Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian media are reporting that the country's General Prosecutor has ordered the closure of a reformist newspaper on charges of insulting the Shiite religion.
The Friday reports say that the "Sedayeh Eslahat" newspaper was ordered shut down for publishing an article on female-to-male gender reassignment surgery. The prosecutor, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, ordered the editor be punished, too, the reports said.
On Thursday, a headline on the newspaper's front page read: "Ruqayyah became Mahdi after 22 years."
Ruqayyah was the daughter of Hussein, a Shiite Imam, and the article was published during Mu?arram, a holiday in which Shiite Muslims mourn the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad.
According to Shiite beliefs, Mahdi is the name of the 12th Shiite Imam who has lived since the 9th century.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
