LET’S
CONSIDER THE REASONS WHY SHARQ NEWSPAPER WAS CLOSED DOWN
Mohammad
Ghouchani, the current editor in chief of Sharq daily, was
promising everyone that “in mid-90s a great revolution would
take place in Farsi press”. With the election of Khatami as
the President, Ghouchani’s dreams were coming true… When
Atriyanfer seized the control of the Hamshahri Newspaper,
Ghouchani, subordinate at that time to Hashemi Rafsanjani,
came to this daily and put his signature under a revolution
in the Farsi press indeed, by abusing funds belonging to the
state and the nation.
Backed by
the state treasury, municipal support and most important of
all the material and moral support of Rafsanjani, Ghouchani
laid the foundations of “professional press” first time in
the history of Iranian media. However, pleasant works have
not lasted long and with the coming to power of Ahmadinejad
and the removal of Atriyanfar from Hamshahri, the world
turned black in the eyes of Ghouchani. Being not able to
make his own propaganda in the context of the Hamshahri
Newspaper, has not abandoned professional journalism and
laid the foundations of the Sharq Newspaper 3 years ago,
after leaving Hamshahri.
Since its
foundation the Sharq Newspaper has been determined to
protect counterparts in Hamshahri and accordingly it has
maintained professional journalism, its main concept, along
with publishing articles preparing students for university
entrance exams, daily needs of citizens and certain topics
that require expertise. However, it was temporarily closed
down by the Iranian Press Supervision Council on September
11, 2001.
Nonetheless,
we are now facing another closure of the Sharq Newspaper…
Why was the Sharq Newspaper closed down? Who closed the
Sharq Newspaper down? Has the Ahmadinejad Government played
a role in this?
It
initially seems like the Ahmadinejad Government has been
implementing its own scenario, eliminating its political
rivals and opponents. However, for certain reasons, I object
to this opinion and believe that there is another motive. As
a matter of fact, in the current atmosphere in Iran,
Ahmadinejad and his close circle want to show the whole
world that the opposing voices in Iran are not suppressed.
For this reason, they were initially against the closure of
this newspaper and even they granted a period of one month
for them to replace the manager. The close circle of
Ghouchani and Hashemi Rafsanjani is so cunning that they do
not ruin everything by acting spontaneously. According to a
certain view, the cartoon that Mana Neyestani drew in Iran
Newspaper seems to be a step taken by Rafsanjani so as to
weaken the Ahmadinejad Government.
In near
future, the elections for the Khobregan Majlis and Local
Administrations will be held in Iran. The Sharq Newspaper
was closed before for publishing an article on our national
hero Sattar Khan and its file was sent to the court. The
mentioned circles, in a way, wanted to “hunt two birds with
a stone”. They on one hand introduced the people of
Azerbaijan as “people without tolerance” and presented the
Ahmadinejad Government as a system that could oppress its
opponent, on the other.
The Sharq
Newspaper, that was sentenced to replace its manager through
a court order, was given a month. However, the manager was
not replaced and eventually they published another cartoon.
Conclusion
The closure
of the Sharq Newspaper is a part of the scenario designed by
Rafsanjani and the Kargozaran Party to gain strength. These
cunning circles are aware that they will be on the agenda of
political and journalist platforms by the closure of their
newspaper and that they will be presented as oppressed. You
should remember that Ghouchani and his friends will show up
soon from the Kargozaran Newspaper and direct their dirty
deeds from there prior to the elections. The closure of the
Sharq Newspaper has nothing to do with Azerbaijani people
and the underlying reason is purely the contention of
administrators…!
