In 2006, EMI worked with the BBC World Service to set up Radio Al Mirbad to broadcast information covering southern Iraq while it was still occupied by the British military. The BBC’s Persian service, of course, has been accused by Iran of fomenting unrest such as by encouraging protests to dispute the election results.
“We stand with them and support them”
On one hand, Niknejad says Tehran Bureau is “not an opposition news organization”. On the other hand, a principle source for her reporting on events in Iran is a member of the Mousavi election campaign, a fact she revealed during an event coordinated to teach people how to show “solidarity” with pro-Mousavi Iranians.
Niknejad is a member of The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA). On June 23, AMEJA held a teach-in to discuss the ongoing events in Iran following the election. The teach-in was webcast on the Voices from Iran website, which was created the day prior to the event and which has little content other than an embedded video of webcast, hosted on USTREAM.
During the event, the terms “pro-Mousavi” and “pro-democracy” were curiously used synonymously, despite an admission at the beginning that calling Mousavi’s campaign “pro-democracy” was perhaps “wishful thinking”.
The first speaker at the event was Arang Keshavarzian, Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. He spoke on how the protests that erupted following the election were “not spontaneous”, but rather organized by the young volunteers who gravitated to Mousavi’s campaign and had learned how to organize and distribute information prior to the election. Various organizations were also involved, such as women’s organizations, journalist organizations, youth organizations, and others. The protests, he said, were an “outgrowth” of the campaigning in early June.
One prominent organization campaigning for women’s rights in Iran is the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation (ABF) in Washington D.C., a recipient of funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn is mandated financing under U.S. law from the Congress, despite its pretense of being a “non-governmental organization”.
Another group that has received substantial funding from NED is the National Iranian American Council, which has been granted money in part to carry out a “media training workshop” to train participants in public relations and otherwise support groups both within and outside Iran.
Interestingly, Keshavarzian also listed “election irregularities” included in the “fatwa”, including the charge that mobile polling stations the printing of a large number of extra ballots were suspicious activities. He also stated that Mousavi’s campaign headquarters had been attacked, and that all these things were evidence of fraud. Every one of these claims can be traced to Tehran Bureau.
Even more interestingly, he said that the Mousavi campaign had showed great foresight in their pre-election efforts. “Their narrative that they constructed prior to the election fit in nicely into the events after the election”, he said. Presumably, this includes the narrative that the election would be stolen that he had just outlined from information that had appeared before the election took place, such as the “fatwa” letter.
As Paul Craig Roberts has observed, “Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote.”
When Iran declared the results of the election early, the charge was made that “the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted”.
Another speaker, journalist Kouross Esmaeli, also a member of AMEJA, addressed the question of how to show “solidarity” with Mousavi’s supporters protesting in the streets. “We stand with them and support them,” he said. But he also urged caution against the perception of U.S. interference and said that any connection of the protests with U.S. “imperialism” would taint them and serve only to undermine them.
Perhaps the most interesting comments, though, came from Niknejad. She explained more about her reporting of events in Iran and her sources from which she would “copy and paste” onto Tehran Bureau. She explained that she used Facebook and other social networking sites for information, until the Iranian government shut such websites down. Then “it was very difficult for us”, she said, to get information.
But she did mention one source that was able to continue to provide information. “I was connected to someone that I know very well”, she explained, “and that I trust very much, who works – who happens to work – at the Mousavi campaign. So we were getting, you know, almost like minute by minute updates on what was going on there.”
Among the information received from the source at the Mousavi campaign was that the campaign headquarters was “stormed by militia” (evidence of election funny-business, remember, from the previous speaker), of which Niknejad emphasized, “I knew it was coming from a very credible source”.
Niknejad also explained how, based on the information this source who “happens” to work for the Mousavi campaign (purely a coincidence), it looked like “Mousavi was winning” early on. This just “happens” to fit perfectly with the “narrative” constructed by the Mousavi campaign early on to be used following the election in order to try to discredit the election and to call for its result to be nullified (surely another strange coincidence).
Niknejad also rightly observed how the information Tehran Bureau would “copy and paste” from sources such as someone working for Mousavi’s campaign was picked up off of Twitter and posted on other blogs, making “Tehran Bureau a source of information” about the election and subsequent events.
Niknejad also claimed that Tehran Bureau was “hacked”, the implication being that it was targeted by the Iranian regime. She explained that when she tried to log on and do other things with the site, it became very slow.
There’s a much simpler explanation for this, which is the enormous increase in bandwidth the new site was faced with (visible in a dramatic spike on Alexa) very suddenly at the time of the election. This alternative explanation would also fit with what she said next, that they had a company called MidPhase that put the website back up. In other words, Tehran Bureau changed hosting plans – no doubt to a plan on a new server that included more bandwidth allocation.
But the claim that the website was “hacked” by the Iranian government fits in much more nicely with the constructed “narrative”.
Another interesting point was made during the question and answer session. One of the panelists warned, without so much as a hint of recognition of the irony, to be wary because there is a lot of “misinformation” coming out on Facebook and Twitter – from the Iranian regime. We have to find sources that we trust, therefore, the panelist continued, like Tehran Bureau, which gets its information from trusted sources like members of Mousavi’s election campaign. Again, there was no indication whatsoever that the speaker was aware of the irony.
