The recent rounding-up and detention of some Iranians for posting a video on YouTube of themselves dancing to an innocuous pop song -- see, for example, the story in The Guardian -- suggests the local authorities still aren't showing much cultural flexibility -- and yet a few days ago at IBNA "scholar, author and translator of philosophy Babak Ahmadi" is quoted as saying about the current state of literature and (non-reading) in the country:
I think we have to trace a resolve to this problem somewhere else, where the government is not honest with people and books are irrationally censored, so people are no longer interested in booksAdmirable of him to say -- and them to be able to print -- that maybe the governmnt should at least explain what's okay, and what isn't. Open criticism and discussion seems to be a good first step to sorting things out .....