Media Crackdown

Latif Safari, right, director of the banned Neshat daily, arrives at a Tehran court Sunday. Safari, a prominent Iranian journalist, was arrested and thrown in jail a day after the country’s top investigative reporter was imprisoned. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader whose powers supersede those of the elected president, has said reformist papers are undermining Islamic and revolutionary principles. Nearly all leading reformist journalists, who back President Mohammad Khatami’s reforms, have been summoned for questioning by the judiciary, which is controlled by hard-liners.