US/Israel mostly benefit from Ahmadinejad policies. Israel has managed to distract global attention from its atrocities toward Iran who is posed like an international threat and its current rulers just promote that image.
US/Israel could hardly achieve such comfortable position, should a democratically elected government was in Iran. They are selling weapons to Arabs, commanding their policies, only because of Iran! Whatelse could have been in their wish list?
It seems that you are just supporting whoever shouts anti-US slogans! Either you are so naive to believe in what you see, or you are also part of the team.
You must live in Iran with Iranians, before being able to write about us, unless….
Yes, i believe Ahmadinejad won by his own ability. The son of late Shah, Reza Pahlavi wants to be a new candidate puppet like his father and grand father.
These neoconservatives like Timmerman are criminals. I have noticed their enormous amount of distortions and lies about almost everything. They won’t succeed, because Iranians won’t allow it. They are not stupid.
If one is stupid, then one believes lies and distortions. Only intelligent and wise people ask for evidence for an stolen election. Such an evidence does not exist! What exists is lies, distorions, propaganda planted by CIA, neocon or Straussians who want to manipulate masses for the elite.
While some of the Iranian diaspora work underground, others such as Haleh Esfandiari work out in the open at the Wilson Center on Pennsylvania Avenue.
She was a fellow of the NED in 1995 and the Wilson Center gets a third of its funding ($9 million) from Congress and the rest from big oil, big banks, big business and Soros’ OSI – well known for his involvement in color revolutions.
http://www.peakoil.org.au/news/index.php?esfandiari.htm
Is Haleh Esfandiari a CIA asset ?
“….If a democratically elected government was in Iran….”
This is such a stupid statement: Are you trying to imply that israel is demonizing and trying to Persuade US to bomb and nuke Iran because it does not have a “democratic” government like Jordan or Mubarak’s Egypt ? Go find yourself an even more naive or stupid audience like yourself.
Dear DELAVARAN,
Perhaps you have misunderstood my point. US/Israel LOVE undemocratic governments like those you named AND Iran (under current rulers). Just look at the outcome Iranian government activities bring for US/Israel. Maybe unknowingly, maybe not! But it is a fact that as long as you benefit from something you don’t do anything seriously to change it, even if these governments “unknowingly” act in their favor. I am not implying that Ahmadinejad is an agent of US/Israel, but it does not make a difference as long as his activities benefits them! He might not have acted much differently even if he was an agent. He is destroying Iran’s economy and infra-structure, who could have “really” challenged US/Israel interests in region. Without a prosperous and successful Iran, what we can do, but to shout “down to US/Israel” at our own streets!!! And if Iran is eventually attacked, whose policies have given public legitimacy to such an attack, which can eliminate Iran from political equations for decades to come!? Ahmadinejad is either an honest stupid, or a deliberate traitor, but I believe it does not make a difference for the US/Israel…… they love him!
The unfriendly gestures in media by US/Israelis toward Iran is required to convince public that we are really enemies! This is a must in order to show goes on! Just focus on eventual results… (in past and in future)
Thanks for all the work! This was very useful. We are being manipulated by our crass media and public diplomacy (aka propaganda) specialists, just like in the buildup to the war in Iraq. We need people like you to exercise independent, critical thinking.
Than you for writing this.
As an amateur propaganda enthusiast I am struck by how clumsy and self-defeating a lot of modern propaganda (from what should be the world’s foremost experts) is nowadays.
The old futurist gripe goes that I though we’d have jet packs by now and Philip K Dick fans might note the absence of psychotropic pharmaceutical propaganda anyone can swallow, but here we have established overt enemies of a government shilling for a one-sided self-glorification with only themselves as a source.
If Kelly Niknejad is reading, I’d like to assure her that I have the stamina and other properties of a horse and the bank account of a horse breeder, and that I can be absolutely trusted as an authority on these true facts that are not lies.
whois lookup for TehranBureau.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/tehranbureau.com
Try reading my answer, Mr. Hammond. There might be hope for you yet.
http://www.qlineorientalist.com/IranRises/hammond/
There’s no hope for me, Evan. I really do expect claims to be backed by evidence. I’m a lost cause. My answer to your answer: http://hammond.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/30/dr-evan-siegel-responds-to-the-case-of-the-fatwa-to-rig-irans-election/
President Obama who appears to have picked up the reigns of past puppets of US-Empire elite also appears to be continuing the Iran “Evil Axis” from past cabals.
President Ahmadinejad and Shia-Cleric Overseer continually asking for change and peace talks with the US-Gov is not what the “Constabulary” crowd want, Mir Hussein Mousavi terrorist agenda (as Iran head of Foreign Ministry) is more the “Axis Enemy” needed to keep the Empire ‘perpetual war economy’ going.
It’s going to be a while before we see any CMS cloud offering from the likes of Oracle. Acquia have lately established Drupal Gardens which is a cloud dependent service which feels very promising. There are a host of reasons why we are not traveling onto the cloud more promptly, the principal reason is organizational change where budgets and contracts are determine and granted years for 3, 4 even 5 years. Come renewal time some clients are asking CMS in the cloud but then have to consider other subjects such as integration with CRM & some other back office systems. I guess it will materialize eventually.
Absolutely superb!
Bravo ! Hats off !