Authorities Close Two Kurdish Newspapers in Northwest Iran

VOA News 04 August 2005

Iranian authorities have shut down two Kurdish language newspapers in northwestern Iran, a day after at least 11 people were killed in that region during a clash between Kurdish demonstrators and Iranian police.

The official Iranian news agency (IRNA) quotes the managing editor of the bilingual (Kurdish and Iranian) Ashti daily Thursday as saying a provincial court ordered the temporary closure of the paper.

A Kurdish journalist in the region told VOA's Kurdish service that a second paper, Aso, also was shut down because it reported on the recent wave of anti-Iranian protests in Iran's northern Kurdish region.

The killing last month of a Kurdish activist by Iranian security forces sparked demonstrations, some of them violent, in several predominantly Kurdish cities in northwestern Iran.

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