Iran media update for 4 July 2009.

"We can expect a flurry of activity in the U.S. Congress to fund further expansion of VOA’s Persian News Network and RFE/RL Radio Farda. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman are strong supporters of such expansion, and such action should receive bipartisan support. Is this 'interference' in Iran’s domestic affairs? Of course it is, but we should have no qualms about this type of intervention. It is very different from offering financial support to Iranian NGOs or even Iranian resistance movements. What broadcasting does is to impose more transparency on autocratic regimes who believe their populations should be spoon-fed propaganda." Geoffrey Kemp, National Interest, 30 June 2009.
     "Alex Vatanka, a senior Middle East analyst for the Britain-based Jane's Publishing Group, says that compounded official anger about Western broadcasts to Iran when it was already the target of broadcasts by Voice of America's own Persian News Network. 'They're clearly upset about the creation of the BBC Persian [TV] Service. And that TV station has been playing a very unique role in many ways. It's not to say that Voice of America Persian Service hasn't done it. But Voice of America Persian Service has been there for a long time. The [BBC] Persian Service Section is a newly launched, relatively newly launched service. From day one, the Iranian authorities have been complaining about the creation of this channel,' he said." Gary Thomas, VOA News, 2 July 2009.
     "There are new underground newspapers being passed among protesters and cropping up on the Internet. ... They appear to be getting round a tightening media clampdown at home by having news and information sent from Iran compiled and posted by journalists abroad." RFE/RL News, 1 July 2009.
     "Final dispatch" from anaymous Tehran correspondent: "And on the thirteenth day Michael Jackson died. Voice of America and BBC Persian are back up, if intermittently, and we crowd around like the rest of the world for the latest news. It is almost a relief. Being a full-time revolutionary is hard work, difficult to sustain. Seeing the non-stop coverage, the obvious distraction of his passing, we grimly joke that Michael was a martyr for the cause. At least he had the decency to delay his death until the worst violence had already passed." juancole.com, 1 July 2009.
     "Any Iranian foolish to put her hopes in this most fickle of constituencies that is the Tweeter must have begun to doubt the wisdom of such an approach as short attention spans inevitably set in and, most devastatingly of all, the death of Michael Jackson stole the headlines." George Ciccariello-Maher, CounterPunch, 3 July 2009.
     "At first glance, the situations in Poland [1989] and Iran [2009] are radically different when it comes to how protesters get their messages out. The use of Facebook, Twitter, and countless other powerful Internet tools are prime examples. So are the government's efforts to block such technologies at key moments. Although the instruments are different, Solidarity and earlier Polish activists nonetheless know all about this contest. They used earlier tools such as clandestine printing presses to churn out leaflets, underground newspapers, and publications; the government tried to find them and shut them down. The Poles smuggled messages to Radio Free Europe, the BBC, and VOA, just as Iranians are trying to get their messages to satellite TV and radio stations, which Tehran tries to jam. Since the protesters are young and often a step ahead of the government in terms of how to operate whatever the technology of the moment is, it's close to impossible to shut everything off." Andrew Nagorski, Newsweek, 30 June 2009.
     "Recently, the Canadian envoy to Iran was called in and admonished by Iranian officials for contributing to the destabilitization of the regime because of support for social networking tools, like Twitter and Facebook. ... The Iranians' furor was ignited by the work of our company, Psiphon, which is based in Canada and has actively engaged in a campaign to help Iranians bypass their country's filters and exercise basic human rights of access to information and freedom of speech." Psiphone co-founders Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, National Post, 30 June 2009.
     "Shortwave radio broadcasting to Iran is a must. The regime is confiscating satellite dishes and destroying them daily to prevent access to news from the outside. But people who own satellites constitute a minority. The great majority of Iranians listen to the radio in their cars, at work and at home. We need help to establish shortwave broadcasts to Iran." Arash Irandoost, Arutz Sheva (Israel), 1 July 2009. Kol Israel is already transmitting in Farsi to Iran, that station's last remaining shortwave broadcast. See previous post.
     "Here are six reasons why the situation in Iran cannot be reduced to simplistic headlines or Twitter feeds." Jalai Ghazi, New America Media, 2 July 2009.
     "A reporter for Newsweek magazine who was arrested in Tehran has confessed to doing the bidding of Western governments, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported Wednesday. Maziar Bahari, 42, made his alleged confession at a news conference Tuesday. Because international journalists have been limited in their ability to gather news in Iran, CNN has not been able to confirm the agency report. Fars reported that the Canadian-Iranian reporter who had worked for the BBC and England's Channel 4 network admitted having filed false reports for Newsweek during the elections -- a charge the magazine rejected." CNN, 1 July 2009.
     "Iran's police chief says a doctor who was present at the death of a young Iranian woman during opposition street protests in Tehran is under investigation by both Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and by the international policy agency Interpol. ... Contacted on July 2 by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, Interpol said it had not received any requests from Iranian authorities for information or assistance related to Hejazi or Neda's death." RFE/RL News, 3 July 2009.
     "Adnan Hassanpour, a Kurdish journalist whose death sentence was quashed in August 2008, was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in prison by the court in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj that retried his case, Reporters Without Borders has learned from his family. ... He wrote about the very sensitive Kurdish issue for the magazine Asou, which has been banned by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance since August 2005. He also worked for foreign media such as Voice of America and Radio Farda, which broadcasts in Farsi to Iran." Reporters sans frontières, 2 July 2009. Posted: 04 Jul 2009 Permalink Print