The Ministry of Culture and Guidance has declared the book Bijan and Manijeh as being unprintable.
The Director of Peydayesh Publications who had previously announced that sections of the classic Persian book Khosrow and Shirin will be censored, has now reported that the children’s book Bijan and Manijeh that is in it’s eighth publication will be banned. The Director of Peydayesh Publications discussed the reason for banning this children’s book in a radio interview. “Unfortunately the problem is that the Ministry of Culture and Guidance is not clear about the reasons or the words that cause them to censor books. If there were a guidance provided to publication companies, they would be followed in order to prevent these situations.”
He continued, “Due to this ambiguity, out of 10 books that we sent for licensing to the Ministry of Culture, 7 of them were audited, resulting in their scheduled publications being halted.”
Last week it was reported that the Ministry of Islamic Guidance censored a publication of the classic book Khosrow and Shirin. The publisher said that these events have caused them to no longer be in a “cultural mood.”
Article in Persian: http://www.rahana.org/archives/43467