Tehran Calls Iran International Similar 'To A Terrorist Media'
Iran on Monday called Iran International’s coverage of events “similar to a terrorist media” and vowed to follow up the issue through legal and diplomatic channels.
Iran on Monday called Iran International’s coverage of events “similar to a terrorist media” and vowed to follow up the issue through legal and diplomatic channels.
Foreign ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani in his weekly media briefing likened Iran International’s coverage of recent protests to “a war room” and an “operations room against the nation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” This is the first time that an Iranian official uses the term “Islamic Republic nation”, instead of the Iranian people or the Iranian nation.
The Islamic Republic regards broadcasting in Persian from abroad as hostile because media outlets such as the BBC Persian, Voice of America, Iran International, Radio Farda (RFE/RL) and others break the monopoly over news and information the government in Iran has imposed since 1979.
Since the ongoing antigovernment protests began in mid-September, all media in Iran that are either owned or controlled by the state have largely ignored or misrepresented the popular movement, calling it lawlessness and riots. The Islamic Republic wants to suppress the news about protests and has all but shut down access to the Internet.
The accusation against Iran International comes while earlier Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called the protests "unimportant".
Kanaani insinuated that Iran International belongs to Saudi Arabia and that Tehran has complained to Riyadh about the network in the past.
Iran International and its sister channel, Afghanistan International, are “editorially independent television channels owned by Volant Media,” a company based in London and owned by a Saudi Arabian/British citizen; it has no state backing or affiliation.
Yashar Soltani, who has spent some time in jail in 2016 for disclosing financial corruption at Tehran Municipality under current parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, added in an interview with Etemad Online that the way government treats financial corruption is woefully disappointing.
The multi-billion dollar case involving the former mayor, a figure close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, ended in the arrest of Isa Sharifi, one of Ghalibaf's deputies and was finally pushed under the carpet although Khamenei in 2018 called for investigation into the case. Sharifi's name came up once again in February 2022 along with Ghalibaf's in a major corruption case at the IRGC, which also remained inconclusive after a few weeks of controversy stirred by rival political factions in Iran.
The controversy about the IRGC corruption case was silenced soon possibly because even former IRGC Qods Force Commander Qasem Soleimani was also involved, as revealed in an audio tape that was leaked in the public domain presumably by those who benefitted from the revelations.
As a whistleblower who has been exposing financial corruption in Iran since the 1990s, Soltani says that corrupt individuals have never left the system even after their performance was exposed, and corruption is constantly on the rise. He added that the Iranian justice system discriminates in favor of corrupt individuals when they are close to the core of the regime, namely Khamenei's household.
He said: "Fighting corruption is part of the people's demands as the magnitude of government corruption is so high that the regime has no way but to try to control it through introducing reforms in the system." However, he acknowledged that most of the rhetoric about fighting government corruption is just a show, often with the intention of winning the people's attention at election times or to calm the situation when there are major protests.
Soltani pointed out that while corruption trials were held openly and the people could watch hearings on live TV in the 1990s, corruption cases are now shrouded in an aura of secrecy. Soltani reiterated that as long as talk about corruption is aimed at beatifying the political system or garnering support for a group of candidates, there will be no hope in controlling it.
Nonetheless, there seems to be some progress in the process. "When I disclosed the astronomical real estate case [in Tehran municipality] in 2016, I was jailed immediately, but five years later I was called for consultation for writing a new law to prevent that kind of corruption as part of which the Municipality gave land and buildings to influential individuals to garner their support," Soltani recalled.He added that regardless of his help, the Iranian Judiciary has been summoning him during the past 11 years to subtly warn him about his whistleblowing activity.
"They ask why me and not the intelligence agencies investigate a case. Well, the intelligence agencies did their own research but what they got nowhere because there are flaws in the structure of the government," he said, adding that, "There are only four or five people who continue as whistleblowers, and all of them like me work single-handedly without any support from anyone in the system."
Referring to the problems in the system, he said the corruption case at the Petrochemical Complex (PCC) was a major case. But there were a few stage-managed court sessions and nothing more happened.
He was referring to a case of hundreds of million of dollars embezzled by officials who were tasked to sell Iran’s petrochemical products through obscure channels and return the money to the treasury during international sanction in 2010-2013.
Soltani concluded: "There are so many inconclusive cases about financial corruption in Iran. In a corrupt structure you cannot claim to be dealing with corruption."
This followed Iran summoning German ambassador Hand-Udo Muzel Thursday, when Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani criticized Berlin for provoking “rioting and law-breaking in Iran” contrary to international law.
Germany had Wednesday said it would tighten entry restrictions on Iranian officials, issuing visas only where “absolutely necessary.” In a statement Wednesday announcing the measure German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said there could be “no ‘business as usual’ in bilateral relations with a state that treats its own citizens with such contempt for human rights.”
Iran has repeatedly criticized European states over ‘interference.’ Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said October 18 that European Union sanctions over the September 16 death in Tehran ‘morality police’ custody of Mahsa Amini amounted to “exploitation of human rights as a tool to achieve political goals.” Tehran has also alleged foreign-owned media and social-media operations have fostered violence.
Following Tuesday’s attack on a shrine in Shiraz, claimed by one outfit linked to the Islamic State group (Isis- Daesh), Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, said Iranians had “a duty to deal with the enemy and its traitorous or ignorant agents.”
State media reported Wednesday the killing of two Basij militiamen in the northern city of Amol, a Revolutionary Guard in Tehran province, and three people in Mahabad who had tried to occupy government and security centers. The US-based activist agency HRANA has said at least 252 protesters have died in the unrest, while state media have said around 30 security-force members have been killed.
Change through trade?
Iran is one issue gnawing at Germany’s coalition government, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, formed December 2021 as the first for 16 years without the Christian Democrats.
When the Social Democrat Party (SPD) won last year’s German elections, Iran’s official news agency IRNA predicted a more positive relationship. But while foreign minister Baerbock, a member of Alliance 90/the Greens Party, has upheld a commitment to international talks aimed at restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the recent protests in Iran have led Saskia Esken, an SPD co-leader, to call for ending the talks. “The talks must end in the way that the women and men on the streets are being dealt with at the moment,” Esken said October 16.
Lars Klingbeil, another SPD co-leader, in mid-October questioned the party’s long standing belief in ‘change through trade,’ the notion that increased commerce, linked to effective diplomacy, would moderate states deemed authoritarian. The SPD applied the approach particularly to Russia, but the same argument has been widely accepted within the EU in support of the Iran nuclear agreement.
While Germany has dragged its feet over reducing Russian energy supplies, straining relations with France, it has promised Ukraine €1.2 billion ($1.19 billion) in military aid – delivering howitzers – behind only Poland on €1.8 billion, the United Kingdom on €3.74 billion and the United States on at least €27.6 billion. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also a Social Democrat, said Friday the Ukraine crisis had replaced “old dreams” – referring to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s dream of a “common European home” – with “a time marked by war, violence and flight…”
