The cleric wrote a text addressed to the reporter, Amin Mehravar, offering him an apology for the misbehavior of his security guards.
“But this incident has a lesson for all of us. And that is the irreplaceable role of the public opinion and media space in controlling problems, faults and failures,” he wrote.
The incident happened on Wednesday at a ceremony at the headquarters of Iran’s Ettela’at Daily to pay tribute to its late director Mahmoud Do’aei.
Mehravar went near Khomeini and ex-president Mohammad Khatami to take pictures, but he was forcibly removed by the bodyguards.
ILNA said Mehravar’s phone and ID card were confiscated and he was subjected to physical and verbal abuse.
The news agency condemned the bodyguards’ “inappropriate action” and described it as a flagrant attack on media freedom.
