Iran weekly shut for insulting clerics

The Iranian judiciary closed down Tabarestan, a weekly, for drawing similarities between goats and Iran’s clerics, reports said on Monday. In its last issue, the weekly published an article denouncing the misdeeds of the goat, branding it a destructive animal ‘‘whose distinctive sign is to have a long beard’’. Wearing a beard is considered mandatory for men by Muslim clerics. The weekly said the goat does not respect ‘‘democratic rights in a herd of sheep’’ and stops sheep from ‘‘freely bleating’’. —(AFP)