Community | June 25, 2009 | 4 comments

Reports differ from CNN reporting ? CNN giving skewed picture

source: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/latest-updates-on-irans-disputed-election-5/?ref...

Update | 5:03 p.m. The National Iranian American Council’s blog reports that “a trusted source who attended today’s silent rally at Baharestan Square” wrote to to them with an account of today’s events more like the one we heard from a reader of The Lede this morning — and quite unlike the account of the anonymous woman who spoke with CNN:

I was there from 5:15 to 7:30. It was very tense. Being out in Baharstan was an act of defiance. No one said anything, there were only a few chants coming from outside the square. Although the police were a lot nicer, the Basij continued to be brutal. No one was allowed to stand in one place, we had to keep on moving. The moment we stood in one place, they would break us up. I saw many people get blindfolded and arrested, however it wasn’t a massacre. I heard that someone was killed, however I didn’t see it.
NIAC’s blog also notes that an Iranian newspaper close to the country’s leadership has reported that the U.S. Congress has voted to take action against Iran. NIAC notes “Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee voted to prohibit US Export-Import loans from helping companies involved in Iran’s petroleum industry.” According to NIAC, the Iranian newspaper Kayhan reported the news this way:

Representatives of the US congress, in support of Mir Hussein Mousavi and the hooligans, asked for sanctions on oil importations t







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4 comments // Reports differ from CNN reporting ? CNN giving skewed picture // Video

  • artemis6
  • Highr0ller
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    • View of Tehran is skewed
      By Marwan Al Kabalan, Special to Gulf News
      Published: June 25, 2009, 23:01
      Iran, and the Middle East as a whole, has always been a target for the West.

      Iran under its current government might not meet the Western definition of a democracy, but it cannot be described as authoritarian or totalitarian either. It distributes power neatly between religious and political institutions and this power is not absolute. Nevertheless, the Western media have depicted the government, particularly since this month's disputed elections, as a ruthless dictatorship that commits major crimes against its own people. To justify this claim, the media have resorted to demonising the enemy, reducing the problem to the nature of one person - Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

      This approach is by no means limited to Iran or to Khamenei. The Middle East has long been accustomed to treatment of this sort from Western governments and the media. Jamal Abdul Nasser, Yasser Arafat and more recently Saddam Hussain were all cast as merciless foes. Iranians would perhaps most remember their leader Mohammad Mossadeq as a victim of this policy.

      The rise of Mossadeq,

    • 2 years ago
  • Highr0ller
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    • Mr. Athanasiadis is also a contributor to the photo agency Demotix, which told The Lede on Tuesday:

      Iason was arrested on 17th June in Tehran airport. He is still being detained. Since the 17th, we have been in constant touch with the Greek Foreign Ministry and the Greek Ambassador in Tehran. They have been diligently and sensitively working on the case, and continue to do so.
      Update | 4:40 p.m. Press TV, Iran’s state-supported English-language broadcaster, played down today’s rally in a report that denied that any violence had taken place and put the total number of protesters at no more than 250:

      Some 200 people have gathered outside Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) building in central Tehran to protest at the result of the country’s presidential election. Protesters, who had gathered in small groups at a nearby subway station in Baharestan Square, were dispersed by security forces. Another group of about fifty people also converged on another square to the north of the neighborhood.

      A heavy presence of the police prevented violence in the area. Traffic was light and the police controlled all the routes to and from the areas surrounding the parliament.
      The report was illustrated on Press TV’s Web site with this video still:

    • 2 years ago
  • Highr0ller
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      Highr0ller [removed]  

    • Representatives of the US congress, in support of Mir Hussein Mousavi and the hooligans, asked for sanctions on oil importations to Iran. According to a report by Reuters, based on a plan introduced by one of the committees of the US congress, limitations will be put on exporting oil to Iran. Mark Kirk, one of the designers of these sanctions, while supporting the hooligans, said ‘when they are being suppressed in Tehran, we should not help Iran’s economy.’ It should be mentioned that setting gas stations on fire is one of the destructive recommendations that anti-revolutionary websites and media, who lead the chaos, have given to the thugs.
      Update | 4:56 p.m. As the blogger for the Iranian-American Web site Tehran Bureau reports on Twitter:

      My dear friend Iason Athanasiadis, a Greek journalist based in Istanbul, is being held by the Iranian authorities. We’ll get more about him up as soon as possible. In a nutshell: Iason Athanasiadis is a Greek journalist based in Istanbul.

      The arrest seems particularly perverse since Iason, on assignment for the Washington Times and GlobalPost, is a long time Iran-hand, Farsi-speaker, and Iran-lover, who spent 2 years at Tehran University.
      Mr. Athanasiadis is also a contributor to the photo agency Demotix, which told The Lede on Tuesday:

    • 2 years ago
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