By for Planet Iran

March 9, 2010

In his recent press conference, Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again looked straight into the eyes of journalists and denied reality. As Mir-Hossein Mousavi would put it, “Ahmadinejad can look right into the cameras and tell big lies without batting an eyelash.”

During a press conference with the international media’s cameras focused on his face Ahmadinejad shrugged, turned his slitted eyes toward the world and declared: “Freedom of the press is at it’s highest level in Iran.”

are braver and much more enlightened than members of the foreign press who come to Iran and are there at the pleasure of the government. Iranian journalists have more experience standing up to someone who brazenly denies reality.

Three reformist journalists whose colleagues are mostly imprisoned, have either fled or are in hiding, courageously, cleverly and calmly put their questions to Ahmadinejad during this press conference.

The reporter from Etemad daily told Ahmadinejad: “When questioned by foreign press regarding the treatment of the press and the arrest of journalists, you claim that it’s all in the hands of the judiciary. Can you please tell us what position you yourself and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security play in the arrests and interrogations?”

The reporter from Farhang va Aashti daily then asked him: “You call confronting newspapers and journalists during the introduction ceremony of the general director of the official governmental news agency, dictatorship. Can you please tell us your opinion about the arrests and imprisonment of journalists and does the Ministry of Guidance and Enlightenment under your administration defend the suspension of various media outlets?”

Finally, the reporter from Farheekhtegaan daily asked: “What has your administration done for the betterment of the condition of imprisoned journalists in Iran?”

Below: video of the press conference as he is confronted by one of the three reports

What foreign journalists in Iran have had the courage to challenge the Iranian leader so directly?

Ahmadinejad’s answers to these questions were long and rambling in an attempt to obfuscate the truth to the three journalists who bravely, heroically, continue to work even now in Iran’s precarious climate. He said:  “The government has absolutely nothing to do with the suspension of newspapers; our administration really regrets the arrest of journalists but it’s all in the hands of the authorities of the judiciary.”

As a journalist who worked in the media inside Iran for ten years myself, I can attest to the fact that prior to Ahmadinejad, the public prosecutor had the razor blade of censorship in his hand but that during Ahmadinejad’s tenure this blade was turned into a sword held in Ahmadinejad’s own hand, which he also used on the judiciary to assist him in breaking the media. Like many of my colleagues, I was faced with threats by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. In one instance, I had to prove that I was actually leaving the country and I was interrogated for two hours by a member of the judiciary at the passport office when I went to collect my confiscated passport. The next day, my confiscated passport was actually released but I was accosted while in my car, by unidentified men who dragged me out and proceeded to search every inch of my car and then demanded to see my press card. I got the message and was among one of the luckier ones who was able to flee.

At that time, each and every one of my friends and colleagues were summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and interrogated about his or her work and journalistic activities.

Most of my reformist colleagues, since they had not had such an experience with the government did not want to believe that they would have to face such treatment; following the June elections practically all of them are under arrest and are serving long prison sentences. And now Ahmadinejad’s Iran has summoned hundreds of journalists; ninety are already imprisoned and over four hundred have fled.

In his press conference, Ahmadinejad said that Iranian laws state that when a media outlet has a plaintiff against it, it is subject to investigation by the judiciary and in several instances, members of his administration are the biggest plaintiffs against the media.

Here is how that works. Many journalists, in the interest of accuracy and evidence, often made tapes of remarks and speeches given by the regime’s ministers and cabinet members. Journalists then would often receive memos from the President’s Office, forcing us to deny the words of the regime’s own officials. When members of the government wanted to amend or deny their own statements, they forced us to take the blame for having altered the information in subsequent issues. We were then forced to label ourselves liars and prevaricators against the government, despite the fact that we had the actual documentation in hand.

Now while journalists are handed directives about what we are not allowed to write, other directives are handed down about what we must in fact write. In the case of the nuclear issues, in order to promote Ahmadinejad’s angle on the matter, we must continue to put out items about the fact that Iran is proud of its ‘peaceful’ nuclear energy development and then the regime demands that those items appear day after day on the front page.

Journalist Shiva Nazar-Ahari is now held in solitary confinement, charged with having reported and defended people who were political prisoners in Iran for years and now, after the June elections, Shiva herself is imprisoned and charged with ‘harb’ (combating God).

One of my colleagues, a journalist who taught me a great deal about the profession, Issa Sahar-Kheez is now also in prison. And, contrary to the claim of Larijani, the head of the Iranian judiciary, who says that ‘no one is in prison because of their career as journalists’, Issa was arrested because of an article that he penned. On the day his house was stormed and during his arrest, the agents broke his shoulder blade. He remains ever since in solitary confinement without receiving any medical care.

I also know Saied Laylaz personally. He worked as a senior editor for various reformist newspapers. He too was arrested right after the elections and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Ahmad Zaydabadi, another journalist who is highly critical of the government, is sentenced to prison clear across the other side of Iran where his family can hardly visit him.

And then there is Hengameh Shahidi who auditioned to be a commentator for several foreign TV networks and now she too is sentenced to six years in prison.

Masoud Baastaani, who wrote for one of the sites that supported Mir Hossein Mousavi, was arrested and is serving his six year sentence in a faraway prison.

Badr Asadat Mofidi, a woman journalist who covered the Iranian parliament (Majles) and has received a fifteen year sentence and yet, these days not a single member of the Majles has bothered to pen a letter or sign a petition demanding an explanation for her imprisonment.

Mohammad Davari, Akbar Montajebi, Ali Malihi, Vahid Pour-Ostaad, Kayvan Mehregan, Mashallah Shams-ol-Vaaezeen, Kayvan Samimi, Mazdak Ali-Nazari, Kouhyar Goodarzi, Amir Sadeghi, Somaya Momeni, Zaynab Kazemkhah, Ali Kalaie, Ahmad Jalali, Amir Sadeghi, Hassan Zohoori, Mahsa Jazini and countless others of my friends and colleagues, people with whom I have worked for years are now in prison and the so-called Iranian politicians continue to deny this fact and continue to blow smoke in the eyes of foreign journalists about Iran being the freest country in the world.

In 2002 if we, the younger Iranian journalists, had not sat by silently when the celebrated veteran Iranian journalist Siamak Pourzand, was imprisoned, sentenced to eleven years and forced to make false confessions on Iranian TV, our generation would not be forced to have first hand experience of such arrests, prison sentences and exile and attacks on the press would  have been a thing of the past, never to be repeated.