By Golnaz Esfandiari,     RFE/RL  
    This week Iran's new Culture Minister Ali Jannati    denounced book censorship under the administration of former    President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and said if they could, censors    would have banned the Koran, which is considered to be the word    of God by Muslims.  
    That doesn't mean censorship will necessarily ease    anytime soon, seeing as Jannati also suggested that the    government should not allow problematic books "to poison"    society.  
    Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has also,    in the past, spoken against "harmful books."  
    What it is like for authors in Iran to try to get their    work past censors?  
    Writers, translators, and publishers in Iran have to    navigate a bureaucratic labyrinth in order to see their    writings published.  
    All books are submitted to the Culture Ministry for    review by censors who make sure they conform to written and    unwritten rules and principles -- and the censors' own    interpretations of those rules.  
    Books that are deemed anti-Islamic, immoral, or against    Iran's security are banned outright. Other books have    problematic words or whole chapters cut out. Books can also be    banned years after being published.  
    Books are read by one or more censors. Those in charge of    censorship reportedly use software to search for banned words    such as references to female body parts. The review process and    back-and-forth between censors and the authors and publishers    can take weeks, months, or even years.  
        Iranian Culture Minister Ali Jannati speaking against book    censorship(source: Etemaad daily)  
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Iran's Kafkaesque Book Censorship