Iranian writers welcome decline of censorship
After eight difficult years of strict censorship under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian writers say that literary freedom is increasing under the new administration.
When Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced off with his primary opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, in a heated televised debate in 2008, the unyielding leader conceded at least one point. When Mousavi criticized the state for its arbitrary book censorship under Ahmadinejad, the president responded, “Yes, I agree with you on that. I have written to the culture minister and warned him about this.”
Simply put, the eight years of Ahmadinejad's presidency were some of the toughest for Iran’s publishing community. Facing a massive increase in censorship and harassment, many writers simply gave up trying. In 2013, President Hassan Rouhani came to power, promising to inject new life into the country’s cultural scene. He seems to have made good on at least one of his promises, and many writers and publishers have told Al-Monitor that book censorship has eased considerably.
Speaking last week at an annual book award ceremony in Tehran, Rouhani criticized the arbitrary censorship of books and said he prefers to transfer the task of book supervision to the publishing industry itself.
It is hard to overstate how beleaguered Iran's writers and publishers felt during the eight years under Ahmadinejad. The Islamic Republic has never been a bastion of freedom of expression, but during that time, things were taken to a different level.
