The Domestic Press, the Office of Publications, and the Administration of Censorship

The need to gain control over what people in Iran could read and be exposed to did not become a matter of public and official concern until the latter half of the nineteenth century. Although political repression and lack of tolerance for any form of dissent had long been the order of the day in Iran, the advent of print media brought with it a new kind of challenge, especially as the number of printing presses alongside books and newspapers increased with time. In the early years, when newspapers were few in number, and little more than official gazettes informing the subjects of the decrees of the state, they did not seem to have presented as much of a concern. Thus Mirzā Taqi Khān, better known as Amir Kabir (1807–52), the first reformist prime minister under Nāser al-Din Shah, who had founded the first official or state newspaper, Vaqāyeʿe Ettefāqiyeh, in February 1851, would himself, reportedly, review the articles before they went to press.Footnote ¹⁵ In other words, as late as the early 1850s, control of printed material was still personal, exercised prior to publication without much ceremony, and the guidelines regarding what was to be tolerated and what was not were rarely discussed publicly.

An announcement published in the state newspaper Ruznāmeh-ye dowlat-e ‘aliyyeh-ye Irān in 1863, however, hinted at a growing awareness on the part of Nāser al-Din Shah (r. 1848–96) that times were changing, and that some form of regulation was necessary:

Mirzā Abolhassan Ghaffāri Saniʿ al-Molk (1814–67) was the official court painter (naqqāshbāshi), and had studied art in Italy. However, since during his stay in Europe he had also “learned lithography and printing,”Footnote ¹⁷ ʿAli Qoli Khān Eʿtezād al-Saltaneh, the Minister of Education, considered him qualified to be appointed both editor of the state illustrated newspaper, Ruznāmeh-ye dowlat-e ʿaliyyeh-ye Irān, and director of the state printing press.Footnote ¹⁸ However, Saniʿ al-Molk’s tenure lasted at most six years, and little is known of the measures that he may have taken to address Nāser al-Din’s concerns.

The first time that attempts at something resembling a more official or systematic control of sorts over all printed material, including the press, were made was in the 1870s and 1880s when three offices, namely the Office of Publications (Edāreh-ye entebāʿāt, 1871), the Ministry of Publications (Vezārat-e entebāʿāt, 1883), and the Bureau of Censorship (Edāreh-ye sānsur, 1885), were established. The Office of Publications reportedly consisted of a “Translation Office” (Dār al-tarjomeh-ye dowlati), which was in charge of the translation of books into Persian from European languages as well as Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, and an “Office of Newspapers” (Edāreh-ye ruznāmehjāt-e dowlati), whose purpose was to “oversee all material that was to appear in state-sponsored newspapers prior to publication.”Footnote ¹⁹ In the absence of archival material, it is difficult to know the details of how each of these offices operated. However, diaries, memoirs, and texts of royal decrees can provide us with some hints as to the intentions behind these developments. For example, the decree by Nāser al-Din Shah whereby he appointed Mohammad Hasan Khān (later Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh) (1843–96) to be in charge of the Office of Publications in April 1871 is instructive in terms of the concerns and objectives behind such a measure.

It is not clear why Nāser al-Din Shah was unhappy with the domestic press at this time. Perhaps it was the fact that the state newspapers did not engender the volume of readership or credibility that he would have liked, or perhaps it was because they did not project as positive an image of his rule as he would have wanted. Whatever the case, that Nāser al-Din Shah (as opposed to the minister of education) appointed Mohammad Hasan Khān Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh to be in charge of the Office of Publications, and that he did so because of the latter’s purported knowledge of the European press (as opposed to any familiarity with the art of lithography) suggests a change of approach both in terms of urgency, as well as the qualifications thought necessary for the job of leading the Office of Publications at this time.Footnote ²¹

