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In his May 18 speech Khamenei, the clerics leader, had underscored the need to ban the use of satellite.
He had stressed: "... It is not reasonable to remove all legal barriers before hand on the pretext that satellite technology will advance in the years to come... Instead, we must identify ways to prevent the influence of satellite programming in line with advancement in satellite technology and implement it... Disseminating wrong ideas and manipulative opinions falls within the framework of a plan to overthrow and undermine the security of the state and is, therefore, harmful."
Endorsing unequivocally censorship and the ban on whatever the regime does not see fit, Khamenei said: "This censorship is vital."
Ms. Zahra Merrikhi, Chairwoman of NCR's
Committee on Public Relations said in this respect: "Khamenei's reference
to identifying 'ways to prevent the influence of satellite' is resorting
to the clerical regime's routine practice of jamming the Iranian Resistance's
television program, Simayeh Moqavemat."
Clash at Tehran University, Agence France Presse, May 25
TEHRAN - Groups of fundamentalists clashed with several hundred students during a political gathering at Tehran University on Tuesday, witnesses said.
The gathering, which took place inside the university campus, was in "defense of political prisoners and freedom."
Slogans in favor of Mohammad Mosadeq,
a head of government during the 1950s who remains a symbol of liberal nationalism
in Iran, were also chanted.
Tug-of-War among Factions of Pro-Khatami Council, Agence France Presse, May 25
TEHRAN - Tehran's municipal council on Tuesday postponed the election of a new mayor for the second time in a week amid a dispute over who should head one of the world's largest capitals.
During the past two days, the media and political circles have been reporting "serious disagreements" between the 15 city council members over the candidates seeking the post of mayor of Tehran.
The municipal council is charged with finding a replacement for the former mayor, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, who started serving a two-year jail sentence for corruption this month.
The council, which was elected in Iran's first ever municipal polls in February, is dominated by various factions backing Khatami, and can choose a mayor from outside its own membership.
But the battle over the post of Tehran
mayor has turned into a political tug-of-war and poses a serious crisis.
"Unchecked Freedoms Threaten Ideological Foundations" of Regime, Agence France Presse, May 24
TEHRAN - Iran's speaker of parliament, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, warned Monday that unchecked "freedoms" were threatening the ideological foundations of the Islamic Revolution.
Nateq-Nuri, who was addressing a group of army officials at the southern Tehran shrine of Ruhollah Khomenei, also denounced "cultural plots" by "so-called nationalists."
The speaker, a leader of the conservative faction in parliament, also hit out at a "campaign orchestrated by the foreign media and carried out by suspicious interior elements."
His statements echoed those of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who last week warned against a cultural and political opening which he said would weaken the pillars of the Islamic regime.
"The enemy seeks to make our youth indifferent and sow discord between the public and the leaders," he said, warning against "uncontrolled development of freedoms which threaten the ideological foundations of the revolution."
Nateq-Nuri said there were "no differences" between the leadership on foreign policy matters.
He concluded his speech by calling
on all factions of the regime to "silence their political quarrels and
join the supreme leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. .
War Games in Southern Iran, Reuters, May 23
TEHRAN - Iranian troops have begun war games in a southern province, one of several to be carried out in Iran to mark the liberation of a key port in the 1980-88 war with Iraq, newspapers reported on Sunday.
The exercises that began on Saturday would test new military equipment and use tanks, troop carriers and helicopters built or repaired in Iran, the English-language Iran News quoted a military spokesman as saying.