Ministry of Culture Criticizes 'Interference from Other Institutions' at Book Fair

The spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance confirmed that this year, other institutions besides the ministry have played a role in the collection of certain books from the Tehran International Book Fair. The Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported on Tuesday, May 22, the statements of Hossein Nooshabadi, the spokesperson for the ministry, who criticized the actions of institutions other than the Ministry of Culture in collecting books from the Tehran Book Fair. He stated, "We have always told the authorities in the security sectors that if they have any opinions on this matter, they should pursue them through the fair's officials; because we do not consider the direct interference of these institutions in the fair appropriate." The 28th Tehran International Book Fair has witnessed the confiscation and collection of books from booths almost every day since it began. On the second day of the fair, a poetry collection titled "Selected Happy Poems with Some Memorable Photos" by Fatemeh Ekhtesari was confiscated, with officials from the Ministry of Culture citing the use of the poet's songs by Shahin Najafi in one of his albums as the reason. However, the publisher of Ekhtesari's book emphasized that none of those songs were included in "Selected Happy Poems with Some Memorable Photos." Novels such as "Me, Simin, and Mostafa" by Shiva Aristouyi, "Why Nations Fail?" by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, translated by Mohsen Mirdamadi and Mohammad Hossein Naeimi Pour, "A Critical Introduction to Khomeini" by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam published by Cambridge University Press, and the poetry collection "In Honor of Thirty-Five Years Without Crying" by Hamed Ebrahim Pour are among the books collected from the Tehran Book Fair. ISNA reported on Tuesday that "an authority outside the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance" asked the booth operators of the Fifth Season Publishing to refrain from displaying the poetry collection "In Honor of Thirty-Five Years Without Crying" and another book at the fair. However, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Culture insists that the responsibility for holding the fair lies solely with this ministry and that other institutions should not interfere in this matter. Mr. Nooshabadi stated on Tuesday, "In recent days, we have witnessed that some institutions have confronted publishers, but we will not allow this to continue." According to him, reports from "some institutions regarding certain books" have been received by the Ministry of Culture, which has requested documentation from them, and if this documentation was sufficient, they have addressed their warnings. Hossein Nooshabadi ultimately stated that the Ministry of Culture has a committee at the fair to address publishers' violations, and if books are presented at the fair that do not conform to their customary frameworks, the ministry itself will deal with them. In recent days, in addition to the collection of some books from the fair, the booth of Sobhe Farda Publishing, which offers works by Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Nakounam, and the booth of Hayyan Publishing, managed by Mehdi Khazali, a critic of the Iranian government, have been shut down, although the reason for the closure of Hayyan Publishing's booth was cited as insufficient publication of book titles in recent years. In this context, the opening of the Tehran Book Fair: a warning from Rouhani about arbitrary censorship, 29 booths were closed, and some books were collected from the Tehran Book Fair.