The 1870s coincided with a time when there was a growing interest in the press.Footnote ²² While there were those at court who considered newspapers as serving the purpose of informing the public of the news at court, the more reform-minded tended to view newspapers as hallmarks of modernity and a means of educating and broadening the intellectual horizons of the public. Thus, from the 1870s onwards, alongside the official state gazettes, a number of new reformist-leaning newspapers also appeared. Among them were Vaqāyeʿ-e ‘Adliyeh (1871), Ruznāmeh-ye Nezāmi (1876–77), Ruznāmeh-ye ʿElmi (1877–81), and Merrikh (1878–80). While they, too, were state-sponsored, what distinguished these new additions from the rest was that they were written in a less ornate language and they contained general articles on topics that went beyond the news at court—for example, discussions on patriotism, civilization and the need for learning, justice and the rule of law. This may have been in part because of the political restructuring and promotion of a spirit of reform that was encouraged by Mirzā Hosayn Khān Moshir al-Dowleh during his tenure as sadr-e aʿzam or chief minister from 1870 to 1873, and his subsequent positions as minister of foreign affairs and minister of war between 1873 and 1880. It may also have been because of a growing awareness among some members of the elite that there was a disparity in quality between the newspapers published in Iran and those in other parts of the world, including the Ottoman Empire. In a letter in 1865, several years before he became chief minister, and while he still occupied the office of chargé d’affaires in Istanbul, Mirzā Hosayn Khān, for example, expressed his frustration whenever he read and compared newspapers published in Tehran with those published in Istanbul. “It is some time that I have decided not to read the state newspaper,” he wrote. “It is sent rarely, but when it is, I pass it on to the employees of the Embassy without reading it, since reading and comparing it with the newspapers published in Istanbul will only result in my annoyance … I repeatedly pointed out the flaws of this kind of newspaper, together with the tasks [required] of journalists … to the government. However, it was to no avail. I only managed to convince myself not to read [the newspaper] anymore.”Footnote ²³

At the same time, in this period, the state-run press did not constitute the only source of news. By the 1870s and 1880s, not only were Persian-language expatriate newspapers (about which more will be said below) gaining popularity among different sectors of society, but there was also a range of European newspapers available at least in some elite circles. Furthermore, we know that by 1875, the year when Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh, then Nāser al-Din’s personal interpreter, first began keeping a diary, Nāser al-Din Shah, too, had developed a keen interest in newspapers. He not only had a selection of Ottoman, European, and French-language newspapers read to him and translated for one or two hours a day, but he had also taken enough of a liking to this activity that he had appointed Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh as his primary “newspaper reader.”Footnote ²⁴ According to Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh’s diary, the latter was required to read newspapers to the shah at all times, whether it was when the shah was having his lunch, went hunting (with Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh reading newspapers on horseback), or on at least one occasion, when the shah was taking a bath and being leeched!Footnote ²⁵ Whereas, at times, newspaper reading served as little more than a pastime for the shah alongside hunting and riding, at other times, Nāser al-Din Shah seems to have been genuinely interested in learning about the contents of newspapers published abroad. This may have been in part because of his interest in everything European, but it was also to some extent because following his first European tour in 1873, Nāser al-Din Shah became increasingly concerned about his image abroad, and how both he and the country he ruled, were written about.

In such a context, it became all that much more imperative on the state to try to maintain some control over what got published inside the country.Footnote ²⁶ Thus, in his capacity as the person in charge of the Office of Publications, and later as minister of publications from 1883 onwards, Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh had the task of clearing all publications before they went to the press. As Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh explained, this process consisted of the following:

Announcements in state newspapers reminded readers of this “new order.” In other words, all printed material, regardless of genre, had to have the stamp from the Ministry of Publications, as proof of the fact that it had been “inspected” prior to publication. Furthermore, anyone interested in printing was required to do so exclusively in the government printing press in order to ensure that nothing could be added or removed from the text after having obtained the official permit.Footnote ²⁸ In cases where notices and/or tracts were printed without the approval of the Ministry, the news of the violation together with the penalty exacted (be it the confiscation of the text or the physical punishment of the person associated with the text) was also publicized in the state newspaper.Footnote ²⁹ On at least one occasion, according to his diary, Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh had the printer at Dār al-Fonun beaten for printing a pamphlet which did not have his stamp.Footnote ³⁰

