Javanfekr, director of the official Iranian news agency IRNA, was summoned to serve a six-month prison sentence in Evin Prison, according to news reports. Javanfekr, also head of IRNA’s print affiliate, Iran, as well as press adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had been sentenced in November 2011 to two six-month prison terms and a three-year ban on press activities, news reports said. An appeals court tossed out one of his six-month sentences in August 2012, IRNA reported.
Javanfekr had been convicted of publishing content “contrary to Islamic standards” and “publishing obscene content.” He had written in an official publication that the practice of women wearing the chador-a head-to-toe cover-was not an authentic Iranian one, but had instead been adopted from other Muslim countries, news reports said. The comment not only angered Iranian clerics, it came amid an ongoing feud between supporters of the president and those of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.