Iran's media crackdown 'is last-resort intimidation' (News Feature)

By Miriam Bandar Jun 16, 2009, 12:36 GMT

Protesters burn a car and attack a building of a pro-government militia (Basij) base near a protest demonstration in the streets of the capital Tehran, Iran, on 15 June 2009. The rally was attended by hundreds of thousands of Iranians who protested against alleged election fraud at the presidential election which led to the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. EPA/STR

Hamburg - What happened in the Tehran office of Germany`s ARD television channel appears to be not unusual right now. Six armed men walked in and aggressively asked questions.

They showed little interest in press passes and accreditation documents, according to correspondent Peter Metzger. They took away a technician, who did not reappear until the next day.

Metzger was told not to leave the office for the moment - although the following day, Monday, he was back outside as the massive crowds of demonstrators made their way through the Iranian capital.

On Tuesday, pressure on the media increased considerably, with foreign journalists banned from reporting on a planned mass demonstration against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad following his hotly-contested re-election on Sunday.

Staff of ARD and German television ZDF were not allowed to leave their hotels, according to the Reporters Without Borders organization, and an employee of the Italian news agency a reporter from an international news agency had been beaten up by police.

The Interior Ministry was also reported to have fired four employees for giving figures differing from the official election results, Reporters Without Borders said.

The organisation said journalists were being detained in Iran and newspapers closed. Internet services, television coverage, mobile phone networks - all have been disrupted since the election.

The organization said internet sites censored by the Iranian government have included that of the BBC, while social networking sites like Facebook have also been disrupted in attempts to stop pictures of demonstrations reaching beyond Iran`s borders.

At least 11 Iranian journalists had been arrested by Tuesday, according to Reporters Without Borders, with five of them still in prison. The whereabouts of 10 more journalists were not known.

All of this is all too familiar to German media specialist and political observer Hans Kleinsteuber. 'It times of crisis, the media of authoritarian regimes are always the object of intimidation,' he says.

Iran, he says, is similar to Russia in its attitude to the media - not a totalitarian regime, but an authoritarian one, under which critical voices are tolerated only in relatively harmless times.

When conflict arrives, every attempt is made to force the media back under state control. 'In crisis situations, the regimes don`t care what the world thinks - it`s all about survival,' says Kleinsteuber.

Foreign reporters in Iran may not get the protection normally accorded them, but they are not particularly endangered, he adds.

'Those in power have no interest in persecuting correspondents - they just want to keep them away from the trouble spots,' he says.

The Iranian government`s attempts to stop television pictures, in particular, from reaching the outside world follows a familiar pattern, says Kleinsteuber.

The problem for the government is that such pictures 'have a more immediate effect on the viewer - police beating people, people bleeding - all this goes straight to the emotions in a way print and radio journalism can`t.'

The German government has joined others in calling on Iran to guarantee unrestricted reporting, making this one of the requests presented to ambassador Ali Reza Sheikh Attar in Berlin.

Meanwhile, the hundreds of internet pictures continue to get called up worldwide, with no one really able to verify how much they correspond to the claims they make.

'The internet is not a reliable medium,' cautions Kleinsteuber, 'because it reflects not the work of reliable journalists but that of eyewitnesses and citizen reporters - and a few crazies.'

And there are also attempts, he warns, by vested interests on all sides to exploit the situation - making the fog even foggier. Certain is only that the truth suffers.