Summary of Iran Stories of Today's BroadcastsBehnam NateghiSaturday, January 11, 2003
<b>Judiciary Closes Two Reformist Newspapers</b>
* The conservative judiciary closed two reformist newspapers. <i>Bahar (Spring)</i>, that had begun publishing after nearly two years ban, was closed by the press court on a complaint from the public prosecutor. <i>Hayat-e Now (New Life) </i> was closed by the special court for the clergy, which indicted and released on bail its owner Hadi Khamenie, brother of the Supreme Leader. (Ardavan Niknam)
* In protest against a 1937 American cartoon printed last week in the reformist newspaper <i>Hayat-e Now,</i> hard-line conservatives staged a demonstration on Friday in front of its Tehran headquarters. In Qom, the association of the conservative Islamic seminarians called for a march on Sunday to demand the closing of the morning newspaper. <i>Hayat-e Now</i>, features news and articles written by a staff of young journalists. The newspaper apologized for the cartoon and said it would not publish on Saturday and Sunday. The cartoon shows a bearded old man who, conservatives say, resembles founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini being crushed by a large thumb. (Ardavan Niknam, Mehdi Khalaji, Amir Armin)
<b>Fars Police Bans Playing Music in Cars and Shops</b>
* Police of the central Fars province prohibited playing any kind of music at any sound level in cars and shops. (Nazi Azim)
* Tehran-based lawyer Mohammad-Hossein Aghasi tells <b>Radio Farda</b> that there is no law against listening to "legal" music, and courts would not punish anyone based on the trial code articles cited by the Fars police.(Nazi Azima)
<b>MPs Protest Judiciary's Move to Ban Internet Sites</b>
* Reformist MPs signed a petition today protesting judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmud Shahroudi's new campaign against the Internet sites he termed "unauthorized." The MPs said there are no laws in Iran against publishing news and information on the Internet. The MPs said Shahuroudi's move last week to form a three-man committee to identify "unauthorized" Internet sites was unlawful. (Mehdi Khalaji)
* Internet expert Rahim Bajoqli tells <b>Radio Farda</b> that the government cannot close Internet sites, which are mostly served by ISPs in the US or Canada, but can set up filters to block access to them in Iran. There are so many ways around those filters, however, that it is practically impossible to completely shut down access to anything on the Internet. (Ali Sajjadi)
<b>Jailed Writer Asks Family for News Silence</b>
* The wife of jailed writer and Tolstoy translator Alireza Jabbari said her husband contacted her from jail after more than two weeks since he was taken away by plainclothes agents and asked her and their daughter to stop their media campaign for his release. Jabbari did not tell her where he had been taken and on what charges. (Golnaz Esfandiari)
<b>24,000 Medical School Graduates Out of Work</b>
* Deputy healthcare minister in charge of employment Mohammad Nouri announced that nearly 26,000 recent graduates of medical schools are out of work. Of these, 8 percent are doctors and 60 percent are nurses, midwives and lab technicians.
* Paris-based education commentator Sa'id Peyvandi tells <b>Radio Farda</b> that the rising jobless rate among doctors is a result of the 8-fold growth in the number of medical school graduates in the past twenty years, which has outpaced the growth rate of hospital beds and clinics. Another problem, he says, is the low quality of medical education in some universities, particularly the Islamic Azad University. (Kian Manavi)
<b>Shiraz Court Sentences 19 Year Old Drinker to Death</b>
* A court in Shiraz sentenced a 19-year-old man to death for repeated drinking arrests, citing Islamic law. (Ardavan Niknam)
<b>Kuwaiti PM in Tehran: Water Deal</b>
* Kuwaiti prime minister arrived in Tehran to negotiate about, among other things, importing water from the Karoun River. (Farideh Rahbar, Cairo)
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روزنامه اصلاح گراي بهار كه به تازگي پس از مدتي توقيف انتشار خود را آغاز كرده بود، با شكايت مدعي العموم و به حكم دادگاه دوباره توقيف موقت شد واندكي بعد، دادگاه ويژه روحانيت به دنبال تفهيم اتهام به حجت الالسلام هادي خامنه اي، برادر رهبر جمهوري اسلامي و مدير مسئول روزنامه اصلاح طلب «حيات نو» اين روزنامه را «به طور موقت» توقيف كرد. روزنامه «حيات نو» به دنبال چاپ طرحي در شماره روز چهارشنبه خود كه پيرمرد ريش سفيدي شبيه به آيت الله خميني را در حال له شدن زير يك انگشت نشان مي داد، تحت تعقيب دادسراي ويژه روحانيت قرار گرفت. معاون مطبوعاتي وزارت ارشاد و فرهنگ اسلامي گفت نبايد سهل انگاري و خطاي يك روزنامه موجب تحريك و تشويش اذهان عمومي شود. ماشاالله شمس الواعظين، دبير انجمن دفاع از آزادي هاي مطبوعات در ايران اعلام كرد اين انجمن جلسه فوق العاده اي در باره روزنامه هاي بهار و حيات نو تشكيل خواهد داد.
