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By Edmund Blair
 TEHRAN (Reuters) - The only thing that surprised Abdolreza
Tajik when the Iranian authorities shut the pro-reform newspaper where he
worked was that it had survived so long since last year's election of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
But when the order to close Sharq came in
September it confirmed his suspicions that the government of Ahmadinejad, who rails against the West and vows a
return to Islamic revolutionary values, does not appreciate dissenting
voices.
"At least some people inside the government believe that there should
be no voice except their own voice," Tajik, Sharq's
political editor, told Reuters in the empty offices that once buzzed with
activity of the country's leading reformist paper.
Critics say the closure is part of a gradual squeeze on political opponents
and a clampdown on cultural activities the authorities see as encouraging
"corrupt" Western values.
They say critical professors in universities have been pushed out, student
activists feel threatened and opposition journalists face increasing
pressure to conform.
Sharq had a tiny circulation of just 130,000 in a
country of about 70 million people but critics say it may have been
targeted because it was gaining popularity.
"They were afraid of Sharq. Sharq had become a very popular newspaper. It was
attracting a lot of young people, students and others," said a senior
Iranian official, who asked not to be identified because his comments could
cause him problems.
The government dismisses such charges, saying it welcomes criticism from
the press and others. The press supervisory board said it closed Sharq for failing to change a managing director accused
of publishing blasphemy and insulting officials.
Sharq journalists deny such accusations and say
they want to challenge the ruling. But they say they face an uphill fight.
The government has called on the judiciary to clamp down on newspapers
which tell "lies" and journalists say they face increasing
pressure from the authorities, particularly when reporting issues like Iran's
nuclear standoff with the West.
Conservatives say the government is concerned about national security.
Reformists see it as gagging.
Conservative-leaning newspapers dominate the press and the state controls Iran's
broadcast media. Iranians seeking more diverse views turn to satellite TV,
but police launched a drive in July to enforce a ban on satellite dishes.
"They (the government) are afraid of a powerful reformist media. They
don't want to see a repetition of what happened in the past," the
Iranian official said.
OMINOUS SIGN
The press was a battleground for reformists when President Mohammad Khatami tried to push through his agenda of change
during eight years in office which ended in 2005.
Conservatives, who held most reins of power at the time, stamped on his
efforts, shutting down reformist newspapers en masse, sometimes days after
they started. Many reopened under new names, which one report suggested Sharq might try to do.
There has been no sweeping clampdown since Ahmadinejad
took office and a handful of reformist dailies still publish.
"The government welcomes criticism and assessment of its work by the
media," government spokesman Gholamhossein
Elham said in August. "It ... opposes censorship, self-censorship and
government pressure on the media."
But critics say closing down such a prominent journal as Sharq is an ominous sign before the December vote to
city councils and the Assembly of Experts, a powerful clerical body which
reformists fear sympathizers of Ahmadinejad want
to pack.
Some say Sharq was linked -- despite the
management's denials -- to former President Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, an influential cleric who this month signed up to run for the
assembly. He lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005
presidential race.
Political analyst Mahmoud Alinejad
said the government may have moved against Sharq
while support for reformists was still at a low
ebb because "whatever they do at this stage doesn't invoke any strong
protest."
Student activists, once the vanguard of the reform movement, have been
keeping a low profile, which some analysts attribute to disenchantment with
reformists who failed to deliver on their promises when they controlled
parliament and the presidency.
But students also say they are being cowed into silence.
"They pressure active students, even those who have been active for
student welfare demands, by summoning them to the disciplinary
committee," said one student activist, who asked not to be named,
adding that many student bodies had been shut.
Some critical university professors have also been pushed into early
retirement, critics say. Ahmadinejad has urged
students to denounce liberal professors who taint the Islamic Republic with
secularism.
Even so, some say worries about a clampdown are exaggerated.
"We have many more secular and liberal people here to be fired than
the ones who were retired," said Nasser Hadian-Jazy,
a political science professor at Tehran
University.
But many see a concerted drive to scrub out anything that smacks of Western
influence. One European diplomat said even his country's student exchange
scheme has suffered. His nationals visited Iran but no Iranians were sent
back in return, which he attributed to fears of what they might learn
abroad.
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