The Newspaper 'Asman' Has Been Unbanned

Jamal Khandan Kouchaki, the lawyer for the managing director of the newspaper 'Asman', stated on Sunday, November 25, that Branch 79 of the Tehran Criminal Court has issued an order to lift the ban on this newspaper, and 'Asman' will soon resume its publication. According to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the lawyer mentioned that the press jury found Abbas Bozorgmehr, the managing director of 'Asman', guilty of publishing a report that was the subject of a public prosecutor's complaint and deemed him undeserving of a reduction in punishment. Jamal Khandan Kouchaki added that the press court also sentenced the managing director to pay a fine of 20 million rials to the government fund; however, this ruling is not final and can be appealed in the Supreme Court. In response to the question of how the court ordered the lifting of the ban on 'Asman' given the non-finality of the ruling, the lawyer stated that the ruling issued by the press court was not based on a punishment that would strip the newspaper or its managing director of social rights, therefore, the court found no grounds for the newspaper's ban and agreed to our request for its lifting. The Islamic Republic's Culture and Media Prosecutor's Office issued a ban on the newly published newspaper 'Asman' on Thursday, March 1. Reports indicate that Abbas Bozorgmehr, the managing director of this newspaper, was also arrested and transferred to Evin Prison. The newspaper 'Asman', which had been published for less than a week, faced a wave of attacks from hardliners close to the Iranian government who demanded its ban. In its issue on Tuesday, February 29, the newspaper published statements by Davood Hormidass Bavand, a political science professor, who referred to the punishment of qisas (retribution) as an 'inhumane' punishment. However, conservatives and their media, such as the Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, accused the operators of 'Asman' of 'undermining Islamic values' and 'sacrilege'. Nevertheless, Abbas Bozorgmehr stated that Mr. Bavand's statements regarding the punishment of qisas had been removed before publication, but due to technical reasons, this removal was not applied.