Found one! This one is on topic. And apparently not available elsewhere. OK, I've done my contribution for the month, will leave it up to Sully to find the rest....
Belligerent Iran hides its excesses
By Amir Taheri, Special to Gulf News
Published: August 14, 2007, 23:35
gulfnews.com
We all know the adage "good news is no news". However, one man's bad news could be another's good news. In that context, one could regard reporting from Iran as a case in point.
As far as the Islamic Republic's authorities are concerned, last Thursday was a day of bad news. For it was marked by demonstrations throughout the country in support of jailed free trade unionist leaders and labour activists.
In Tehran, hundreds gathered near the home of Mansour Osanloo, the imprisoned leader of the capital's transport workers with a simple message: We are not afraid!
The authorities had organised a military operation to cordon off the streets leading to the house but could not prevent free trade unionists from assembling.
The day ended with the arrest of at least 15 leaders of the workers. At the same time in many factories and workshops in and around Tehran workers organised peaceful hour-long "solidarity pauses", defying a ban imposed by the authorities. There were similar demonstrations in several other major cities, including Ahvaz, Arak, Sanandaj, Shiraz and Tabriz.
Everywhere, the protestors took care to keep their action within the laws of the country. And, yet, the Islamic authorities kept any mention of Thursday's events out of the official media.
That to the mullahs bad news should be no news is not surprising. For years they have pretended to be working on behalf of Iran's poorest working masses.
But now the mask is falling. It is precisely those poorest working masses that present the regime with its biggest challenge.
What is surprising, however, is that much of the global media should also regard bad news for the mullahs as no news. According to the Ministry of Islamic Orientation and Culture in Tehran, there are 117 registered foreign media correspondents in Iran.
And, yet, with the exception of a lone stringer for a Japanese news agency who appeared at a demonstration in a car factory near Tehran, none paid attention to the workers' day of solidarity.
Osanloo's lawyers telephoned the offices of more than a dozen Western news agencies and radio and television networks in Tehran in the hope of persuading them to cover the events. They obtained no results.
Some, like Sajideh Salehi, whose husband Mahmoud Salehi is one of the jailed trade unionists, believe that the world media's silence on the people's struggle in Iran is part of a global conspiracy to keep international opinion public in the dark about what is really happening in the country.
At first glance the "global conspiracy" theory appears plausible, at least to those Iranians who believe that there is always a dark side to all things.
They ask: why is it that world media representatives in Iran never interview any of the thousands of trade unionists, teachers' leaders, journalists, student activists, women's-lib militants, and dissident intellectuals?
Why is the brutal repression in several provinces, including Khuzestan, Kurdistan, Sistan and Baluchistan, that has already claimed scores of lives, never covered on the spot?
The authorities themselves admit that they have arrested almost a million people in the past four months, keeping them for anything from several hours to several weeks. And, yet, the news from Iran is focused on the mullahs' defiance of the United Nations on the nuclear issue.
There is, however, no conspiracy.
The global media's silence on the internal turmoil in Iran can be explained by three facts.
The first is that the editors of some Western media outlets are politically sympathetic to Iran which they regard as a plucky Third World regime standing up against Western, especially American, "imperialist bullying".
These are the same type of people who sympathised with Joseph Stalin because he, too, claimed to represent the "oppressed people"; the same who tried to "understand" Hitler's grievances about the Treaty of Versailles.
They have worshipped Fidel Castro for half a century, opposed the toppling of Saddam Hussain, and are currently starry-eyed about Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega.
To them all that one needs do to become a hero is to hate the United States. These people never reported the mass murder of workers and intellectuals by Stalin, Hitler, Castro or Saddam. So, why should we expect them to make an exception in the case of Iran?
The second fact that might explain the media's strange silence on the struggle in Iran is Tehran's refusal to admit the representatives of media outlets it regards as "hostile".
As President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated in his visit to the Islamic Republic News Agency's headquarters in Tehran last week, information is allowed only if it serves "the interests of our revolution".
It is only after long negotiations that Iran allows foreign, especially Western, media to open offices and have correspondents in Tehran, on the implicit understanding that the concerned outlet keeps its coverage within limits fixed by the authorities.
Refused visas
The list of media outlets that have been refused visas, let alone permanent offices in Iran includes the names of many newspapers, radio and television networks whose editorial policy Tehran regards as unfriendly.
Finally, there is the fact that correspondents and stringers working for Western media in Iran are under constant psychological and, at times, even physical pressure.
If they are expatriates they could find it impossible to get a place to rent or to obtain an air ticket to a provincial capital. If unhappy with the coverage, official sources could suddenly boycott the correspondent.
The renewal of residence and work permits provide bi-annual occasions for the authorities to intimidate foreign correspondents.
Foreign media representatives could be seized and held hostage as was the case with the Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib and is currently the case with Radio Free Europe's Parnaz Azima.
Right now at least 11 Iranian journalists are in prison on charges of unauthorised cooperation with foreign media. Even if all goes well, foreign correspondents, most of whom do not speak Persian, remain dependent on interpreters and minders from the Ministry of Islamic Orientation and Culture.
The Islamic Republic is certainly not the first to keep a tight leash on foreign media. It was on similar terms that Saddam Hussain allowed a handful of foreign correspondents, including the notorious "Baghdad Bob" to stay in Iraq.
The good news, however, is that we live in an age in which, thanks to the internet and other means of communication, information almost always ends up by getting out.
The real news from Iran is the struggle between those who believe that only freedom, pluralism and peace can save the country and those who wish to erect a wall around the Islamic Republic and prepare it for war.
As the nation moves towards elections in 10 months' time the struggle is likely to sharpen with the future of the country in the balance. The outside world had better pay attention. For what is known as " the Iran problem" can only be solved inside the country by its people.
Iranian author Amir Taheri is based in Europe.
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