Editorial: Iranian Media - Goebbels in a Black Dress
by THE EDITOR
June 22, 2010
The regime in Iran is insidious, but only a Flotilla-following leftist or Islamist could fail to see that. The Islamic Republic’s foundations were built upon dishonesty. In November 1978, shortly before the revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was ensconced at Neauphle-le-Chateau, just outside Paris, France.
Here, sheltered from reprisals by the agents of Savak, he engaged in a propaganda campaign, in which he deliberately lied to the people of Iran. Con Coughlin, in his book Khomeini’s Ghost, writes:
“…Khomeini took care to conceal the true nature of the Islamic revolution he was planning. In one of the cassettes distributed throughout the country in November Khomeini spoke of a ‘progressive Islam’ in which even a woman might one day become the country’s president.”
There have been no rights for women in Iran. It always takes two to commit adultery, yet of those who have been hanged or stoned to death for this transgression, the overwhelming majority have been women.
The Islamic Republic’s constitution has, in Articles 20 and 21, a commitment to equal rights for women. Nnotwithstanding, the Penal Code has numerous Islamic “penalties” which apply specifically to women.
Iran’s record on the execution of children is appalling. According to the LA Times:
In Iran, capital punishment can be imposed if the defendant has reached the age of “majority," which is set by Iranian law as young as 9 for girls and 15 for boys.
The age of majority being set at nine for girls relates to attempts to justify Prophet Mohammed’s consummating sexual relations with Aisha when she was nine years old. Constitutional claims of women’s “equal rights” are thereby sublimated under religious dogma. A girl child is an “adult” at nine years, capable of having sex and being liable for the death penalty at that age, six years before a male attains majority. Such concepts go against everything that is considered “just” in the West.
Despite the regime’s blatant misogyny, it still attempts to present itself as fair and reasonable. With some skill it manages to bamboozle Western governments into allowing its distorted media operations to flourish. In the basement of a large building in Hanger Lane, West London is located the British office (and studios) of Press TV. Other Press TV outlets are in Seoul, Beirut and Damascus.
The main headquarters of Press TV is in Iran. Founded in 2007, Press TV is a department of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting company (IRIB), and is therefore a wing of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repressive regime. Presenters on Press TV in London who have their own regular shows include Yvonne Ridley and George Galloway.
It is strange that Britain allows Iran full broadcasting rights. Earlier this year Danforth Austin, director of Voice of America, said that the Iranian regime was banning its citizens from talking with representatives of VOA or the BBC (Britain’s nationalized TV corporation). And of course, as VOA is the voice of the “Great Satan” it is officially banned in Iran.
In the US, Press TV is subject to sanctions, and can only be used to report on affairs in United Nations, but it still manages to broadcast via other outlets, such as its show American Dream, which is described as “A political roundtable offering a warts-and-all picture of life in the USA from ghettos to gated communities.”
Press TV also has three English language websites and its shows, such as American Dream, are showcased there.
This editor was once a guest on a Press TV show, but refused to accept payment, knowing its sponsors had helped to fund killing of civilians such as Neda Agha Soltan. Other Western commentators seem to have less scruples about taking money from a corrupt regime that murders those who desire democratic representation.
But for Press TV, even Neda Soltan’s death was manipulated. At one stage, its parent company, IRIB, had carried a video which claimed that she had faked her own death. Press TV subsequently maintained on one website that she had been shot, but her murder had most likely been carried out by her fiancé, in an act “organized by US and Israeli intelligence services.”
Of course. How foolish of us to have ever believed otherwise.
Propagandists play upon the hopes and fears of people. Iran’s media is designed to deflect attention away from the “warts-and-all” reality of its own society, where unemployment is rife and young people are forced into prostitution to survive. Except that in Iran, where adultery can get a woman stoned, flogged or hanged, prostitution is legal. Such prostitution is legal as long as both participants in the sexual act agree to a Mut’ah or temporary marriage contract (called sighe in Iran).
Goebbels exploited any means at his disposal to malign perceived enemies and to misrepresent the enormity of Nazi atrocities. In Iran, even the environment is used as a vehicle to promote Khomeinism.
The latest stunt to be pulled by Press TV appears on one of its websites. Brigadier-General Rostam Qasemi of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has offered to “contain the oil spill” in the Gulf of Mexico, before it becomes an ecological disaster. The Brig-General said that the US authorities “can formally ask Iran for assistance.” Then Iran will “send experts from Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters to help end the major crisis and an environmental disaster.”
Khatam al-Anbiya is not an oil company – it is the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards, the same body that linked with the Bassij militia to slaughter civilians last June. Qasemi said: “Iranian experience in managing oil leaks in certain Persian Gulf littoral states such as Kuwait is a proof of their capability.”
He was prepared to do this in spite of the sanctions imposed on June 9.
Qasemi’s offer is ludicrous. However, it will still be used as propaganda: Iran boasts of its superior abilities,its offer of assistance was not accepted, therefore America is in the wrong for not listening to the kind offer from the benevolent Islamic Republic. QED. Expect to hear mention of this grand ”humanitarian offer” in the future, in toxic speeches by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in between his rants about Israel and his lies that he is only enriching uranium to keep his citizens warm.
Watch out for flying pigs. They’re common at this time of year.
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