Despite these measures, however, the criteria that would have had to be satisfied in order to obtain a stamp of approval remained vague. The closest that the state came to putting anything specific on paper in this regard was in the context of the first ever police code compiled by Comte Antoine di Monteforte (1840–1916), an Italian who had been recruited to become the chief of police of Tehran following Nāser al-Din Shah’s second European tour in 1878. Known as the “Comte’s Code” (Ketābcheh-ye qānun-e Kont), this code, which was written in 1879, and was primarily about the tasks of a police force, also consisted of three articles (out of a total of fifty-eight) that concerned the “limits on expression.”

However, there is little evidence of the effectiveness of this code, or indeed of any coordination between the police force of Comte di Monteforte and the Ministry of Publications in enforcing these restrictions. This may have been to some extent because of the hostility that developed between the courtiers and the comte over his “zeal” to interfere in what was perceived to be other people’s affairs.Footnote ³² It could also have been in part because of the fact that there was little specificity regarding what would qualify as “hostility to religion, the state, or the nation” or offense and insolence against the king, and the ways by which the degree of culpability would be determined.

Despite the attempts to bureaucratize censorship in the context of the domestic publications, Nāser al-Din Shah’s changing whims together with personal relationships and rivalries at court remained paramount. There were reportedly big differences of opinion regarding the adequate course of action within the Ministry of Publications. In one case, for example, Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh personally burnt all the copies of a book of poetry even though its publication had been sanctioned by his deputy, Mohammad Hosayn Khān Forughi.Footnote ³³ There are also instances in Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh’s diary where he himself, despite holding the office of minister of publications, is not quite certain if an article should be published because he could not determine whether it could potentially be “contrary to the royal opinion” (khāter-e mobārak).Footnote ³⁴ In one such case, in 1890, for example, the governor of Kermānshāhān had sent in an article for publication in the state newspaper in which he claimed that, thanks to his efforts, Boluk-e Eyvan, a small town in the west of the country, which had been in ruins, was now on the “verge of regeneration.”Footnote ³⁵ In Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh’s words, “I developed a suspicion that maybe this article would be inconsistent with state policy and contrary to his Excellency’s opinion (khāter).” He therefore had the article sent to Nāser al-Din Shah for the final verdict regarding whether such an article was acceptable to print.Footnote ³⁶ Uncertainty aside, at times the logic of what the shah wanted censored did not even make sense to the Minister of Publications. In December 1895, for example, the shah wanted the government yearbook, copies of which had been already published and distributed by the Ministry of Publications, banned and confiscated, because it included references to the history of France under Louis XIII and XIV that could be “construed as subversive.”Footnote ³⁷ Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh was puzzled. He protested to the shah: “I do not know what part of this book is considered harmful to the state.”Footnote ³⁸ In view of the losses that he had to incur because of this ban, Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh considered this decision to have been the work of his rivals who were now using “French history as [their] weapon.” He therefore submitted his resignation, but the shah did not accept it.Footnote ³⁹

The Emergence of Privately Owned Newspapers and a New Kind of Censorship

With the assassination of Nāser al-Din Shah and the accession to power of his son, Mozaffar al-Din (1896–1907) in 1896, the story of censorship continued, albeit with two main modifications. In the first place, the new ruler possessed none of his father’s flair and confidence and so preferred a more laissez-faire approach to politics.Footnote ⁶⁰ As a result, the person who occupied the office of prime minister wielded much influence over all affairs, including matters cultural. Secondly, even though the Ministry of Publications continued to exist, the fact that Mohammad Hasan Khān Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh, who had led the Office of Publications since its inception, had also died in 1896 meant that there was no longer an authoritative figure to lead the effort. As a result, the level of severity or laxness regarding what was fit to print depended, in large part, on the person of the Prime Minister, since he was ultimately the one who appointed the Minister of Publications. It was thus during the short-lived premiership of the reform-minded Mirzā ʿAli Khān Amin al-Dowleh in 1897–98, that a number of privately owned newspapers saw the light of day for the very first time. By the same principle, it was during the premiership of ʿAbdol-Majid Mirzā ʿAyn al-Dowleh in 1904–6 that a number of these same privately owned newspapers were banned and shut down, and their publishers arrested and sent into internal exile.

