Iranian President speaks on press closures

President Mohammad Khatami of Iran has called for the rights and freedoms of all Iranians to be preserved and not trampled on in the name of Islam.

Speaking on the third anniversary of his landslide election victory, Mr Khatami said that even at the height of the war against Iraq in the 1980's, the Islamic regime had been proud of the fact that it allowed its opponents to express themselves and to publish newspapers and magazines.

Mr Khatami said that now, more than twenty years into the revolution, wrong methods shouldn't be resorted to in the name of defending religion and the regime, which were avoided even during the war.

The BBC Tehran Correspondent says this is the closest Mr Khatami has come to criticising publicly the recent mass closure of pro-reform newspapers by the largely conservative judiciary.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service