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The Iranian newspaper Hemayat reported June 2 that Hossein Entezami, the managing director of a key conservative Iranian daily, Hamshahri, left his position at the paper to take over as the representative of managing editors of newspapers in the Press Supervision Board (PSB). The PSB is a powerful instrument which the clerical establishment uses to keep the media within acceptable bounds. Normally, Stratfor would treat this as a non-event, even in a place like Iran, but Entezami is no ordinary person.
Aside from being an operator in the media business, Entezami was the spokesman of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council when Ali Larijani headed the powerful body and was part of Tehran’s team of nuclear negotiators. It is not a coincidence that Entezami is joining the PSB within a few days of his former boss becoming the speaker of the newly elected parliament. This development also comes as an internal power struggle between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ultraconservative camp and the pragmatic conservatives — including Larijani — is intensifying. The latest manifestation of the rift came from the PSB, which under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture and Guidance placed a three-day ban on Fars News Agency, a semi-official media group connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the judiciary.
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