If privately owned newspapers were allowed to be published at this time, it was in part because by the turn of the twentieth century, there was a great deal of optimism especially among the reform-minded (that included Mirzā ʿAli Khān Amin al-Dowleh) that a literate public was the key to a prosperous country and that learning in general, and the printed word in particular, could bring about progress. Newspapers were thought to be able to play a role in this process since they could make people aware of the goings-on in the wider world and the times in which they lived. According to one article, “today, the advantages of newspapers and their importance have reached such a level that civilized nations spend a large part of their time studying newspapers. In fact, most of the scholars and politicians of the world have restricted their reading to that of newspapers.”Footnote ⁶¹

Having said that, privately owned newspapers also had to be answerable to the Ministry of Publications, even if they were subject to a new kind of censorship. The cases of two privately owned newspapers, Tarbiyat and Adab that came into being after 1896, can serve as examples of what this new censorship entailed, and how it impacted and shaped the newspaper culture at this time. Tarbiyat was a weekly that was published in Tehran relatively regularly for nine consecutive years between December 1896 and March 1907, whereas Adab, while also a weekly, and published around the same time as Tarbiyat, between November 1898 and 1906, did not have as smooth a trajectory. That is, Adab had three phases and reincarnations; first it was published in Tabriz (1898–1900), then in Mashhad (1901–3), and finally in Tehran (1903–6). Yet in order for them to begin publication, they each had to obtain a permit or license from the Ministry of Publications. Thus, Tarbiyat indicated that it had obtained the necessary permission in its first issue: “With the permission of the honorable Ministry of Publications, this weekly newspaper called Tarbiyat, began publication … This paper will consist of all kinds of useful subjects, and is free from bias, constraints, praise, and blame.”Footnote ⁶²Adab, for its part, published the text of two rescripts (dastkhatt) that gave its publisher, Mirzā Sādeq Khān Adib al-Mamālek Farāhāni, permission to produce his newspaper:

This was followed by another dastkhatt, seemingly from the prime minister:

Whereas Tarbiyat did not go into much detail in explaining the basis on which it had obtained permission to publish, the two rescripts published in Adab seem to suggest that by November 1898, licenses were granted based on two concerns, namely the person of the publisher, and the kind of newspaper that the new publication was envisaged to be. That is, as long as the former was a “known quantity” and considered “trustworthy,” and would commit himself to producing a publication that could serve the “interests of the nation and the state,” then permission would likely be granted. Goʾel Kohan, too, describes the licensing process, at least during the second tenure of ʿAli Asghar Khān Amin al-Soltān as Prime Minister (1898–1904),Footnote ⁶⁵ in the following way:

Several observations can be made at this stage. First, while this licensing process hinted at the introduction of some sort of procedural requirement, the fact that the final call ultimately belonged to the person of the prime minister suggests that censorship during the Mozaffari era, too, remained largely an arbitrary affair. Secondly, in as much as licensing was tantamount to a form of accreditation, it seems to have allowed privately owned publications, to some degree, to avoid pre-publication censorship. In other words, licensed newspapers would not necessarily always have to send in their drafts to the Ministry of Publications for approval. (This may have been why most such newspapers made a point of describing themselves as “āzād” or free.Footnote ⁶⁷) There were of course always exceptions, depending on the political mood, rivalries at court, and the prime minister in office. In January 1904, for example, ʿAyn al-Dowleh, the prime minister at the time, demanded quite suddenly and rather inexplicably that newspapers send in their drafts to be inspected by himself and the shah prior to publication, despite the fact that this posed a major inconvenience to the newspapers and delayed the publication process.Footnote ⁶⁸

