About Bahar

Bahar

Bahar was a Persian-language reformist daily newspaper published in Tehran, Iran. Its name meant The Spring. It was founded on 1 May 2000, during the presidency of the reformist Mohammad Khatami, and its managing editor, Saeed Pourazizi, simultaneously served as director general of the Presidential Media Office, a connection that made the paper one of the most visible reformist titles of its era and one of the most exposed to the judiciary's campaign against the reformist press. The paper was banned repeatedly: it was closed by Tehran's Press Court in August 2000, only three months after its launch; it was suspended again in January 2003 after publishing investigations touching institutions answerable to the Supreme Leader; after a long absence it was relaunched in January 2010 and closed again that April; and after resuming publication at the end of 2012, it was suspended in October 2013 over a religious article, becoming the first newspaper banned under President Hassan Rouhani. Its managing editor was arrested in November 2013 in connection with that article, and no return to publication followed in the record of its bans.

Founding in the Khatami era

Bahar was established in May 2000, with its founding dated to 1 May 2000. It appeared at the height of the political struggle over the reform movement: the reformists had won the parliamentary elections of February 2000, and a parliament sympathetic to President Khatami was preparing to debate liberalising the restrictive press law, while the conservative judiciary was closing reformist publications in waves. The paper's managing editor was Saeed Pourazizi, who served as director general of the Presidential Media Office while Mohammad Khatami was in office, and was described in press reporting as being in charge of the president's press service and as a close aide to the president. That dual role gave the new daily a semi-official standing within the reformist camp unusual among the independent press: it was a popular reformist newspaper published, in effect, from inside the presidency's own communications apparatus. The paper quickly became one of the last reformist publications still authorised as the closures mounted, which raised the significance of its own case when the Press Court moved against it within three months of its first issue.

The first closure, August 2000

On 2 August 2000 Tehran's Press Court ordered the suspension of Bahar, to take effect on 8 August. The court justified its decision by several complaints and dubiousnesses, notably the publishing of false reports, and press reports said the paper was closed for disturbing public opinion. The timing was pointed: two days before the closure took effect, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had intervened to quash the reformist parliament's bill to amend the country's restrictive press laws, withdrawing the liberalising amendment from the parliament's agenda. On 7 August the daily published a statement attributed to the president's brother, Mohammad-Reza Khatami, claiming that the Supreme Leader's decision was a plot organised against parliament. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that the Press Court shut down the popular daily on Tuesday 8 August 2000, intensifying a crackdown on the press that had begun in April, and noted that the previous day a pro-reform weekly, Cheshmeh Ardebil, had been suspended for four months and a liberal opposition journalist arrested. CPJ's executive director Ann Cooper called the move extremely disheartening to those who believed press freedom was a universal right, and CPJ sent a protest letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, whom it had named in March to its list of the Ten Worst Enemies of the Press. Reporters Without Borders denounced the decision as taken against the people's will as expressed in favour of democratisation and liberalisation in the February 2000 general elections, described Bahar as one of the last reformist publications still authorised whose suspension prevented reformers from accessing a significant forum, and recorded that twenty-four publications had been banned since 1 January 2000 and eleven journalists were then imprisoned in Iran.

Reporting before the 2003 suspension

The paper was publishing again by the beginning of 2003, and the reporting recorded against it in that period showed why it remained a target. Human Rights Watch noted that before its 2003 closure Bahar had reported on the funding of Iran's state television and radio broadcast organisation, an institution accountable only to the Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Another recent Bahar report concerned the purchase by the Alzahra Society, a charitable foundation whose board included two high-ranking members of the Council of Guardians, of hundreds of millions of rials of stocks. Both stories touched bodies that stood outside elected government: the broadcasting monopoly answerable to the Supreme Leader, and a foundation linked to members of the council that vetted candidates and legislation. Human Rights Watch's Washington director Joe Stork observed that Iran's remaining independent press had been a key public forum, instancing the public debate about parliament's efforts to limit the power of the Council of Guardians, and that the conservatives had seized on any pretext to shut that forum down.

The January 2003 suspension

On 11 January 2003 branch 1408 of the Tehran Public Court ordered the suspension of Bahar until further notice. In a letter to Ahmad Masjed-Jamei, the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the court stated that the newspaper had insulted the authorities, without any elaboration. Other reporting of the order recorded thirteen charges of violations filed against the daily, including insulting state officials and inciting discontent among the public, and quoted the court as saying that Bahar, despite earlier suspension and conviction on several charges, had been persisting in propagating against the Islamic system and publishing lies in order to instigate public opinion, and was prevented from printing and publishing until further notice. The same day, the Special Court for the Clergy closed the daily Hayat-e No over a reprinted American cartoon. Human Rights Watch's press release of 15 January 2003, headlined as an intensifying press crackdown, treated the two closures together as blows against the remaining independent press, and called for both papers to be permitted to reopen. The 2003 suspension began the paper's long disappearance: reference summaries of the paper's history described the ban that followed its early closures as lasting until its relaunch a decade after its founding.

