On February 8, 1908, after more than a year of deliberations, the newly-opened majles ratified the Press Law. The passage of this law, which consisted of a comprehensive set of fifty-two articles, was a significant development in the history of censorship in Iran. This was not only the very first time that what was fit to print was being regulated officially in some detail, but it was also of consequence. In as much as its provisions, by and large, remained on the books until 1952 when it was replaced by the Second Press Law, it laid the groundwork for much of twentieth-century censorship in Iran. Furthermore, it portended a new approach to censorship, since the justification for its ratification was that if there were a set of written laws as to what publications could and could not do, then publications would gain protection from arbitrary lawsuits, closure, and persecution by the shah and his court. However, in the little that has been written on the Press Law, this development has been explained primarily in terms of constitutional politics, and the pressure that the first majles was put under by royalist forces close to Mohammad Ali Shah who had been angered by the critical and anti-royalist tone of some constitutional newspapers. Rarely has the press law been considered in the broader context of the history of censorship in Qajar Iran, and the attempts that had been made by the state in previous decades, both overt and covert, to take control over what people read and could become exposed to, and the acts of resistance that ensued in order to fight them.
To this end, the aim in this paper is to contextualize the Press Law and to consider what it tells us about the story of censorship in Qajar Iran. How did the understanding of what censorship should entail change throughout the years, and what challenges and dilemmas did censorship pose for both the authorities as well as the increasingly politicized subjects/citizens at different points in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Iran, culminating in the Press Law in spring 1908? This paper is based on a close reading of a number of newspapers published in Iran between the 1870s and 1908, as well as dairies and memoirs pertaining to this period.
