Iran judiciary chief hits back at Rouhani

Ethnic Azeris protest slur on TV program

TEHRAN, Nov 10, (Agencies): Iran’s judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani reacted sharply Monday to comments by President Hassan Rouhani in which he appeared to criticise both the judiciary and some local media.

The media benefits from “a permanent security margin ... so that not only can they say whatever they want, but they also sometimes act like the secret police,” Rouhani told representatives of around 600 media outlets in Tehran on Sunday.

“You learn from some publications who will be arrested tomorrow, what is going to be closed down tomorrow, which individual’s reputation should be damaged,” he said.

The most conservative newspapers in the Islamic republic are very vocal in their criticism of Rouhani.

Since being elected in 2013, he has led a policy of openness culminating with the signing in July of a historic nuclear deal with great powers, including the United States.

“The government must be criticised, the judiciary must be criticised, the parliament must be criticised,” Rouhani said.

“But criticising does not mean ... smearing, insulting or lying.”

On Monday, the ISNA news agency said Larijani had come out strongly against the president’s remarks.

“The president made several comments, notably that justice must be a refuge for society, and that if the salt becomes rotten, the task becomes difficult.

“One wonders what he means by that. Could the response be that if the government is rotten and if the president is cor-

rupted that the task becomes difficult?” ISNA quoted Larijani as saying.

“If the meaning is that justice is corrupt this is libellous, if not it is still an insult.” The spat is the first time Rouhani and Larijani have faced off in public.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Iranian ethnic Azeris have protested a children’s program on state TV that contained

what they consider an ethnic slur.

Iran’s state TV broadcast pictures of what it called an “illegal gathering” as well as riot police deployed in Tabriz, a provincial capital in northeastern Iran. The broadcast said Monday’s protest turned violent when some of the protesters broke windows of shops in the streets. It says two people suffered minor injuries, but no serious casualties.