Free Iran:  The regime is afraid of the international media coverage of its human rights record and that’s why it’s lashing out like this.  This is their weak point.  The West needs to press it.  Also see this NY Times piece.

An influential Iranian state-run newspaper on Tuesday reiterated and expanded on its earlier derogatory remarks about French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, spurring Iran’s Foreign Ministry to warn news media to refrain from insulting foreign dignitaries.

The Kayhan daily first called Bruni-Sarkozy “a prostitute” on Saturday. The paper repeated that remark Tuesday and added that the first lady, a former model and pop star, “deserves to die” because of her “perverted lifestyle” and her public support for an Iranian woman who has been sentenced to death by stoning.

The comments angered the French Foreign Ministry, which called them “unacceptable.” Ramin Mehmanparast, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, responded by urging the national news media to use restraint and avoid “indecent words.”

“The media can properly criticize the wrong and hostile policies of other countries by refraining from using insulting words. This is not correct,” Mehmanparast said.

But the repeated allegations by the paper, which is headed by a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, indicate that hard-liners have launched an offensive against the mounting international criticism over the Islamic republic’s controversial capital punishments and family laws, Iranian activists say.