Following an outbreak of ethnic tension after distributing a fake letter in Khuzestan province last week calling on the president to relocate Arabs, Iran decided to ban al-jazeera which covered the letter and its resulted tensions widely. The letter was supposedly signed by populist former president's adviser Mohammad Ali Abtahi. However, he strongly rejected writing such a letter and called it a fake in his
weblog.
Al-Jazeera, which is popular among Iran's Arab-speaking minority, is believed to have been the first news outlet to broadcast news of the separations unrests.
Mohammad Hossein Khoshvaght, director general of the Iranian Culture and Guidance Ministry, told IRIB TV "If it is proved that Al-Jazeera committed a crime, it will be prosecuted.
We suspended its activity in Iran to investigate the network's role in unrest in Ahvaz."
The fake letter asking president an ethnic cleansing of Arabs, widely covered by aljazeera
Meanwhile Aljazeera regrets Iran suspension.
Al-jazeera is known as an "untrustworthy inflammatory medium" among Iranians because of its abnormal focus on Shiite/Sunni, Arab/nonArab tensions, seperationist movements and representing Al-qaeda and Islamic radicals as the representatives of Muslims to the world. see my
last post about al-jazeera.