About Salam

Salam

Salam was a Persian-language daily newspaper published in Tehran, Iran, between 1991 and 1999. Its name, Salam, meant "Peace" or "Salute." The paper was highly influential in the country during its brief existence, and it was one of the early reformist dailies published following the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Salam became one of the most read dailies in the country soon after its launch, and it was known for investigative reporting on corruption and injustice at a time when few Iranian newspapers attempted such work. Its closure by the authorities in July 1999 triggered the Iranian student protests of that month, the first major student uprising since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and Salam was therefore remembered both as a pioneering reformist newspaper and as the spark of a national crisis.

Founding in 1991

Salam was established by a group of reformist people attached to the Association of Combatant Clerics, the reformist clerical association to which the later president Mohammad Khatami also belonged. The first issue of the paper appeared on 9 February 1991. The name of the paper was given by Ahmad Khomeini, the son of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. The paper was based in Tehran. Its publisher was Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha, who remained in the post until 1999, when the paper was disestablished. Khoeiniha was a senior figure in the Association of Combatant Clerics and had been a leader of the students who seized the United States embassy in Tehran in 1979, a background that gave the new daily an unusual standing: it was a critical, reform-leaning newspaper produced by men who had themselves been central actors in the revolution.

Investigative Reporting and Readers

In addition to quality editorials, Salam provided investigative articles about financial scandals. It was among the first newspapers in the country to deal with injustice and corruption, subjects that the established press had generally avoided. That willingness to investigate the powerful distinguished Salam from its competitors and built its reputation during the 1990s. The paper also included a special section in which readers wrote their comments or raised questions, an early form of reader participation that connected the daily to the grievances and concerns of ordinary people. Through this combination of editorial argument, investigative reporting, and readers' contributions, Salam became one of the most read dailies in Iran soon after its launch and remained highly influential throughout its existence.

Political Stance

Salam had an anti-American political stance, together with social democrat and liberal positions, and it advocated state planning in the economy. It criticised Ali Akbar Rafsanjani while he was serving as President of Iran, a notable position for a paper rooted in the clerical establishment, since Rafsanjani was one of the most powerful figures of the Islamic Republic. The paper then supported the next president, Mohammad Khatami, during his election campaign. Khatami's victory in 1997 opened the period of reformist politics with which Salam was closely identified, and the paper functioned as an important institutional support for the pro-Khatami reform movement. Its politics were therefore reformist from within the system: it sought change through journalism, elections, and public argument rather than through opposition to the Islamic Republic itself.

Editors and an Early Imprisonment

One of the editors-in-chief of Salam was Ibrahim Abedi. Abbas Abdi also served in the post, and Abdi's experience illustrated the pressures on the paper long before its final closure. Abdi, the editor-in-chief of Salam, was jailed for eight months in 1993 for his critical writings published in the paper. The case showed that even in its earliest years, Salam's journalism could bring its editors into direct conflict with the authorities. Abdi was also a founder of Khatami's Islamic Iran Participation Front and a member of the student organisation that had occupied the United States embassy in 1979, so his imprisonment was an early sign of the widening split between the reformist and hardline camps inside the Islamic Republic's own founding generation.

The Emami Letter

The event that destroyed Salam began with a document. On 6 July 1999 the paper published a report about an alleged secret memorandum written by a former intelligence agent, Said Emami, also known as Said Eslami. In the putative memo, Emami advised his superiors in the Ministry of Intelligence and Security to crack down on the Iranian press and restrict it. Emami had been jailed in connection with the assassinations of several dissidents and writers in late 1998, the killings that became known as the chain murders, and he had died in prison in June 1999, reportedly by suicide. The Ministry of Intelligence and Security complained that the Salam report was false, that it had no such plan, and that the letter cited by the paper was a fake. The ministry filed a complaint against the paper for publishing classified documents.

Closure on 7 July 1999

On 7 July 1999 Salam was temporarily banned by the Special Court for the Clergy, the tribunal with jurisdiction over clerics such as its publisher, following its publication of the secret ministry report. The Special Court ordered the indefinite closure of the reformist daily one day after the report appeared. Editor-in-chief Abbas Abdi was arrested on the basis of the intelligence ministry's complaint, on charges described as spreading fabrications, disturbing public opinion, and publishing classified documents, although the ministry later dropped its complaint against Abdi and he was released. A Salam journalist, Morad Veissi, was also arrested on the same day. The timing sharpened the reaction: parliament had given preliminary approval to a restrictive new press bill on 6 July, the day before the closure, so students and reformists saw the two moves together as a coordinated attempt to silence the reformist press.

The Student Protests

The closure of Salam, coupled with the restrictive press bill, triggered a wave of student protests and riots unparalleled since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The protests began on 8 July 1999 with a peaceful demonstration by Tehran University students against the closure. That night, a student dormitory was raided by riot police and plainclothes paramilitaries, and a student was killed. The raid sparked six days of demonstrations and rioting throughout the country, from 7 to 13 July, during which at least three other people were killed and more than 200 were injured, with estimates of detainees running to between roughly 1,200 and 1,400 people. The unrest, known in Iran as the 18th of Tir protests and the Kuye Daneshgah disaster, was before 2009 the most widespread and violent public protest in Iran since the early years of the revolution. A newspaper closure had become a national upheaval because Salam stood, for its readers, as proof that reform through the press was possible.

Trial of the Publisher

The legal case against the paper proceeded in the Special Court for the Clergy. On 25 July 1999 the court convicted Salam's publisher, Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha, of defamation and spreading false information in connection with the alleged memo. He was sentenced to a prison term of three years, in some reports three and a half years, and a lashing, but the court suspended the sentence and instead ordered him to pay a fine of 23 million rials. On 4 August 1999 the paper was banned for five years, and Khoeiniha was banned from journalistic activity for three years. Commentators noted the contrast with the treatment of conservative publications, which had published a classified letter from Revolutionary Guards commanders to President Khatami during the unrest and received only warnings. For the reformist camp, the Salam case demonstrated that press law was being applied as a factional instrument.

Legacy

Salam did not return after its five-year ban, and it remained closed. Its historical importance rested on three achievements. It had shown, from 1991, that a daily newspaper in the Islamic Republic could investigate financial scandal and corruption and could give readers a direct voice in its pages. It had helped to create the reformist public that elected Mohammad Khatami in 1997 and sustained his movement thereafter. And its suppression in July 1999 exposed, more dramatically than any other single event of the Khatami era, the limits placed on that reform project by institutions outside electoral control. The student protests its closure provoked became a defining episode of post-revolutionary Iran, and Salam itself was remembered as the reformist daily whose silencing shook the Islamic Republic.