Former Mayor of Tehran to Rooz: We Support Multi-Party Pluralism

On the eve of the re-publication of Ham-Mihan daily, we spoke to Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the paper’s chief editor. Karbaschi is also Tehran’s former mayor and a high-ranking member of the Kargozaran-e Sazandegi (“Servants of Construction”) party.

We begin by asking Mr. Karbaschi about his interpretation of the judiciary’s decision to allow for the publication of Ham-Mihan. Karbaschi immediately objects to the wording of our questions: “Ham-Mihan was always ‘allowed’ to be published. The question must be, why was it banned?”

Karbaschi continues, “We had a legal permit to publish this newspaper until a certain period in time. The publication was banned before the time of the permit ran out. It was banned for an alleged reason – which your question did not refer to. The court reviewed the case and found no reason for the publication’s ban.”

This seems strange anyway, since, throughout the past few years, many publications were shut down for similar reasons without ever having their bans lifted. Karbaschi says, “With respect to all such cases, there are laws, which specify when a publication can be banned, and when the ban can be lifted. I do not know much about how these laws are interpreted. In general, however, I think that, at a certain point in time, due to the spread of radical and conspiratorial outlooks among those in power, an environment was formed which was hostile to the media. But now the situation is different. In the current environment, if they decide that a certain publication does not intend to cross the lines and be overly critical, they allow it to publish.”

Karbaschi adds, “Overall, we regard Ham-Mihan to be a professional newspaper, with clearly-stated professional and religious outlooks. As before, we will operate within the framework provided by the law – just as we did with Hamshahri, which was a government-owned newspaper, and Shargh, which was privately owned. These were balanced newspapers, which, while defending the principles of freedom and development, also carried the meaning of these complementary principles. We have to add to these the progressive principle of gradual reform. Ham-Mihan is not an organ of any particular party, although we believe that parties must be strengthened, and support multi-party pluralism within the confines of the country’s national interests.”

We ask Karbaschi if publications were closed because they crossed the red lines. “In an environment that is hostile to the media, publications must be careful about some things. But I defend Ham-Mihan and believe that this publication was not in any way un-moderate and irresponsible,” the former mayor said.

I ask him what effects, if any, these temporary bans have had on publications. Karbaschi responds, “These bans are extremely harmful and place journalism outside the sphere of secure jobs and profession. They make it much more difficult for journalists to operate.”