Special to WorldTribune.com

Hard-liners in Iran are “exaggerating the case” and promoting baseless arrests of journalists in a crackdown on freedom of expression, President Hassan Rouhani said.

Iranian authorities detained five local journalists this week after accusing them of having ties to “anti-revolutionary” media.

Rouhani, who had promised to end the stifling of expression during his election campaign in 2013, said on Nov. 5 that hard-liners “misuse” comments by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the spread of U.S. influence in the Islamic Republic.

“We shouldn’t detain one or two people, here and there, while exaggerating the case and saying there is a ‘current’ (U.S.) infiltration in Iran,” Rouhani said, according to a report in the state-owned daily IRAN, quoted by The Associated Press. The president added that the “abuse” of Khamenei’s statements for “personal, group and factional interests” is not permissible.

Khamenei earlier this week said the U.S. policies were a threat to Iran.

According to opposition activists, Rouhani has not only fell short on his promise to stop the crackdown on expression, but the situation is worse under his administration than it was under his hard-line predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, freedom of expression, Marginalized Rouhani criticizes arrests of journalists, U.S. influence, WorldTribune.com