The Banning of Bahar Newspaper and the Hate Talk

Roozonline - Hassan Rouhani’s administration has encountered two major issues within its first hundred days of office. If these are not overcome, the success of the administration of “foresight and hope”, as it calls itself, will be in serious doubt.

First: The Ban of Bahar Newspaper

The administration played along with the judiciary’s actions to shut Bahar newspaper, which may be the first serious mistake of the government. This is a major event for an administration that is possibly not in a position to withstand such serious blunders.

The shutting of the paper is an unlawful and unethical measure. Mr. Gharavi’s article titled “Imam: Political Leader or a Faithful Role-model” did not contain religious insults or slander, or even negate the necessities of religion, to deserve being labeled criminal and be banned. While the article in the paper was not liked buy many Shiites (I too did not agree with its logic and conclusion) but it was documented even if we disagreed with the way it was argued. The closure of a newspaper for an article that is neither religiously rejected nor an insult, is not justifiable through any law, let alone the fundamentals of freedom of expression.

Who has said that only articles that contain completely correct logic and argument should be published? It is noteworthy that the article was written by a Shii. Even if we suppose that it may have been written by a Sunni person then how does one reconcile the fact that just a few months ago, prior to the June presidential elections, the sitting president had gone to the Sunni provinces of Iran to get the votes of this 10+ percent minority and support in the June elections and through this act recognized their civil rights while the right of the Sunnis to express their thoughts and opinions through an article results in the closure of the newspaper where it was published?

Some government officials who tried to rationalize the malicious closure of Bahar and stamp it as a peaceful act have said such articles incited the religious and sectarian differences. But a close look at what has been happening to the Sunnis reveals the source of the differences and conflicts: They do not have the right to have their own mosque in the capital of their own province and they face layers of political and security restrictions! It is these discriminatory and insulting acts that fuel religious and sectarian differences and not the publication of an article that happens to be different from the official Shiite narrative.

It is of course not surprising that the judiciary backs up an illegal and unlawful act such as the closure of Bahar, and it is also not extraordinary that some Shiite state agencies protest the contents of the published article and even for the supporters of Shiite Talibanism to call for the elimination of the writer and the newspaper. What is strange though are the supporting actions of the government which claims to be knowledgeable of law.

Second: The Takeover of the Hate Talk

If the administration’s diplomatic efforts for a new relationship with the world were met with the full assault by media belonging to a military and ideological force to disseminate hate against healthy interactions with the world, this puzzle was brought to its conclusion with the remarks of the supreme leader of the Islamic regime. During his fifty minute speech, ayatollah Khamenei put the last brick on the wall of hate when he used these words: “… he be damned … bastard … the enemy’s deceitful smile … what the heck do they want to do now … break the mouth of these nonsense talkers … simpleton … hate … most hateful government … .” These are just a few of the words he used in his talk last week. Two thirds of the talk remarks were against the government’s diplomatic outreach. Even those sections of the talk that appeared optimistic to some observers the message is that the negotiators should not be verbally attacked because soon it will become clear that the opponents of the talks were right. Mr. Khamenei expressly said, “There will be no loss in these talks but the nation will have added to its experience which like the suspension of the enrichment in 2003 and 2004 made everybody aware that even with such cooperation, there is absolutely no hope of seeing cooperation from the Western parties.”

The remarks of Mr. Khamenei even lacked coherence. This issue began when Sheldon Adelson, a Jewish member of the US Republican party, called for a nuclear attack on Iran, which Khamenei translated into “US nuclear threat against Iran” and called on the US government to confront this. “If the Americans are sincere about the talks, they should break the mouth of these jabbers,” he said. But are the words of a party member really the position of a state or a government? Even if we accept the logic that the mouth of a person who utters such nonsense should be broken, then there will be plenty of heavy weights in Iran whose mouths will have to be broken. Friday Imams, Majlis representatives, media outlets etc trash out insults, threats and death wishes on a daily basis in the Islamic republic, which are in contrast to the official remarks of the government.

Rouhani’s administration did not emerge with pride in its first test but the hope is he will in the second test. This is the hope of those who voted for him, rather than the calls of the hardline military and ideological groups. His supporters want the negation of the talk and propagation of hate. They want and hope to end isolation and rebuild their economy. They look to the lifting of the house arrests and the end of hangings. It is then that they want to give the new administration the passing grade.