Iran's supreme leader attacks books as 'poisonous drugs'

In a meeting with librarians and publishing industry leaders this week, Khamenei said the activity of reading should be encouraged but warned against books carrying "a public appearance but with specific political hidden motives."

"Not all books are necessarily good and not all of them are unharmful, some books are harmful," he said, according to his official website, Khamenei.ir.

His comments have brought criticism from Iran's former culture minister Ataollah Moherajerani who said access to literature should not be limited.

Mohajerani who was culture minister until 2000 under the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, said the ayatollah was worried about "literary, philosophical and social" books that might raise questions about his legitimacy as the supreme leader.

"I think that he is very much concerned about books that can either implicitly or explicitly target his position as the supreme leader and also his legitimacy," he told The Guardian.

He currently lives in exile in London after falling out with regime partly because he favoured greater cultural openness and removed thousands of titles from the lists of banned books.
In his speech, the 72-year-old Khamenei, whose pronouncements are often interpreted as official guidelines, refused to give more details on which books he deemed "harmful".
However, titles ranging from uncensored version of Plato's Symposium to Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Journey to the End of the Night and works by James Joyce, Gabriel García Márquez, Kurt Vonnegut and Paulo Coelho have been banned in recent years by Iran's ministry of culture and Islamic guidance which vets all books before publication.
"Those responsible in the book industry should not let harmful books enter our book market on the basis that we let them [readers] choose [what they want to read]," Khamenei told cheering crowds.
"Like poisonous, dangerous and addictive drugs which are not available for everyone without restrictions … as a publisher, librarian or an official in the book industry, we don't have the right to make [such books] available to those without knowledge," he said. "We should provide them with healthy and good books."

taken from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8654150/Irans-supreme-leader-attacks-books-as-poisonous-drugs.html