Exceptions aside, “freedom to publish” under such constraints had consequences of its own, namely that publishers would have to bear full responsibility for any transgressions. As a result, in order to avoid any personal risk to themselves or to their newspaper, publishers found themselves, on the one hand, in the quandary of having to exercise much caution to the point of self-censorship in what they published, and, on the other, to try to appeal to a readership in order to be able to survive financially. Accordingly, there was little in either Tarbiyat or Adab that was directly political. They both avoided commenting on matters that were politically sensitive or offensive to political figures, and instead favored news and subject matters that were “positive,” “beneficial to the reader,”Footnote ⁶⁹ and non-controversial. In one issue, for example, Adab went as far as admitting that it had decided not to publish the news about the spread of cholera in Kermān because “it was not good news and would cause the heartbreak of the esteemed subscribers!”Footnote ⁷⁰

Another instance when self-censorship became apparent was the way in which these newspapers dealt with readers’ contributions. In as much as both Tarbiyat and Adab needed the public for the financial survival of their respective newspapers, they had to gain the trust of a readership, all the while exercising caution not to overstep the boundaries of acceptability. To this end, they invited readers to send in “useful” contributions, and published letters that sometimes included grievances. Tarbiyat was unquestionably the more guarded of the two. As a result, the letters that were published in its pages were rarely anonymous; instead, they often included a preamble about their writers. This not only consisted of the name but also the writer’s position and standing in society, and, at times, the name of the person’s father, if not ancestry. On the occasions when the letter dealt with a subject matter or opinion that could be viewed as controversial in any way, much space would be devoted to praising the credentials of the letter-writer, presumably in an attempt to reassure the readers of the respectability of the latter and therefore the absence of any malicious intent. In one instance, for example, when the issue at hand was the establishment of girls’ schools—which would have been considered contentious—and the letter-writer had uncharacteristically remained anonymous as “a lady from Tabriz,” Tarbiyat tried to protect itself from any blame by means of a rather lengthy introductory passage where it provided an explanation. It asserted at the outset that the publication of this subject matter was in response to the persistent calls of the “well-wishers of the nation.” Furthermore, it reassured its readers that this letter had not only already been published in Ershād, a Persian-language newspaper based in Bāku, but that it had in turn been sent to them by one of the employees of the Iranian consulate in Tblisi (who was named), who had requested that it be published in Tarbiyat.Footnote ⁷¹

In short, Tarbiyat went to great lengths to make sure that it could survive the political trials and tribulations of the times, and continue to be published for nine consecutive years with relative regularity. That it managed to do so, and came to gain the respect of many as a “newspaper of substance,” ultimately had much to do with the standing of its publisher, Mirzā Hosayn Khān Zokāʾ al-Molk, a literary man who himself had already had much experience as assistant to Mohammad Hasan Khan Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh, having collaborated on the production of Ettelāʿ in previous years. In other words, Zokāʾ al-Molk’s close familiarity with the workings of the Ministry of Publications, together with the rumored liberalism that had surrounded the early years of Mozaffar al-Din’s reign, was what in part enabled Zokāʾ al-Molk to walk the tightrope of both appeasing the sensitivities of the authorities of the time and offering an element of novelty that differentiated this weekly from the others that were published at the time. As he explained quite candidly in the last issue of his paper, in March 1907:

Adab, in contrast to Tarbiyat, did not seem to enjoy the same level of consistency or continuity. Nor was it as well-organized or well-produced. Even though its publisher, Mirzā Sādeq Khān Adib al-Mamālek, was a literary figure in his own right, known for the panegyric style of poetry that he wrote, and came from the lineage of a former prime minister, his newspaper was never able to gain the same recognition as Tarbiyat. It was therefore much more essential that Adab not publish anything that could be perceived as controversial. However, in its last two years, when Adib al-Mamālek had passed on the running of the newspaper to Majd al-Eslām Kermāni, another reformer-journalist, Adab became, seemingly, a little more critical of the state of affairs, albeit indirectly, by means of letters and cartoons that depicted issues that were of concern to society. Perhaps it was no surprise then that in the clampdown that took place during the tenure of ʿAyn al-Dowleh as prime minister, Adab, too, was shut down, and its editor, Majd al-Eslām Kermāni, arrested and sent into internal exile.

