April 20, 2003 4:11 PM

Journalist Sina Motallebi, a "liberal critic of the hard-line clerics who rule Iran" was detained today.

Since early 2000, Iran’s hardline judiciary has closed down about 90 pro-democracy publications and jailed several dozen writers and activists on vague charges of insulting the authorities.

The crackdown is widely seen as part of a power struggle between reformists who support President Mohammad Khatami’s programme of social and political reforms and hardliners who oppose any dilution of clerical rule and resist change through the unelected institutions they control, including the judiciary and police.

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