Create Your Blog | Sign In
Next Blog

Dear readers and fellow-Apes

I thank you for taking the trouble and the time to read My Not-So-Humble Postings.

I welcome comments and/or criticisms.

Thank you.

792: IRAN TODAY – Part IV – It’s not over yet – BBC-Persian TV-Channel in London Voices Iranian Opposition to, and Rejection of, the Present Rotten Regime…
02 July, 2009

IRAN TODAY – Part IV – It’s not over yet – BBC-Persian TV-Channel in London Voices Iranian Opposition to, and Rejection of, the Present Rotten Regime…

Gleaned from: BBC-Persian TV-Channel Voices Iranian Opposition to, and Rejection of, the Present Rotten Regime…

Headline adjusted to fit

AFP via Msn-Arabia-News Monday 22nd June 2009

Thousands of miles away from Iran, the BBC Persian TV-Channel in London has become a focal point for Iranians who refused to believe the results of the 12th June presidential elections.

The BBC could not have known, when it launched the channel six months ago, that it would come into existence just in time for elections that sparked the most serious unrest in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolting Revolution.

The channel, which broadcasts all its programmes in Farsi, soon gained millions of viewers, despite being banned from having a single correspondent in Iran.

Its 140 staff are based in the modern wing of the BBC's House in central London, and it is funded to the tune of 15 million pounds sterling (18 million Euros, 24.5 million dollars) a year by the British Government – to the fuss, fury, and frustration of the Iranian authorities.

Thousands of Iranians had gotten in touch with the channel before the 12th June vote, but the e-mails and phone calls really began to pour in when supporters of presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, took to the streets in protest. Since then, the channel has been getting more than 6,000 e-mails a day – including, or other than, phone calls?

The anchor-lady, who presents the Channel’s interactive programme, said that before the poll, telephone calls came in from supporters of all the candidates, including Ahmadinejad, but that because of the protests, it is mostly Iranians who are against Ahmadinejad and the election results who call in. She added that not all of them are Mousavi supporters, but that some are just Iranians who are very frustrated to see what is taking place in the country right now: Pure day-light robbery of the Iranian people’s right to choose, and down-right brutal suppression of their right to protest or complain…

It has become exceedingly difficult to make calls from Iran, so Iranians have turned to the Internet to get their messages across. At the height of the protests, 6 videos a minute have been posted on the channel's own portal and on the video-sharing site: YouTube. BBC-Persian receives the videos, checks and edits them, and then broadcasts them back to an audience that is unlikely to see them on Iranian state-controlled channels. Several of the videos the Channel receives, most of them taken by mobile phones, show protestors clashing with security forces – being beaten up, falling down, or getting shot.

She went on to say that, the Channel is very sensitive and very careful over and about what it broadcasts, and over and about what is authentic, and what it cannot verify. She admitted that some of the scenes and pictures are harrowing and terrible to watch.

The Channel's journalists admit that much of their time is spent in checking the authenticity of the videos and eyewitness accounts they receive. Specially trained experts of the BBC work with producers to verify the material – however, multiple accounts and videos of the same incidents are the best proof of authenticity. It’s like pieces of a jigsaw coming together.

The BBC-Persian TV-Channel is one of the factors behind Tehran's angry allegations that Britain is fuelling the opposition demonstrations; charges refuted by London. Iran has at least three TV-Channels – Al-Manal, NBN, and OTV – through which it broadcasts, and brain-washes its Proxies, Moles, and Spies – and their followers – in Lebanon…

Yesterday, Iran's rotten-regime ordered the BBC's permanent correspondent in Tehran to leave the country within 24 hours. His expulsion will have little impact on BBC-Persian because Iran had already banned him from sharing his material with the channel.

A male special correspondent for the channel said: We are in the business of information, and of informing people so, inevitably, there is a clash of interests.

In a rare quiet moment between charting the fast-moving events of the country where he had lived until two years ago, he said that BBC-Persian has played an essential role in Iran, and that even before the protests began, they had millions and millions of people watching because there is no independent reliable source of information in Iran.

Iranians might tune in to CNN or the BBC World Service but the problem in Iran is that not many Iranians can read, speak, or understand English.

The anchor-lady summed it all up with: Iran has nothing to fear from BBC-Persian, unless it has something to hide.

She thought it would be a great asset if the Iranian authorities would take advantage of it; and she did not think there was any point in worrying about it unless the present rotten-regime really did not want any information leaving the country, and they did not want the people inside Iran to receive any information from the outside world.

Posted by akill 15:41 | General | Comment(0) | Permalink

Comments

Add comment
authimage
Authentication
A service provided by Al Bawaba