(AP) Ali Akbar Dareini - The Iranian president's press adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, has been sentenced to a year in prison on charges of "publishing materials contrary to Islamic norms," the official IRNA news agency reported Sunday. He was banned from journalism for three years. Javanfekr wrote in an official publication that the practice of women wearing a head-to-toe black covering known as a chador was not originally an Iranian practice but was imported. This was considered offensive by hard-line Iranian clerics. Authorities banned the pro-reform Etemaad daily for two months for publishing an interview Saturday with Javanfekr, in which he criticized conservative opponents of Ahmadinejad for the arrest of dozens of the president's allies over the past months.
2011-11-22 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive