Authorities in Iran have shut down leading moderate daily Shargh for the second time in less than a year after it published an interview with a woman accused of being a homosexual activist, its staff members said. The ban on Shargh (East), the favourite newspaper of Iranian liberals, comes amid growing pressure on the press in Iran and follows the closure of fellow moderate daily Ham Mihan last month. Mehdi Rahmanian, Shargh's licence holder and managing director, says the paper has not been officially notified yet, but was told that the press watchdog ordered the ban. "We had an article which was an interview with an expatriate writer," he siad. "They said she had moral problems, they say she is homosexual and promotes that in her weblog. But we talked to her as a poet." There was no official confirmation from the authorities, but the Fars news agency cited an informed source in the culture ministry as saying that the press watchdog had ordered a temporary ban on the paper. "The paper was closed yesterday evening by the authorities. The apparent reason is the publication of an interview," Saeed Laylaz, an editorial writer on the newspaper, said. In its Saturday edition, Shargh published a full-page interview with Saghi Ghahreman, an expatriate Iranian poet who lives in Canada, under the headline "Feminine language". The hardline daily Kayhan said that Ghahreman was the head "of the Iranian homosexuals organisation" and a "counter-revolutionary fugitive." "Media observers believe that Shargh has interviewed this homosexual with awareness of her sick sexual identity, dissident views and porno personality," it said. Homosexuality is strictly illegal in the Islamic republic and homosexual sex is theoretically punishable by death. Ref: ABC News (m)