WHO STOOD BEHIND ISHTAR?
The licensing process for periodicals and the publication of books in Iran was fraught with obstacles. Many a less persistent Assyrian abandoned efforts to publish works of poetry and textbooks due to the unpredictable and tedious bureaucratic process involved. Such harassment of Assyrian institutions meant that literary works (poems and short stories) had to be translated from Assyrian neo-Aramaic into Persian and then taken to the censors. At times the censors would only request that part of the book be translated, but once that part had been translated would decide they wanted another part or even the entire book translated. The number of publications decreased, and eventually very little was published. Publication was resumed in 1991 following some leniencies in publication conditions after Khomeini’s death in 1989. However, by then, most Assyrian publications appeared in Persian. Though Aramaic was still the dominant spoken language in the Assyrian community, Persian had become th
