An Iranian newspaper editor who defied a national reporting ban on former President Mohammad Khatami hit back at threats of prosecution on Wednesday, saying that such restrictions were unconstitutional.
Mahmoud Doaei, managing editor of the Ettelaat daily, was indicted on Tuesday by a media court for using a picture of two-time reformist President Khatami in Saturday’s edition of the paper.
Ettelaat also translated remarks attributed to Khatami in an interview he gave to lebanon’s As-Safir newspaper. The ruling on Khatami, issued by Tehran’s prosecutor, amounts to a domestic media blackout and is linked to Iran’s disputed presidential vote in 2009 in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected.