Sunday, September 30, 2007

Iran's Baztab News Outlet Shut

 
Just before Iran's genocidal president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was given a global public relations forum at Columbia University, he ordered popular Iranian news outlet Baztab to cease operations.

Debkafile reports:

Our Tehran sources disclose that the Iranian president made sure before he aired his racial superiority doctrine before Columbia University students in New York to shut the mouth of BAZTAB, a popular Iranian Website which is administered by the former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsein Rezai and serves as ex-president Hashem Rafsanjani’s platform.

The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, controlled by the president’s loyalists, announced on Sept. 22 that all news activities by BAZTAB Website are banned. The ministry charged the prestigious BAZTAB with "spreading lies, insults and libels..."

A story on Baztab dated 9/25/2007 confirms the order:

BAZTAB News Site was shut down and its office was sealed Last Wednesday upon an order issued by Tehran Public Prosecutor Saeed Mortezavi...

The order has been issued following a 150-page complaint filed by the vice-president for legal affairs... Both Persian and English Baztab were filtered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government last February... BAZTAB launched its site in Persian six years ago and soon turned into the most viewed Persian news site throughout the world.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger remained stoic after hearing the news.

"We have an obligation to honor our principles of wide-open discussion, even if it means assisting a global public relations effort by genocidal maniacs marketing their ideas of hate, censorship, and enslavement."

Well, Bollinger didn't really say that, but he should have.

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