Closing the case and arresting the press after Ayatollah Khamenei's speech

Ayatollah Khamenei said in the youth gathering that was held under the title of Yar meeting on April 20, 2000 in Mosli, Tehran, while strongly criticizing the performance of some media in violating the sanctity of the fundamental issues of Islam and the values ​​of the Islamic Revolution, stating that some of the media have turned into bases of the enemy. :

"I am not against the freedom and diversity of the press, and if instead of twenty newspapers, two hundred newspapers are published in Iran, I will be happier, and I do not feel bad about the fact that there are many press and newspapers in this country. If the press, as specified in the constitution, is a source of enlightenment, respects the interests of the country, and writes for the benefit of the people and religion, the more of these presses, the better."

He also strongly condemned and condemned the attention of some press to disturb public opinion, create differences and pessimism in the people and readers towards the system and said:

"It is as if ten to fifteen newspapers are directed from one center, they use similar headlines in different cases, they make small cases appear big and use headlines that anyone who looks at them will think that in this country everyone Something is missing. They kill the spirit of hope in the youth, weaken the spirit of trust in the officials and insult the main institutions of the country."

The leader of the Islamic Republic referred to the method of some press as press charlatanism and added:

"In a world where their journalism is considered a model of some of our newspapers, they do not attack the Constitution and the Legislative Assembly, and there is no hooching in front of a law, but this group of our press has gone a step ahead of the original owners of these methods, the Constitution and They insult the main policies of the country, magnify small issues, and fill the country with slander and slander in every incident that happens."

After this speech, a number of 18 newspapers and magazines were cited by the judiciary, citing Article 13 of the Security Measures Law of 1960, which stipulates that "in order to maintain security, tools and equipment in the hands of criminals and dangerous lunatics must be collected before an accident occurs." ", were confiscated.

The parliament of that time tried to make this law inapplicable to the press with a legal interpretation, but the Guardian Council and then the Council of Expediency, in a strange process, included the passage of time, which tells a different story.

Abdollah Abdi