Pedestrian

Along with the theater festival, and the movie festival before 22 Bahman, another annual event is the book festival.

Like all the other cultural affairs before 22 Bahman, the ceremonies are sponsored, headed and controlled by the government.

This year, the book, The Shia Atlas written by Rasoul Jafarian was tapped to win Best History Book of the Year. All winners were sent out a fax, with their name and the category which they had won. Like other winners, Jafarian was invited to the Vahdat Hall to receive his prize on Monday, February 8th. The fax was signed by the director of the festival and the news of his award appeared on their website.

But an hour before the ceremony, Jafarian was notified that the Office of the President had not been willing to sign his prize [Ahmadinejad himself hands out the prizes.] The directors also informed the author that they had just been notified of this by the presidential office.

AyandeNews reports that the reason behind this decision may be the fact that Jafarian has written some harsh words criticizing the government in recent months after the election. Because, after all, he received the same prize from Ahmadinejad in 2006:

At the same time, Ali Akbar Chiniforooshan, another ignorant man who has been heading a cultural organization called Center for the Development of Children and Young Adults, has been forced to resign after 17 years.  [He once famously declared in a speech that the renowned Iranian poet, Shahriyar, who is an Iranian Turk from the province of Azerbaijan, is from the city of Shahriyar, near Tehran].

This follows an awards ceremony the Center held last month for authors who contribute to books and magazines for children and young adults. In this ceremony, Sajedeh Arabsorkhi, the daughter of political activist, Feyzollah Arabsorkhi, accepted an award and spent a few minutes speaking in memory of her father who is currently in prison.

After Sajedeh’s speech, the security office at the Center complained of her speech and held Chiniforooshan himself directly responsible. A month later, he has been forced to resign and retire.