In its latest communiqué, Iran’s ministry of intelligence has made new assertions about journalists who have been recently detained in Iran. While repeating the same baseless charges it has been ranting for years, the ministry now claims that BBC Farsi Service is the gateway to Persian language media outside the country and that all websites including the Green Movement’s JARAS, RoozOnline, Radio Farda etc are guided and directed by the BBC.
This is not the place to respond to these baseless and repeated allegations. But it must be noted that the publication of such statements indicates the weakness and lack of understanding of the ministry of intelligence of the flow of information outside the country. They cannot digest the fact that Iranian journalists, whether inside our outside the country, have attained a level of professionalism and capability that they do not need to be guided or directed by other people or networks claimed by the ministry of intelligence of the Islamic republic of Iran. Each of these journalists and reporters are themselves sufficiently creative and imaginative in their field and at times even more so than their Western colleagues. In fact, if they did not have the constraints they have today, we would probably witness even greater exposes of the enemies of the free flow of information.
Furthermore, the reasons why the security apparatus of the Islamic republic is so fearful of the Persian language media outside Iran, and particularly the BBC, and therefore strives to prevent the free flow of information through a psychological war are very clear. Polls conducted by the state-run national radio and television network (Seda va Sima) and the ministry of intelligence clearly indicate the influence of this media inside in Iran and their popularity despite the extensive signal jamming and filtering of websites and demonstrate the public’s growing thirst for independent information even in the smaller towns and villages.
The real question is why the BBC and many other Persian language media have become so popular thus creating concerns for the leaders of the Islamic republic of Iran and its security authorities?
A simple glance at the record of many colleagues who have for years been professionally active with these media outlet will provide the answer. Among those journalists who are primarily affiliated with popular Persian speaking media outside the country, one finds records of cooperation with such Iranian media inside Iran as Neshat, Hamshahri, Iran, Sobh Emrouz, Asr Azadeghan and many other Principlist and independent newspapers which have over time been shut by state authorities and their journalists imprisoned. Some continue to perpetually change because of the replacement of their management and/or because they have accepted the constraining professional rules governing them, but their journalists have been laid off. Those independent thinking journalists who worked for newspapers that possessed permits from the government of the Islamic republic and worked under their supervision however over time opted for self exile because of pressure from the state security apparatus and were thus forced to continue their professions outside the country. But despite living in Europe and the US where they face a multitude of challenges, these very professionals still prefer to work for newspapers inside the country which at one time made people needless of the foreign state affiliated media. But the Islamic republic’s security approach to the media has deprived the country from having a national and independent information system.
In short, one must say that BBC Persian Service and other Persian language media outside Iran are in fact the products of the policies of the state-run national radio and television system in Iran. If the Islamic republic honestly desires to drive out Persian language media that is affiliated with foreign governments, then it better create the atmosphere for independent media inside Iran and prepare the grounds for the return of émigré journalists who despite the many threats still long to return to their homeland.
In fact, this is precisely what did take place in Iran in the first years of Mohammad Khatami’s first administration when because of the liberal and open media policies, BBC and VOA radio stations lost some of their listeners.
