Tehran on edge, says former ambassador

Even as a United Nations special envoy for freedom of expression prepares for a mission to their country, Iran's fundamentalist regime arrested and jailed a reform-minded journalist on unspecified charges yesterday.

Iraj Rasteghar, managing editor of the outlawed Tavana weekly magazine, was summoned to the public prosecutor's office when he failed to post bail of about US$8,000, the country's student news agency reported.

Another reformist paper, the daily Hambasteghi, was added the list of at least 85 banned media yesterday, reportedly for not publishing the name of its manager.

These attempts to muzzle internal dissent are commonplace in Iran, observers say, but with the suspicious death of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi over the weekend, new fears have surfaced that the uneasy peace between Iran's ruling clerics and the foreign press is crumbling.

As long as they avoided the most sensitive locations, foreign media have been generally tolerated and allowed to operate in the country in recent years, despite the draconian laws that restrict the domestic media's coverage of politics, sex, religion and Iran's relations with the United States.

Over the past few months, however, the country has fallen into turmoil. Students have risen in protest to demand sweeping reform, the economy has spiralled downwards, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops have been stationed in the region, and international demands for freer inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency have been rising.

All this has created deep internal divisions, and left the country "edgy," says Ken Taylor, Canada's former ambassador in Tehran, who orchestrated the escape of U.S. diplomats during the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"The leadership is stretched taut at the moment and it's going to be progressively more risky for a journalist to move around with any degree of liberty and freedom," he said.

"The Iranians are very much prone to conspiracy theories, and journalists are a reflection of that," Mr. Taylor said. "I think they start with the premise that a journalist isn't going to say anything good about Iran."

Negative media coverage rose to a fever pitch this summer with the violent shutdown of the student protests. Of 4,000 people jailed in the protests last month, only half have been freed.

Those arrests played a role in the U.N. Human Rights Commission's decision to dispatch a special envoy on freedom of opinion and expression for a 10-day visit beginning on Thursday.

Joel Campagna, Mideast program co-ordinator at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said the alleged attack on Ms. Kazemi would be the first on a foreign journalist in many months, although militias and ordinary citizens have been known to intimidate reporters.

The average citizen is generally safe there, he said, as long as he keeps a low profile, avoids demonstrations and campuses, and respects Friday morning prayers. "Don't be too curious," he said.

Tanya Churchmuch, president of Reporters Without Borders in Canada, said foreign journalists in Iran find themselves in a dilemma: report the truth and be punished, or ensure personal security by not reporting.

"Pretty much any kind of journalism would be considered blasphemous towards Islam," she said. "If you're demanding reform from a clerical government, you're being blasphemous, and to report on the blasphemy of others is equally blasphemous [in the eyes of Iranian authorities]," she said.

The hijab, or dress code, is mandatory in Iran for all girls and women over the age of nine in all public places. It strictly controls the exposure of hair and skin under penalties that can range from verbal reprimands to 74 lashes with a whip or imprisonment for one month to a year.

Many forms of entertainment are also severely restricted, such as playing cards, certain nightclubs and other forms of so-called "social corruption."

Canada has had diplomats in Iran since 1955, although they were withdrawn between 1980 and 1988 in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution.

Today, the Department of Foreign Affairs says it employs a policy of "controlled engagement" with the country -- a limited relationship that does not include, for example, development programs and the sharing of certain technologies.

2 posted on 07/15/2003 12:43:57 PM PDT by knighthawk (We all want to touch a rainbow, but singers and songs will never change it alone. We are calling you)

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Well, the much touted day of July 9th has come and gone. Has the position advanced?

If Iranians desire freedom, they must pay the price, which is much, much more than student non-violent demonstrations.

It has been my contention they must force a violent confrontation, and fight and die, for freedom.

No evidence in muslim and arab cultures of "peoples' revolutions" for freedom.

Granted, the clear majority of Iranians "want" freedom. As a people, are they willing to pay the price? I'm doubtful.

Will 5,000 or 10,000, or 50,000 or 100,000 die in battles of revolution?

Do they have a leader?

It's a high-risk game for a journalist in Iran," Mr. Taylor said.

Funny, but I haven't seen any CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, NBC, ABC, CBS, breathless reports on the brutality, repression of free speech and right to gather and protest currently going on in Iran.

But I forget, those news organizations HATE freedom and liberation from vicious totalitarian regimes.

5 posted on 07/15/2003 12:58:24 PM PDT by BOBTHENAILER (Rats are showing all the symptoms of severe radiation poisoning)

6 posted on 07/15/2003 12:59:30 PM PDT by knighthawk (We all want to touch a rainbow, but singers and songs will never change it alone. We are calling you)

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