21 July 2011

Iran's supreme leader attacks 'harmful' books

Iran's former culture minister, Ataollah Mohajerani, has criticised the country's supreme leader for restricting access to literature after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly attacked "harmful books" and likened them to "poisonous" drugs.

In a meeting with librarians and officials from Iran's book industry on Wednesday, Khamenei spoke out against books "with a cultural appe arance but with specific political hidden motives.

"Not all books are necessarily good and not all of them are unharmful, some books are harmful," he said, according to his official website, Khamenei.ir. [guardian.co.uk] Read more