The story of censorship in the Nāseri era and, to some extent, in the Mozaffari era (prior to the promulgation of the constitution) is thus entangled with the advent of modernity and an increasingly interconnected world. It is an account of multiple attempts at developing some mechanism of control for the printed word at a time when the state could no longer remain impervious to the growing numbers of publications and newspapers abroad that also included the Persian-language expatriate press. Under Nāser al-Din Shah, however, the desire for regulation and bureaucratization ended up being little more than a “veneer,”Footnote ⁷³ since it was combined with a reluctance of the arbitrary power to let go. There is no better illustration of this contradiction than the relationship between Nāser al-Din Shah and Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh, his minister of publications. As delineated in the paragraphs above, this relationship remained very much that of a courtier seeking the approval of his master. Under Mozaffar al-Din Shah, too, censorship remained a largely arbitrary affair, albeit with modifications. Nevertheless, the emergence of privately owned newspapers in the Mozaffari era complicates the picture since in addition to the constraints imposed by the Ministry of Publications, self-censorship, too, emerged as an important factor in determining what was published. Even though the privately owned press could rarely afford to have real news, their story is important because in trying to be relevant, they laid the grounds for the political press that came into being albeit temporarily following the granting of the constitution. This will be discussed in the next section.

The Constitutional Era, Newspapers, and the Press Law

On 6 June 1907, Mirzā Jahāngir Khān, the publisher of Sur-e Esrāfil, a popular Tehran weekly that had first appeared a week earlier, on 30 May 1907, summarized his hopes for the constitutional era in the following way:

If Mirzā Jahāngir Khān had dared to entertain such hopes, it was because the granting of the constitution in summer 1906 seemed to herald a new beginning full of hope and possibility where all matters were considered public and open to debate.Footnote ⁷⁵ By the time Mirzā Jahāngir Khān came to publish the above passage, a series of unprecedented developments had taken place. Iran had gained a written constitution for the very first time, and a majles or national assembly had been established where discussions for a supplementary fundamental law were afoot.Footnote ⁷⁶ The Ministry of Publications had also been abolished some two months earlier, in March 1907, resulting in the easing of censorship, and the proliferation of an unprecedented number and variety of newspapers, which included Sur-e Esrāfil. However, as Mirzā Jahāngir Khān, along with his fellow journalists, were to discover, things were not as straightforward as they had hoped. In fact, the passage above was part of an account that Mirzā Jahāngir Khān wrote of his encounter with the Minister of Education, who was now in charge of the department that housed the new version of the Office of Publications, and who had summoned him to issue a warning about the blunt style of his newspaper.Footnote ⁷⁷ That is, despite the abolition of the Ministry of Publications, the Office of Publications whose job continued to be the surveillance of the press, persisted, even if it was now under the auspices of the Ministry of Education (vezārat-e maʿāref), and the shape of the surveillance that it was to perform under the new circumstances was not quite clear. It is in this context that the discussion of the Press Law became of interest, not only for what the Press Law itself consisted of, but also in terms of what discussion there was about the need for such a law. In other words, how had the promulgation of the constitution impacted the terms of the debate regarding what was understood by a “free press” as well as what censorship should entail and how it should be practiced?

