners control the police and judiciary and other levers of power. The student group, called the Office for Fostering Unity, pointed to the judiciary in its letter, sent to Khamenei on Sunday. ``Today the judiciary, whose head is appointed by you ... is acting in a way that justice and freedom are victimized for individual interests in numerous cases,'' the group said. ``The press is the symbol of freedom of expression, and it is being closed under direct orders from you,'' said the group, which includes pro-reform Islamic associations at Tehran's top universities. ``The result of criticizing you is dismissal or suspension from jobs or jail,'' the letter said. The hard-line judiciary has closed more than 30 publications, nearly all of them reformist newspapers, and jailed prominent allies of Khatami, including journalists. In December, authorities jailed Ali Afshari, a leader of the Office for Fostering Unity, for insulting Khamenei in a speech at a university in Tehran. Several editors of reformist dailies that are still publishing said they received the letter, but were not planning to publish it for fear of a harsh reaction from the courts. The letter also criticized Khamenei for his ``silence'' on the 1998 slayings of four pro-reform writers, which were blamed by officials on ``rogue'' agents from the Intelligence Ministry. |
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