Iran’s Media Crackdown

The Iranian government has shut down one of the country’s leading moderate dailies, Shargh ‘East’, because it published an interview with the expatriate poet Saghi Ghahreman, whom they accuse of being lesbian and of promoting her ’sick sexual identity, dissident views and porno personality’ on her weblog. The article itself, entitled ‘Feminine Language’ said nothing more outrageous than that ’sexual boundaries must be flexible’ and that ‘the immoral is imposed by culture on the body’. Shades of Oscar Wilde.

The West is forever getting its knichers in a twist over Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, but in general pays little attention to the moral fascism of the extremists within the regime and the revolutionary guards, who believe it is OK to execute people for their sexual orientation, or to berate or even assault women who show too much hair in public. The suppression of the freedom of expression in Iran — including some poetry — is particularly tragic, given the country’s rich literary heritage. How long would Omar Khayam or Hafiz have lasted had they been alive under the current regime? They would have been censored or silenced quickly, I am sure. And the world would have been much poorer for it.