If the idea of constitutionalism had generally come to be seen as intertwined with the principle of a free press, it was in part a result of the efforts of newly established associations or anjomans, such as the Golestān anjoman, which had been able to gain access to the more progressive members of the majles, and petitioned them to this end. Thus according to one member of the Golestān anjoman, ʿAli Mohammad Khān Mojir al-Dowleh (who himself had been a censor in the Ministry of Publications in pre-constitutional days), it was the activism of the members of this anjoman that had resulted in the notion of a free press being widely accepted.Footnote ⁷⁸ In fact, the principle of a free press (within certain limits) was recognized in both the Fundamental Law as well as the Supplementary Fundamental Law ratified in December 1906, and October 1907 respectively. Thus article 13 of the Fundamental Law not only recognized the right of journalists and spectators to be present at the sessions of the National Assembly but it also authorized newspapers to publish the deliberations of the Assembly as well as “all [other] matters that are useful and advantageous to the public as long as their contents do not transgress any of the fundamental principles of the government or nation.”Footnote ⁷⁹ Article 20 of the Supplementary Fundamental Law was more explicit. It stated that “all publications, except for heretical books and matters harmful to the true religion [of Islam] are free, and exempt from censorship.”Footnote ⁸⁰ Finally, the abolition of the Ministry of Publications, which, as mentioned above, signaled the lifting of restrictions that had formerly been associated with this office, seemed to further reinforce the idea of a free press. As a result, in the year that followed the granting of the constitution, more than a hundred publications saw the light of day. They included dailies as well as weeklies; newspapers that were written in a formal literary style, newspapers in colloquial language, and newspapers that were predominantly satirical, featuring cartoons. Some were moderate in tone whereas others were more radical, but whatever the case, newspapers at this time were unabashedly political. They constituted, for the most part, what could be described as “opinion journalism,” that is, a journalism whose purpose was not so much to report news but rather to inform public opinion and help shape a new constitutional era. Accordingly, newspaper publishers were no longer necessarily well-known individuals with the right lineage, as they had tended to be in the past. Rather they were activists and reformists, who believed that newspapers could play an essential role in effecting political and social change by “open[ing] the eyes and the ears of the people,”Footnote ⁸¹ and by being outspoken in pointing out the shortcomings of the country. As Nedā-ye Vatan, a weekly that began publication in late December 1906, put it in its first issue, “now was the time to talk, to write, and to guide.”Footnote ⁸²

It was in this context that the idea of a “free press” was put to the test for the very first time. Whereas newspapers, by and large, took it upon themselves to talk politics and convey a sense of urgency about the delicate nature of this moment without any self-censorship, things were not so clear-cut for the newly minted parliamentarians. In fact, what prompted the debates in the majles regarding the press was the forthright tone of a number of newspapers which had posed the Minister of Education (in his capacity as the person in charge of the ministry that housed the Office of Publications) with the conundrum of what to do and how to gain control over them. Thus, faced with this challenge, and in the absence of any laws or guidelines, in the year between October 1907 and June 1908, when the first majles was in session, the Ministry of Education suspended several newspapers in Tehran as well as the provinces. Among the more popular Tehran newspapers, Sur-e Esrāfil was suspended on four occasions; Habl al-Matin in two instances, albeit for shorter periods, and Ruh al-Qodos was suspended once, leading to the trial of its publisher and editor, Soltān al-ʿUlamā Khorāsāni, for the first time ever. At times, the suspensions were based on the most spurious grounds, and at others, for direct attacks on the rule of Mohammad ʿAli Shah. Thus, the first time that Habl al-Matin was suspended, for example, it was ostensibly because it had published an advertisement about a “lottery house,” something that was considered against the sharia and should not have been promoted. In the case of Ruh al-Qodos, however, the ban was imposed because its editorial seemed to suggest that if Mohammad ʿAli Shah did not change his ways, he might have a fate similar to that of Louis XVI.Footnote ⁸³

