TEHRAN, 24 September 2007 — Iran’s judiciary has shut down the offices of a popular news website critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Mehr news agency reported yesterday.
Baztab, a website close to the former head of the Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezaie, had been banned in April and is the subject of a legal complaint from the Iranian presidency.
After the April ban it was inaccessible to users inside Iran, but has carried on putting out stories to users outside the Islamic republic.
The site, which published a range of news including articles critical of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies and his Cabinet appointments, was first shut down in February for “acting against the constitution and spreading lies.”
It then reopened in March after MPs protested against the closure, before being banned again in April.
Baztab has been especially critical of the economic policies of Ahmadinejad’s government and its decision to hold a conference questioning the veracity of the Holocaust.
But the conservative site also had a record of being equally critical of Iran’s reformists, blasting the previous government of President Mohammad Khatami for being too soft in Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West.
Under Ahmadinejad’s rule, shutdowns have affected not only moderate dailies such as Shargh and Ham Mihan but also conservative publications including ultra-hard-line Siyasat-e Ruz and the governmental Iran newspaper.
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad said yesterday he wanted to restore the vote in Iran to young people aged 15 and upward less than a year after Parliament raised the minimum voting age to 18.
“The government will soon present a bill to reduce the voting age from 18 to 15. It is a present to young people to mark the first day of the school year,” said Ahmadinejad, according to the IRNA agency.
“When the voting age was 15, we saw how our young people acted with fervor and chose the right way for the independence and greatness of Iran,” he added, speaking on the day Iranian children traditionally return to school.
Parliament in January voted to raise the minimum voting age to 18, despite the opposition of Ahmadinejad’s government, which argued that young people were “the pillar of the revolution.”
