After the mullahs took power in Iran in 1979, one of the main challenges of the country’s people became the culture, and the conflict of Iran’s very old and rich culture with the fundamental mullah’s culture.
From the outset, the rulers tried to destroy and change all the people’s traditions. The authorities started to destroy the Culture, Art, and Literature, and prevent any free thinking which is contrary to the mullahs’ thought.
One of the most pervasive and eloquent examples is the figure of millions brain drain from Iran. Another example is the breathtaking censorship of books and the press and, in parallel, the deprivation of writers and authors, subsequently, their killing. Especially in the serial killings of during a period from 1988-98, were many intellectuals who had been critical to this regime disappeared and were murdered.
The regime’s Ministry of Islamic Guidance main job is to censor and prevent any opposite script, speech, or picture. In Iran there exist no free and private outlet and TV or cinema, and all of them belong to the government.
However, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights said: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Per capita reading in Iran has reached 13 minutes a day – including reading newspapers and the Quran. According to UN experts, it will take a light year for Iran’s community to reach the lowest per capita reading rate of the European countries.
This dark situation has founded its way even to the publications and books of the government. And its outlets are describing the government’s publishers as “famous bankrupt capitalists.” And the book circulation in Iran has 300 books in a year.
The situation is so dramatic that one the of the state-run the Arman daily on April 20, 2021 in an article entitled, “Why is the blade of censorship becoming sharper?” wrote:
“For several months now, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has been cracking down on publishers’ books. Books are either unauthorized or so mutilate that the publisher refuses to publish them. Those publishers who have spent their entire lives and money publishing paper books have become known as bankrupt capitalists.”
Then speaking about the goals of this censorship it added: “Maybe with the victory of this sharp censorship’s blade, it is a favor to the ruling faction in the parliament and so on.”
Comparing this situation with Iran’s neighbors, the paper added: “The paper publishing industry in Iran is not as valuable to political agents as it is in Afghanistan and Iraq; because there is no book auditing and censorship in these countries.”
It can be seen that in Iran, the root of every political, economic, social, cultural, and artistic issue is the medieval thought of the mullahs’ rule. An anti-historical, anti-humanitarian and anti-Iranian thought of the Velayat-e Faqih (supreme religious rule).
