Iranian Agents Seize, Return Campaign Posters Endorsing Moderate

Iranian security agents seized more than a half million campaign cards and posters endorsing presidential frontrunner Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in Friday's runoff election.

Sources close to the incident confirm that government agents marched into a printing shop in Tehran Tuesday to confiscate the material. Workers were told that Iran's hard-line judiciary had determined that some words on the posters were offensive, like the word "democracy."

Hours after the seizure was reported in Wednesday's Washington Post newspaper, sources told VOA the material was returned.

Separately, the Associated Press says Mr. Rafsanjani threatened last week to boycott the upcoming runoff because of alleged voting abuses. But AP quotes a Rafsanjani aide Wednesday as saying the threat was retracted after hard-liners promised not to interfere in Friday's poll.

Some information for this report provided by AP.