Closing Keyhan Mini-Group
While declaring his pleasure at the closure of the offices of Iran’s leading human rights group - Center for the Defense of Human Rights - Mr. Shariatmadari, the operator of Keyhan newspaper and the loudest mouthpiece for the ruling faction in Iran, dismissed the publication of complains over the closure as a “coordinated group protest of counter-revolutionaries and foreign circles affiliated to foreign intelligence services.” But let’s imagine the day that Keyhan newspaper is shut! This news will be receive leading headlines in the international media not with a title such as “Keyhan Mini-Group and Co is Shut”, but as “An Astounding Event in the Islamic Republic.” Does Keyhan mini-group outlet too display signs that it is affiliated to foreign intelligence services? No way! Why not?
Keyhan newspaper which is managed by the representative of the leader of the Islamic regime in Tehran has shown during all these years that its news philosophy rests on the portrayal of “us vs. them”. In this light, outlets and newspapers that are in line with Keyhan have the right to jointly select and extract parts of ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks against Mohammad Khatami and turn them into headlines, but they do not accept the view that their actions are measures that have been “coordinated” with the central command of Shiite Taliban in Iran.
From Keyhan’s perspective, all Friday prayer imams across the country that support the extremist right in Iran have the right to engage - in a coordinated way - in early propaganda in favor of Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s participation in next year’s presidential election, which is “coordinated” to appear every Saturday in Keyhan and other similar news outlets, but they do not like others to interpret this to be another “multi-layered complex operation” (which in the last presidential race catapulted to Mr. Ahmadinejad to the presidency) affiliated with the central security-military command.
From Keyhan’s perspective, all agencies of the right in Iran through coordination have the right to accuse and link student protests to foreign opponents of the Islamic Republic, but the “organized” gathering of Basij students in front of the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian embassies in Tehran are labeled as “spontaneous” events and not the result of “coordination” of die-hard supporters of the leader at the central command….
Let’s look at this issue from a different perspective now. All bodies affiliated to Keyhan newspaper have the right to refrain - in unison - from publishing the remarks of those affiliated to the other faction in the country, ranging from Khatami to Abdullah Nouri, but this news blackout should not be attributed to “coordinations” made behind the scenes. All these news outlets have the right not to talk of the violated rights of women in Iran; They all have the right to distort UN resolutions passed on Iran’s human rights violations; They want everybody to believe that the coordinated publication of articles about Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the spontaneous Basiji protests are all accidental events; They all have the right to use distorted language regarding Iran’s nuclear dossier; They all have the right to not to publish news about the execution of children and the forceful blinding of defendants in Iran, and much more. None of these activities are expected to be attributed to prior coordination of government lackeys.
And now lets for a moment imagine the day when Keyhan and its co-idealogues, come to see the light because of their contacts with realities in the world of media. Think of the day when offices of Keyhan are shut and all international media “in unison” publish the news. On that day, those who do not wish to learn from history, will learn that the responsibility of the media has always been to reflect the news, particularly because the closure of Keyhan will be a more “newsy” event than the closure of the offices of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights. It would be newsier because the correction of a destructive way is certainly more important than the repeated publishing of a crack down on Iranian human rights activists. The closure of Keyhan will signal a fundamental change. It is a step in the direction of submitting to the rules of republicanism and away from despotism and dictatorial rule. The closure of the offices of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, on the other hand, is a sign of compulsion; a compulsion to be anti-Iran and anti-Iranian, which is by the way not a new issue.
So let us come and prey that Shariatmadaris will come to realize, through real experience, the causes of these “coordinated efforts”.