Relaunch and renewed closure, 2010

Following its long ban, Bahar was relaunched in January 2010. The return came months after the disputed presidential election of June 2009 and the suppression of the protest movement that followed it, a climate in which independent and reformist titles operated under exceptional pressure. On 19 April 2010 the paper was closed down again by the Press Supervisory Board, for publishing items contrary to reality and creating doubt regarding major issues such as the elections. The stated grounds pointed directly at the still-unresolved national argument over the 2009 vote: a newspaper that cast doubt on the election was, in the board's formulation, publishing material contrary to reality. The paper was later republished once more, and by the beginning of 2013 it was again among the reformist titles operating in Tehran, though the pattern of its existence had been set: each return was followed, within months, by a new closure order from one of the overlapping bodies, the Press Court, the public courts or the Press Supervisory Board, that policed Iran's newspapers.

The January 2013 raids

In January 2013 Bahar's offices were among those raided in the largest crackdown on the Iranian press since 2009. On 27 and 28 January 2013 security officers raided the offices of the reformist publications Bahar, Shargh, Arman, Etemad and Aseman Weekly and arrested at least fourteen journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Those taken from Bahar included its editor Soleiman Mohammadi and reporter Emily Amraee, and arrest warrants were issued for at least three other journalists in the sweep, including Bahar reporter Reihaneh Tabatabei, who was told by colleagues that security officers had asked for her during the raids. CPJ called on the authorities to release all the journalists immediately and to halt the practice of imprisoning critical journalists; local accounts said the detained journalists were accused of cooperating with anti-revolutionary news outlets based outside Iran, and many were later released without being formally charged. Radio Free Europe reported that Iran's reformist newspapers, Bahar among them, protested against the arrests of the journalists. The raids came in the run-up to the June 2013 presidential election and demonstrated that, four closures into its life, the paper remained classified by the security apparatus among the reformist outlets to be warned before a national vote.

Final period and contributors

Bahar had resumed publication at the end of 2012, after its 2010 ban, alongside the reformist daily Shargh, which had also returned after a ban lasting several years. In its final period the paper carried contributions from senior reformist figures. One of its contributors was Masoumeh Ebtekar, the former vice president, and in one of her 2013 articles in Bahar she argued that Iranian women have the necessary religious and political qualifications which make them eligible to run for the presidency, a live constitutional argument in Iran, where women's eligibility for the presidency had long been disputed by the Guardian Council's interpretation of the constitution. The paper also published, in October 2013, the open letter in which more than 200 writers, poets and translators appealed to the new culture minister for an end to censorship and vowed to take responsibility for the consequences of anything they wrote. Weeks later the paper that had carried that appeal was itself closed for the last time in its recorded history.

The October 2013 article and suspension

On 23 October 2013 Bahar published an article by the religious-nationalist activist Asghar Gharavi headlined, in translation, Ali, the Shiites' first Imam, was a religious leader before being a political leader. The article was regarded by the authorities as undermining Islamic principles and as questioning the legitimacy of the Supreme Leader: hardline media interpreted its distinction between Imam Ali's religious and political authority as an implied criticism of Ayatollah Khamenei and of the doctrine of clerical rule. Before the ban, the daily issued an apology note saying that publishing the article was an unintentional mistake, and it temporarily suspended its own activities to ease the tensions. On 28 October 2013 the Press Authorization and Surveillance Commission, run by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, suspended the paper under article 12 of the press code. The ministry accused the newspaper of falsifying history and trying to create differences among the country's clerics, and described the article as having insulted Islam's sacred texts. Culture Minister Ali Jannati said the article fomented religious conflicts and that the daily had received earlier warnings. On 30 October judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani warned that his department would act with determination against those who falsify history and try to undermine the fundamentals of the regime. Reporters Without Borders condemned the suspension, saying that despite President Rouhani's election promises it showed the regime's reform priorities were reducing tension with the international community, not reducing the suppression of freedoms.

Arrest of the managing editor

On Saturday 2 November 2013 Saeed Pourazizi, the paper's head, was arrested for publishing the article. His wife, Masoumeh Shahriari, told the Fars news agency that he had been summoned to the prosecutor's office that day, was arrested and transferred to Evin prison in northern Tehran, that the public prosecutor had lodged a complaint against him, and that the family had not been informed of the amount of bail needed while he tried to negotiate release. The author of the article was also arrested, and both men were later released on bail; one account put the editor's bail at 80,000 dollars. The suspension made Bahar the first publication banned in Iran following the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, who had taken office in August 2013 with the support of reformists and moderates after pledging in his campaign to work for more social freedom, warning his rivals during a June debate that censorship kills creativity, and seeing several reformist journalists and political activists released in his first months. Freedom House recorded the ban in its annual assessment as a Press Supervisory Board action against a reformist newspaper for publishing an article that questioned the authority of the first Shiite imam, Ali, as a political rather than a religious leader, with the managing editor and the author arrested and later released on bail.

Legacy

Bahar's career traced the whole arc of the reformist press experiment and its aftermath. Born in May 2000 from inside President Khatami's own media office, it was closed within three months as the judiciary dismantled the reformist press, closed again in 2003 after investigating institutions answerable only to the Supreme Leader, silenced for most of a decade, briefly revived and closed in 2010 for casting doubt on a disputed election, raided in the pre-election sweep of January 2013, and finally suspended in October 2013, under a president elected on promises of greater openness, for a theological article about the first Imam. Few Iranian newspapers were banned under three different presidents. Its record, preserved in the reporting of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House, made it a standard reference case in accounts of how Iran's press law, press courts and supervisory boards were used, across thirteen years, to keep a prominent reformist daily from ever achieving a stable existence.