Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei is A Predator of Press Freedom

Reporters Without Borders:

The Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Iran, the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East, is ruled by the Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The media was again under siege in 2005 as the regime became harsher and more than a dozen publications were abruptly suspended. Journalists continue to be arbitrarily arrested. Khamenei, who accuses the press of being “in the pay of the enemy,” was the person mainly responsible for the violence against journalists in spring 2000. Download his resume

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The hardliner Ahmadinejad, a former “revolutionary guard,” took office as elected president of the Islamic Republic on 3 August 2005 and immediately purged the culture ministry (which supervises the press) of reformists and replaced them with hardliners. These new officials had in 1999 set up their own intelligence service enjoying complete impunity and having a private police force that cracked down regularly on the country’s intellectuals. Several government ministers are also revolutionary guards and were involved in arrests, torture and killings of Iranian journalists in 1998. Download his resume