Law Newspaper Suspended

The Law newspaper was suspended on Tuesday, June 31, by the order of the Tehran prosecutor's office due to a complaint from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC had accused the Law newspaper of "defamation and spreading falsehoods with the intent to disturb public opinion." According to the Law newspaper's website, the suspension letter stated, "Considering the complaint filed by the IRGC Intelligence Organization and the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Office of the IRGC... based on clause 5 of Article 156 of the Constitution in line with the judiciary's duties to prevent crime and in accordance with Article 114 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the Law newspaper is hereby suspended." In a piece published last February titled "Why Did the American Captive Cry?", the Law newspaper criticized the broadcast of scenes showing the kneeling American sailors captured by Iran and the reconstruction of their arrest scenes during the February 22, 1994, rallies in Tehran and Qom. Researcher Fereydoun Majlesi wrote that "the manner of their treatment and kneeling with hands placed behind their heads, where a woman dressed up and made up played the role of a female captive in the bizarre display in Qom, could remind that young man of the similarity of the scene with American and European captives in orange jumpsuits with hands placed behind their necks in ISIS execution scenes, moments before they were beheaded or shot dead." This article provoked a strong reaction from commanders and media affiliated with the IRGC, and Mohammad Ali Jafari, the IRGC's commander, stated on February 27, 1994, that this newspaper "must repent for this act." Following this, the Law newspaper clarified that the criticism raised in this note was related to "the reconstruction of the scene and the display of American captives, especially the American female captive in the streets of Qom" and that this note had no connection to the IRGC's actions regarding the arrest of the American sailors. The American sailors were arrested on January 22, 1994, and released 16 hours later. The televised broadcast of their images, where they had their hands on their heads in a sign of surrender and were kneeling, provoked anger in Washington, to the extent that John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, stated that he expressed his disgust over this action in a conversation with his Iranian counterpart. The Law newspaper also criticized a resolution passed by the ninth parliament on June 4, which stipulated that executive bodies must consult the judiciary and the IRGC Intelligence Organization in addition to the Ministry of Intelligence when appointing individuals to sensitive positions. In its July 22 issue, the Law newspaper published a report titled "24 Hours of Damnation" about the presence of a prisoner in the "Tehran Grand Prison Complex." In the report, the prisoner stated that upon entering the prison, soldiers insulted him and tore his coat and shoes, claiming they might contain "drugs," and threw them away. Following the publication of this report, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the Tehran public and revolutionary prosecutor, announced on June 25 that the managing director of the Law newspaper was "subject to judicial prosecution" due to a complaint from the prison organization. In its June 30 issue, the newspaper also published a cartoon that provoked a reaction from the Tasnim news agency and other media affiliated with the IRGC. In this cartoon, several individuals are seen discussing inside a toilet bowl, with one of them saying, "Well, friends... if you agree with the new conspiracy against the government, let me know so I can flush it." The Law newspaper was also suspended on May 7, 1993, by the prosecutor's order due to the publication of a news item titled "The Release of General Royanian," the head of the Fuel Management and Consumption Office during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency, and later resumed publication. During Hassan Rouhani's presidency, several independent publications close to reformist groups, including Bahar, Mardom-e Emrooz, and Aseman, have been suspended, and some suspended publications, like the Women's Today magazine, resumed their activities after being suspended.