The government of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced that it had boosted spending to promote the Koran, Islam's holy book, and revive revolutionary ideals in Iran. "The current government aims to revive the culture of the early years of the revolution and make the culture of the Koran and mosques a priority," culture minister Mohammad Hossein Safar Harandi told a news conference. He said the budget allocated to promote the Koran had multiplied twenty times since Ahmadinejad's election three years ago, from 7 to 150 billion rials (US$ 16 million).
The annual cultural budget for government spending on mosques had risen from 1.5 million rials (US$ 160) per establishment to 20 million (US$ 2,100), the minister said. Even though the figure per mosque may appear low, it highlighted the government's will to make religious and revolutionary culture a priority, he said. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance oversees all cultural, journalistic and artistic activity in Iran, and is authorized to sponsor cultural work as it deems fit.
Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005, vowing to promote social justice and restore the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution which toppled the US-backed Shah. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Saturday praised Ahmadinejad's government for blocking what he called dangerous trends of "Westoxication" and secularism infiltrating the country's administration.
Meanwhile, the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has pledged that he would step up diplomatic pressure to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons before Israel feels that "its back is against the wall" and might take military action. Campaigning In Iowa on his way to the Democratic convention in Denver, Obama said: "I will tell you having visited Israel just a month and a half ago, their general attitude is, 'We will not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.' My job as president would be to try to make sure we are tightening the screws diplomatically on Iran, that we mobilize the world community to go after Iran's nuclear program in a serious way. ... We have to do it before Israel feels its back is against the wall."
Read about the WJC's campaign to Stop the Iranian Threat
