Iran Bans Foreign Media Ahead of Student Demonstrations

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6 December 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar

Iran’s government has temporarily banned foreign media from operating in the capital, Tehran, in anticipation of student rallies on Monday, marking Iran’s Student Day commemoration. The government has warned against any “illegal rallies”, suggesting it fears the student rallies could turn into a new round of protests against the alleged rigging of the June presidential vote and the subsequent violent crackdown against dissent.

According to Reuters:

Police and elite Revolutionary Guards have warned that any “illegal” rally will be fiercely confronted on Monday when the country marks Student Day, commemorating the killing of three students in 1953 under the former Shah.

“All permits issued for foreign media to cover news in Tehran have been revoked from December 7 to December 9,” the Culture Ministry’s foreign press department said on Saturday in an SMS text message sent to journalists, photographers and cameramen working for foreign media in Iran.

Throughout the weekend internet connections have been deliberately slowed or disabled and cellphone networks have been interrupted. It appears the authorities are testing a series of measures designed to interfere with person to person communications, to stop people from organizing and from reporting on abuses that may be committed by security forces.

Reuters also reports that “An official at Iran’s telecommunications ministry told Reuters that Internet access and cellphone lines would be disabled on Monday.” Police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam warns that any “illegal gathering” near the universities will be “strongly confronted”, raising fears of more bloodshed and political disappearances, like those that the government used to respond to the anti-government protests this summer.

The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is warning that the situation for journalists in Iran is worsening. Over 100 reporters and bloggers were detained during the summer demonstrations; 23 are still being held. Many are treated like foreign spies, especially photographers, whom the government feels it has a fundamental right to control.

In the case of Maziar Bahari, a journalist working for Newsweek magazine, he was detained and held without charge, was interrogated and severely beaten. He was accused of espionage, was told that his magazine was in fact an intelligence agency, and was told that video of himself doing a comic sketch on Jon Stewart’s ‘The Daily Show’ in which a comedian pretends to be a CIA agent was proof he was a spy.

The situation in Iran is also getting more difficult for foreign journalists. There are increasing restrictions on what they are allowed to report, and when, and by what medium. Foreign journalists are now routinely barred from reporting on public gatherings or meeting with any member of the opposition. The media clampdown is a sign the hardline government continues to find itself under pressure from internal opposition.

It is also clear that there is a connection between the government’s treatment of journalists and its plans for a potentially violent crackdown. It wants to avoid images getting out like those that showed the bloody death of Neda Agha Soltan, an innocent bystander gunned down in cold blood, in the middle of a crowded street, allegedly by a member of the Basij militia.

The government has failed to provide any democratic channel by which the opposition could address its grievances regarding the vote of 12 June 2009, which most observers, even some conservative clerics inside Iran, believe was rigged to give Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the supreme leader’s preferred candidate, a second term as president.

It is expected that Monday will bring the beginning of a new series of protest rallies, initiated by students in observance of Student Day, but supported by the Green Path of Hope movement of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, and possibly winning popular support from ordinary citizens still outraged over the violence used by government forces to end the summer’s post-election demonstrations. If such rallies do emerge, the government is expected to take action to interfere.