The Latest from Iran (26 February): Bashing the BBC, Jailing the Journalists

Journalist Marzieh Rasouli (see 0550 GMT)0550 GMT: We open with a story combining political prisoners, propaganda, the Revolutionary Guards, journalism, and the "enemy".

Yesterday the regime rolled out its PR campaign about "Eye of the Fox", a Revolutionary Guards operation which had supposedly broken up a ring carrying out the devious schemes of BBC Persian: “In line with the British government’s neo-colonialist attitude and through the use of new and complicated intelligence methods, (the BBC) had created a complicated intelligence network with the aim of collecting specific and purposeful intelligence.”

This network had been established to recruit members from Iranian political and media circles, establishing connections with anti-revolutionary groups, particularly the "terrorist" Mojahedin-e Khalq, and gathering intelligence about Iran’s strategic points, centers, and organizations, including ministries, embassies, and oil platforms.  

This is far from a new campaign. In the "first phase of the operation" last September, six prominent Iranian filmmakers were detained.  And three weeks ago, "an informed source [had] confirmed reports...that Iran has arrested a number of people, who had been working secretly for the Persian language service of the BBC". And while the regime's outlets have not headlined these operations, the Guards and Minister of Intelligence have also harassed the families of BBC Persian staff, in one case detaining the sister of a London-based employee so they could carry out an interrogation by Internet.

This time, the victims --- "24 main members of the network" --- were bloggers and journalists seized in January. Iranian media only gave initials, as well as photographs of five people with bands across the eyes, but the activist news agency RAHANA named three of the five: Parastou Dokouhaki, one of the first bloggers in Iran; Marzieh Rassouli, a cultural journalist for newspapers such as Shargh, Etemaad, and Roozegar; and Sahameddin Bourghani, the editor of the Iranian Diplomacy website.

from EA WorldView: EA Iran

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