AFP, Washington, March 1, 2010  – A US official Tuesday called Iran’s ban on a top-selling reformist daily and another newspaper run by an Opposition leader the act of a ’police state.’
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the bans deny the Iranian people of ’the kind of information that we think is a universal right.’
Crowley said that the Tehran Islamic regime was become ’less and less divinely inspired and more and more representing a police state.’
The comments came after Iran’s hardline press watchdog on Monday banned the best-selling reformist daily Etemad and a weekly run by the family of Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi.
Etemad, banned for the first time since it was founded eight years ago, is one of the few reformist papers to survive a crackdown on media especially since last year’s disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad.
The newspaper, however, was warned a few weeks ago along with several other publications for printing criticism by reformists of the situation after Ahamdinejad’s re-election in June 2009.
The watchdog also revoked the license of Irandokht (Daughter of Iran) weekly over ’not meeting the conditions in the press law on practical commitment to the constitution,’ ISNA news agency said.
Crowley said the situation appears to have deteriorated since Karroubi lost to Ahamdinejad in a disputed June 12 election.
’We’ve seen this, now, coming on nine months, this fundamental split, you know, between the regime and the people,’ he said.
Karroubi has repeatedly accused authorities of abusing protesters detained during post-poll protests, including the rape of several male and female detainees.
Iranian officials have angrily rejected the rape allegations.