Tehran Journalists Defend Female Reporters From Official Defamation
Tehran Journalists Association has condemned accusations by two intelligence organs against two female reporters for their coverage of Mahsa Amini’s death.
Tehran Journalists Association has condemned accusations by two intelligence organs against two female reporters for their coverage of Mahsa Amini’s death.
It said the statement released by the IRGC and Intelligence Ministry against two female journalists, who alerted the public about Amini’s injury and death in police custody, had no message other than to end journalism in the Islamic Republic.
Mahsa Amini was arrested on September 13 by the notorious hijab police and immediately received fatal blows to her head and died three days later in the hospital. As the public became aware of the tragic event protests began in Iran’s major cities that have continued for more than six weeks.
The statement by the journalists’ group said that based on the intelligence bodies’ declaration, “journalism should be declared a crime and banned, because the normal activity of two of our colleagues in performing their professional duties has been considered a crime.”
On Friday Iran’s IRGC Intelligence service and the Intelligence ministry issued a statement regarding the recent events in the country introducing Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, two women journalists arrested days after protests began in September, as “foreign agents.”
They alleged Niloufar Hamedi, who published the photo of the deceased Mahsa Amini on a hospital bed, was “among the people trained in special courses abroad.”
The popular nationwide protests triggered by Amini’s death have been the longest sustained movement against the Islamic Republic.
“Using the cover of a journalist, she was one of the first people who arrived at the hospital and provoked the relatives of the deceased and published targeted news,” adds the statement.
The intelligence organizations offered no evidence about the two journalists having travelled abroad, received training, or having any ties with foreign organizations.
Tehran Journalists Association also lashed out at the intelligence ministry and IRGC Intelligence “accusing two of the most professional journalists of the country of being trained abroad is considered an insult to the intelligence of the audience and the journalists community.”
The journalists’ association also denounced the “security-minded approach” to the profession of journalism, stating that not only this approach is “illegal and against freedom”, but it is also the main factor or at least one of the factors causing the [current] crisis in Iranian society.”
In its 43-year history, the Islamic Republic has arrested hundreds of journalists, and many have been killed inside and outside prisons. The regime keeps tight control over all print media and has a monopoly over radio and television. It also tightly censors Internet content by blocking thousands of websites and major social media platforms.
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…”
"A bombing in Mo'ali Abad Street in Shiraz was detected and foiled by the Revolutionary Guards intelligence," Sepah news said, without giving further details.
There is no possibility to verify IRGC's claim, as the ideological-military-business organization and also Iran's Intelligence Ministry in the past have made numerous similar claims without presenting any evidence. In most cases no public trial of suspects were held or even names released.
The IRGC-linked Fars News quoted “an informed security source in Shiraz” as saying that the remotely-controlled bomb was found and neutralized by security forces and intelligence ministry agents after the gun attack on Shahcheragh shrine.
Wednesday's shooting, which was claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group, killed 15 including children and injured dozens more at the Shahcheragh shrine. Officials said they had arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the shrine. The attack took place amid widespread antigovernment protests across the country which began nearly two months ago following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, on September 16.
The Iranian government has organized nationwide demonstrations against the shooting following Friday prayers. Funerals were also due to take place for the victims. Officials said they had arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the shrine.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed on Thursday to retaliate against those threatening the country's security without further elaboration as to whether this meant those responsible for the attack, protesters, or both.
"We will take revenge for the blood of the martyrs of Shiraz," said Tehran Friday prayer Imam Haj Ali Akbari about the attack on the shrine.
Many Iranians did not trust the authorities or believe that ISIS was responsible for the attack. They accuse the regime of being behind the attack or orchestrating it to blame protesters at home for causing unrest and insecurity and justify harsher crackdown against opponents.
Although following the 2021 presidential election only conservatives have remained on the political scene, still various groups among them are competing fiercely to win the lion’s share of power and financial resources.
The general belief was that the so called “revolutionaries” have the upper hand in Iran’s domestic politics after takeover of parliament and the presidency in 2020 and 2021. However, it appears that there are super ‘revolutionaries’ who want to grab the power from the clutches of those we knew so far as ‘revolutionaries.’
Several Iranian news outlets in recent days have quoted Gharn-e Now website as having reported that it was Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who first revealed that super-revolutionaries have been posing a challenge to other conservatives.
More recently, Mohammad Sadegh Tavangar a lawmaker close to Ghalibaf wrote in a commentary on the government-owned news agency ISNA’s website that hardliners such as Mohammad Sadegh Koushki and Amir Hossein SabetIi are the leading figures of this group that have been trying to undermine the authority of politicians in the conservative camp, particularly the so-called neo-cons led by Ghalibaf.
These individuals are linked to hardliner former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Ghalibaf recently lashed out at this group without naming Jalili and accused them of “opening their mouth and saying anything and doing anything without calculating the consequences of their behaviour.” He called these individuals super-revolutionaries borrowing a label Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei earlier put on pseudo-revolutionaries. Ghalibaf said, “They have never done any serious work, but they behave in a way as if all of us owe them something.” This looked like a characterisation of Jalili, a presidential candidate who was defeated by others at least twice. “If you never write something, no one knows how many mistakes you can have in a sentence,” said Ghalibaf.
The Majles Speaker has experienced competition from super-revolutionaries associated with the ultra-conservative Paydari party during the Majles elections of 2020 and the presidential election of 2017. He still remembers how they undermined his upper hand in 2017 and put forward Ebrahim Raisi as their candidate, who at the end of the day lost the election to moderate conservative Hassan Rouhani.
In recent months, inside the Iranian parliament, the so-called super-revolutionaries have attacked Ghalibaf several times, the last time by engineering revelations about his family’s controversial shopping trip to Turkey.
More recently, those close to Ghalibaf have accused the super-revolutionaries in and out of parliament of causing the ongoing unrest in Iran with their hardline positions and behaviour that have annoyed all walks of life, particularly women and the youths. The Ghalibaf camp’s attacks directly target individuals such as Saeed Jalili and those close to him. Tavangar in his commentary in ISNA, has finally named Amir Hossein Sabeti a showman on the state TV who has annoyed almost everyone both on TV and on social media, particularly Twitter. Koushki has done the same as a frequent contributor to those programs. Tavangar said that the duo had an active part in radicalizing Iran’s hardliners.
Sabeti’s tweet on October 26, in which he accused Iranian protesters of having the blood of the victims of the terrorist attack on a mosque in Shiraz on their hands, seriously annoyed and angered many Iranians.
Tavangar wrote, “They want to force more devolved individuals to leave the train of the Islamic revolution by levelling accusations against them, but we will not allow them to do so.”
Meanwhile Tavangar harshly criticised Jalili for keeping silent about the ongoing protests for longer than a month.”
Tavangar also criticised the ultra-Conservative party for radicalizing Iranian youths by furthering an initiative to ban social media and for not being accountable for its actions.
The infighting may also signal the neo-cons’ attempt to save their faction before the unrest brings down everyone currently in power in Iran.