Hossein Saffar Harandi

Hossein Saffar Harandi is an Iranian politician and former IRGC member who served as Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance from 2005 to 2009 under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A hardline ideologue, he was previously deputy editor of the Kayhan newspaper and one of the closest allies of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

As head of the Ministry of Culture, Saffar Harandi imposed severe press restrictions, shutting down numerous publications and vowing to purge Iran's cultural scene of what he called "unhealthy products." He banned Iranian journalists from working for BBC Persian TV and tightened censorship regulations on book publishing. Writers and publishers reported that censorship became significantly stricter under his tenure.

In his writings at Kayhan, Saffar Harandi condemned democracy as a Western governing model and described pluralism as an "effective weapon of the West" for cultural invasion of the Islamic world. He was removed from office on 26 July 2009.