Last week, the United States’ Treasury Department imposed sanctions on six Iranian officials for news censorship and human rights abuses. One of the targets includes Abdul-Ali Ali Asgari, the Chairman of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Organization, who is now on the blacklist for cutting on the news.
In Iran, there is a lot of hatred shown towards the state Broadcasting Organization known locally as “Seda Va Sima” (Sound and Vision) and one of the common slogans that people have been shouting from decades ago, especially in December’s protest movements, is state TV is a disgrace to us!
In 2009, the Reporters Without Borders Organization ranked Iran 172 on the list of press freedom. Only three countries, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, were in a worsening situation than Iran.
Iran’s state TV is one of the main institutions of the government that strongly censors Iran’s news and developments.
In the wake of a massive protest last December taking on all the cities, there was more than a week of protests and thousands of arrests. Yet the state-run media broadcasted all the news inverted and vice versa, masking the protesters with the disguise of foreign offenders or even western agents.
This network has a long experience in broadcasting fake and inappropriate news and is fully organized to advance the goals of the Iranian regime.
The Iranian government ratified a bill in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, to ban people from using satellite channels.
The government has tried to keep people away from accessing satellite equipment in recent years, especially after the tenth presidential election, they have begun to disturb satellite networks and send parasite noises.
This act has always been encountered with complaints from international organizations and institutions, even to knock back at unauthorized attempts to access people’s homes in different cities to collect satellite reception equipment.
Now the world has come to understand that there is no so-called civilian entity in Iran’s religious fascism like Hitler’s and directly or indirectly interferes with oppression and crimes against the people. In exact ways that Hitler’s propaganda machine cannot be parted from his war machine, the same can be considered for the mullahs.
The ruling “Seda Va Sima” as well as the device that has been activated for cyber-security by the regime are all directly linked to the suppression and violation of human rights of Iranians. These include spreading lies, threats, and intimidation, censorship against the organized resistance of the Iranian people or bowdlerization of suppression of protest movements and strikes by various themes of society.
The systematic publicity and media managed by the administration is a promoter, missionary, and justifier of human rights violations in Iran and is a co-author of the suppressive systems run by the regime.
These fantasizing publicist devices, on the one hand, do not allow the news and true information to reach the people, while on the other hand, they try to keep the people in captivity with a regular play of fabrication and lies. The popular slogan “Our stigma is stated broadcast”, which people chant is a reflection of the awareness people have about the function and the role of this maneuver.
In recent decades, Western countries and the United States have sanctioned a number of states over violating human rights or even restricted their leaders from leaving their countries. Therefore, imposing sanctions on states for not sustaining human rights is not uncommon. What had been the big question though, was how Tehran was not being implemented of such protocols till now.
In fact, the international community has delayed four decades until seriously dealing with the issue of human rights abuses in Iran. It may have been that they didn’t find it necessary to use such deterrent mechanisms against the mullahs. Such as we still see Europeans looking to maintain their economic interests by holding on to relations with the Iranian regime.
