Action Required
SWIPP UK | 02.07.2009 23:15 | Anti-militarism | Repression | Social Struggles
Taken from:
http://swippuk.blogspot.com/
PRESS TV, founded and funded by the Iranian regime, has never had it so good. While the Iranian independent and pro-reformist have been shut down, and many journalists and bloggers have been arrested, the Iranian regime has even sent foreign journalists back home. Furthurmore the Internet services in Iran have been slowed down while SMS facilities, as people's means of communications, have been interrupted. Thanks to Nokia-Siemens technology the Iranian regime have the baility to eavsedrop people's conversations while they have interrupted. Thus no one, westeners and Iranians alike, are able to witness the crimes happening in Iran. PRESS TV have been acting as the mouthpiece of the criminals who have remained in power by engineering a coup, for which to happen, they have arrested, beaten, tortured and killed many. Neck Ferrari a PRESS TV presenter has recently quit his job over "bias" in PRESS TV reporting and in "protest after regime crishung dissent" after Iranian elections. In addition to Nick Ferrari, Press TV has employed: Cherie Blair's sister Lauren Booth, The MPs Derek Conway and George Galloway, and the journalists Andrew Gilligan and Yvonne Ridley.
OFCOM, esteblished as a body corporate by the Office of Communications Act 2002, is responsible to regulate UK communications industries, with responsibilities accross Television, Radio telecommunications and wireless communications services. Ofcom is already investigating a complaint that PRESS TV has breached its duty to be "accurate" and "impartial".
According to an Iranian activist, and a popular blogger, the coup govornment has not yet had to pay a price abroad, for the the crimes that they have committed invluding, killing, wounding and arresting protesters in Iran.
SWIPP urges its members and non-member supporters to ACT upon this call. We need to make complaints to OFCOM regarding bias coverage of PRESS TV regarding Iranian post elestion events. Please follow the link below and take a minute or two to make a complaint. Remember people are being beaten on the street and this is the very least we can do.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/progs/other/
Additionally you can make complains to Stop The War Coalition for cooperating with Regime apologists such as George Galloway. You could ask very simple questions such as :
1- Why is George Galloway cooperating with Press TV, a bias media, founded by iranian govornment, who has been ignoring the crimes taken place in Iran and has been spreading nonesense about the nature of the protests.
2- Why Mr Galloway, being so obsessed with Israeili crimes and Palestinian victims, has turned a blind eye on atrocities taking place in Iran?
3- Why Mr Galloway, being so obsessed with the victims of war in Iraq and afghanistan, has chosen to completely ignore the Iranian protesters on the street who have been killed, arrested, wounded for expressing their view about the rigged elections through marching peacefully on the streets of Iranian towns and cities?
4- Why Mr Galloway, being so concerned about institutional crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, has kept silent about the mass arrest of journalists and politicak activists in Iran?
6- Why Mr Galloway, being a shameful apologist for Ahmadinejad's govornment has failed to recognize the crimes of the coup govornment?
How can he place Ahmadinejad's govornement in the category of anti-imperialist and defenders of the working class govornments? Has he forgotten the main backers of Ahmadinejad (Sepah) have gained key financial resources through the privatisation scheme in Iran? Has he failed to see that Sepah-e-pasdaran in Iran owns an unknown number of corporations, mines, factories, and has heavyinvestments in oil, gas and arms industries?
CALL Stop The War Coalition and raise your deep concerns about cooperation with George Galloway:
02078012768
Or email them byfilling a form at:
http://stopwar.org.uk/component/option,com_contact/Itemid,3/
Additionally call George Galloway's Office on:
02072196940
AND/OR
George Galloway's constituency office on:
02076135225
Alternatively if you wish to email him, send your emails to:
georgegallowaydotcom@gmail.com
SWIPP UK
e-mail:
swipp.uk@gmail.com
Homepage:
http://swippuk.blogspot.com/
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
yet another one did the same
02.07.2009 23:32
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-i-wont-appear-on-press-tv-again.html
source: http://azarmehr.blogspot.com/
Nima Barazandeh
e-mail: nimaria@gmail.com
Uh-hu... Iain Dale the Tory....
03.07.2009 08:20
Iain Dale Is A Stinking Tory Hypocrite
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/05/iain_dale_is_a.html
Iain Dale Rides To Rescue Charles Crawford
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/05/iain_dale_rides.html
Chris
Medialens comment on the hypocrisy of the BBC regarding Press TV
03.07.2009 08:36
"Also tonight - should a broadcaster that's funded by the Iranian government be allowed to operate in Britain? Press TV, the English language international television news channel is being investigated by OFCOM for breaching its duty to be impartial and accurate and one of its presenters has resigned following the station's coverage of the Iran protests. Our culture correspondent Stephen Smith investigates."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/07/wednesday_1_july_2009.html
And SteveUK2 posted the response to this he sent to the BBC to the Medialens http://medialens.org/ message board, which is worth reproducing:
"I posted the following (some of it using material from a previous Letter I sent)
"should a broadcaster that's funded by the Iranian government be allowed to operate in Britain?"
Equally Press TV could ask whether BBC Persia, funded by the British Foreign Office should be allowed to operate in Iran. They could accuse the BBC of being impartial for not focusing on protester violence as is usual practice with protests in the UK. Footage of the protests in Iran clearly shows fires in the street and stones being thrown.
A report by the BBC's Hugh Skyes ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8111695.stm) said
"The day after the election, I watched a small crowd of unarmed, and very courteous Mousavi supporters being charged by baton-wielding riot police."
I can barely imagine the BBC publishing a report which read.
"I watched a small crowd of unarmed, and very courteous climate camp protesters being charged by baton-wielding riot police."
The report also said...
"A few minutes later, I was in a larger crowd of Mousavi supporters who were demonstrating entirely peacefully when they were attacked by Basiji militia driving motorcycles and wildly swinging wooden batons at anyone in their path.
I saw who was stirring the violence on the streets of Tehran. It was not the unarmed demonstrators."
Again, can you imagine the following going up on the BBC website?
"A few minutes later, I was in a larger crowd of climate protesters who were demonstrating entirely peacefully when they were attacked by riot police on horseback, wildly swinging wooden batons at anyone in their path.
I saw who was stirring the violence on the streets of London. It was not the unarmed demonstrators."
If you want an example of how the BBC reports on a protest in the UK, look no further than this. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7975597.stm
There is plenty of mention of protesters throwing missiles, but no mention of police swinging batons, either wildly or in fact, at all.
There is nearly always some violence at protests. There are always some trouble makers who will throw stones. The question is, how do you report it. Do you keep mentioning protesters throwing stones and missiles and refer to police violence as "scuffles" (as seems to be standard BBC practice), or do you report with shock and horror that unarmed protesters are being assaulted (as happens routinely at UK protests).
Given the large gulf in how the BBC reports on police violence and protester violence in Iran compared to the UK, what does this say about BBC impartiality?
The same gulf in reporting occurs when reporting on protests in Israel. Can you name a single Palestinian protester shot dead in the last 20 years? I thought not. Yet within a week or two of protests in Iran we know all about Neda.
Again, it's the standard case of sticking the boot in on official enemies, but treading much more carefully when it comes to home turf or official allies."
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1246483373.html
Chris