subject: Clean Your Backyard First Please- India to Iran [print this page] Clean Your Backyard First Please- India to Iran
It all started with the Iranian channel Press TV', which for some strange reason (beyond my comprehension) gets telecast in Jammu & Kashmir despite being banned in India.
Apparently, Press TV showed images of the alleged desecration of the Koran in the US, which led to massive protests in J&K, in which more than 20 people were killed. As a preventive measure, the GOI banned Press TV' in India. Five days later, Iranian foreign minister Ramin Mehmanparast spoke out against the Indian Government. His comments were very strongly worded in which he said that countering protests such as the ones in J&K could be seen and interpreted as "supporting the act of sacrilege".
Now, some points to be taken into consideration are - the images that were shown on Press TV were not verified and led to severe protests and ended up in the killing of innocent civilians. Secondly, whether a satellite TV channel is worth being broadcast in the Indian Territory or not is entirely the GOI's prerogative and neither any nation whose channels are banned nor any other international authority has a right to tell them to do otherwise. Thirdly, maintaining law and order is an internal matter and Iran has no locus standi whatsoever to either interfere or comment on it.
Having said all of that, may I remind the reader that this is the same Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government that is trying to meddle with Kashmir's protests, labelling it a religious issue, which arrested, killed, wounded and kept its own people in sub-human conditions in jails in a massive all-country protest against his disputed victory.
This was the extent of the media and internet censorship that happened in Iran last year -
On 13th June, as the election results were being announced, Iran shut down all internet access for about 45 minutes, then restarted it apparently with lower bandwidth; this may have been in order to set up filters to block sites like YouTube, facebook and twitter that could be used for political purposes.
According to the Telegraph, on 14th June "Iran's regime was doing its utmost to choke off the flow of news from its capital".
Al Jazeera English has levelled allegations of direct media censorship against the Iranian government, stating that "some of the newspapers have been given notices to change their editorials or their main headlines".
The Al Arabiya's offices in Tehran were closed on 14th June for a week by Iranian authorities, who gave no explanation for the decision.
NBC News offices in Tehran were raided, with cameras and other equipment confiscated.
The director of BBC World Service accused the Iranian Government of jamming its broadcasts to the country. Peter Horrocks said audiences in Iran, the Middle East and Europe had been affected by an electronic block on satellites used to broadcast the BBC Persian Television signal to Iran, adding: "It seems to be part of a pattern of behaviour by the Iranian authorities to limit the reporting of the aftermath of the disputed election". A BBC corporate official has referred to the network's conflict with the regime as "electronic warfare".
On 15th June, Belgian national television reporter, Jef Lambrecht, from the Flemish public television broadcaster VRT and his sound technician were arrested in Tehran.
On 16th June, the Ministry of Culture issued a directive banning all foreign media from leaving their offices.
On 5th August, the Association of Iranian Journalists was forcibly closed when its offices in Tehran were raided by government security forces.
Ahmadinejad responded to concerns regarding civil liberties by stating Iranians enjoyed "absolute freedom" of speech. "Don't worry about freedom in Iran ... Newspapers come and go and reappear. Don't worry about it."
And this is the President whose government is telling us to mend our ways in Kashmir and show some self restraint'! All I can say to that is - clean your backyard first and then comment on someone else's.
