The story: Tehran’s police has walked back an earlier apparent announcement that non-Persian names for stores in Iran’s capital will be “forbidden.” Following an immense public backlash, a senior police commander has denied that such a ban on foreign or non-Persian names exists. The controversy has revived the diversity debate in Iran, which is home to a plethora of non-Persian communities.

The coverage: In an interview with the semi-official Mehr News published on Dec. 5, Colonel Nader Moradi, the Commander of the Greater Tehran Police for Supervision of Commercial Spaces, was cited as saying that the government had issued official guidelines stressing that commercial venues in the capital “must have Persian names"...