While most deputies did recognize that times had changed and that the press was an essential component of a new liberal constitutional order, at the same time many shared the view that newspapers were overstepping the line and causing undue offence and harm. Something, therefore, needed to be done. The question was what was the most effective course of action, and how should it be put into effect? Should the press be regulated by means of pre-publication censorship (as it had been for the most part in the past), or should censorship only be implemented after an offensive piece had been published? In the event of the latter, what was to be the appropriate penalty? Should the particular newspaper be suspended, or should censorship only apply to the author of the piece alone, who should be held responsible, sanctioned, and prosecuted? As a member of the majles put it, “If in a haberdashery where thirty people are busy earning a living, one person commits a crime, should he be the one punished or should the whole shop be shut down preventing everyone from a livelihood?”Footnote ⁸⁴ “Of what use is [imposing] a penalty after a piece that is against the sharia has been published, since what should not have been [said], has [already] been said?” claimed another deputy. “Imposing a penalty before a crime [has been committed] is not acceptable in sharia. How can there be culpability before anything has been said or written?” countered another.Footnote ⁸⁵ Such questions defined the terms of the much of the debate that took place in the majles and that lasted for some seven months until it culminated in the ratification of the Press Law in February 1908.

The Press Law consisted of a set of fifty-two articles that covered all forms of expression and defined what could and could not be published, in the name of protecting the press from arbitrary closure and persecution. As mentioned earlier, it had been inspired by the 1881 French press law and was an attempt to gain control over what people could be exposed to, whether in terms of the content of what was published in newspapers, books, and announcements within the country, or newspapers published abroad,Footnote ⁸⁶ as well as who could obtain a license to publish a newspaper. Thus, in addition to specifying the criteria that were necessary for a publisher or editor-in-chief (modir-e mas’ul) to obtain a license, the Press Law also listed what would be considered libel against the king and members of government at all levels, be they ministers, government agents or deputies in the majles, as well as religious leaders, rulers of foreign nations, and foreign delegations. It furthermore defined what would constitute a press offence together with what would be the corresponding penalty, ranging from fines to a permanent ban, and stated the instances that would justify the suspension or the ban of a newspaper by both the Ministry of Education and the Police.

Thus, in comparison to the steps that had been taken in pre-constitutional days, the Press Law was significant in that it rationalized and legislated the practice of censorship for the first time, in a way that neither the Nāseri nor Mozaffari eras prior to the Constitution had ever been able to do. As the minister of education, now in charge of the Office of Publications, insisted in the course of the parliamentary deliberations, “there was no law [pertaining to the press] in the past … [Today], a person who is civilized will not be satisfied with acting in a lawless manner.”Footnote ⁸⁷ The Press Law was thus presented as a measure that was necessary and in keeping with an era that was to be defined by the “rule of law.” Even though those in favor of press freedom reminded their fellow delegates of the beneficial purposes that the press could serve—such as informing the public, and inspiring unity between the state (dowlat) and the people (mellat)—it is noteworthy that few objected to the idea of censorship as a mechanism of protection against the publication of articles that were deemed detrimental to the public (‘omum). The Press Law was passed reportedly when eighty-eight members voted in favor.Footnote ⁸⁸

That newspapers like Mosāvāt protested the Press Law by means of satire, as described earlier, was itself a sign of the disappointment and incredulity on the part of journalists and publishers at the fact that the majles that they had cherished as the body to withstand despotism had now ratified a set of laws that limited their freedom of expression. As another newspaper, Sherāfat, put it equally sarcastically,

Only four months after the ratification of the Press Law, in June 1908, forces loyal to Mohammad ʿAli Shah bombarded the majles, and brought an end to the first constitutional era. As a result, newspapers were shut down and a number of constitutionalists, including newspaper editors, were arrested and executed, and others were forced to flee into exile. Therefore, in the short few months between the ratification of the Press Law and the attack on the majles, there was not enough time for the new law to be enforced effectively. In fact, in this interim period, most newspapers managed to get away with not abiding by the provisions of the Press Law. However, that did not make the Press Law any less of a milestone in the history of censorship in Qājār Iran or for that matter in the history of Iranian journalism. The Press Law was significant not because it had “allow[ed] for greater freedom of expression”—it had not—but because it had defined the limits on the free press, and legitimized censorship for the first time, thus laying the grounds for subsequent governments to build on.