The government reinforces its pressure on foreign media

Reporters Without Borders condemns the decision by culture and Islamic orientation minister Mohammad Hossein Safar-Harandi to ban the BBC's new Farsi-language TV station from operating in Iran, and to forbid Iranian journalists to work for foreign news media. As well as preventing Iranian journalists from covering freely domestic news, the government is now also trying to gag foreign news media. “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has entered a new phase in its repression of human rights activists and journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The foreign media are clearly seen as unwanted observers, and the government's exaggerated suspicions and security obsessions have now driven it to ban any contact with journalists. This decision aims to intimidate journalists and violates the free flow of information.” The decision follows the BBC World Service's launch on 14 January of BBC Persian TV, a satellite TV station targeted at Farsi-speakers in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. A year ago, the BBC launched BBC Arabic TV, which broadcasts by satellite to the Middle East. BBC Persian TV representatives reported at the time of the launch that the Iranian authorities had refused to let them open any permanent bureaux in Iran. But the BBC World Service still has a Tehran bureau with a full-time correspondent. The BBC's Farsi-language radio service has many listeners in Iran. In an interview for the Iranian news agency ILNA, the culture and Islamic orientation minister said: “The BBC English channel will be confronted if it abuses its legal rights by producing reports for BBC Persian and we are continually on watch for that.” Although the Iranian constitution does not allow any radio or TV station to operate outside of state control, there is no law banning journalists from talking to foreign news media and their correspondents. The Iranian authorities do everything possible to block the foreign radio and TV stations that produce Farsi-language programmes, calling them a “cultural invasion.” Last year, the correspondents of many foreign news media failed to get their visas extended and, as a result, had to leave the country.