From the RFE/RL Iran report for July 15:
The director for foreign correspondents' affairs in Iran's Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance, Mohammad Hussein Khoshvaqt, said in the 2 July "Kayhan" newspaper that "The New York Times" columnist Thomas Friedman would not be allowed to return to Iran. The conservative press had accused Friedman of espionage after he wrote a series of op-ed articles in June about his one-week trip to Iran, and it asked why Friedman was allowed to visit the country in the first place.
"Resalat" daily on 17 June asked if Friedman traveled to Iran to censor the realities there, and it implied that he is an Israeli or American spy, saying that he had been educated in Israel and trained at the Central Intelligence Agency. "Resalat" took exception to Friedman's 12 June piece in "The New York Times," when he wrote about "a Muslim country where many people were sincerely sympathetic to America after 11 September,...a country where so many people on the street are now talking about -- and hoping for -- a reopening of relations with America...." Friedman also described an unrealistic sense that problems ranging from unemployment to "a general political malaise" would be reversed upon the restoration of relations with the U.S.
"Kayhan" newspaper on 30 June claimed that Iranian reformists had invited Friedman so he could help them, and U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice "briefed [Friedman] on the details of his mission to Iran...using maps, films, and slides."
The "Jomhuri-yi Islami" daily, in a 2 July editorial, said, "The malicious remarks made and commentaries written by Thomas Friedman...once more highlight the reality and truth that our essential contradiction is with the domineering, overambitious, and bullying government of America." The daily cautioned against the airing of political disputes and called for unity: "The country, revolution, Islamic Republic regime, and the nation are all in dire and grave need of unity, solidarity, and watchfulness vis-a-vis the conspiracies of the enemies."
Mohammad Kazem Anbarlui, an editorial-board member at the hard-line "Resalat" daily, said that the ministries of Intelligence and Security and of Foreign Affairs should have declared Friedman persona non grata and not accepted his journalist credentials. Anbarlui continued, ISNA reported on 3 July: "Of course, in view of the fact that we are the freest nation and have the most democratic state in the world, we have nothing to fear. However, it has to be seen what our nation gained in exchange for this generosity.... Why is it necessary to show such kindness to an American spy in Tehran under the guise of a journalist?"
Anbarlui likened Friedman's reports to those of the CIA about Iran in the 1970s, and the "Resalat" editorial-board member concurred with Friedman's assessment (in "The New York Times" of 17 June), that a bomb is "ticking away in Iranian society." Friedman had suggested that this bomb is the result of the generation gap between participants in Iran's Islamic Revolution, those who came of age during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and the third generation of 16-30-year-olds who do not have a stake in the revolution or the war. According to Friedman, this third generation is "young, restless, modern-looking, and often unemployed," its members want "the good life, a good job, more individual freedom, and more connections with the outside world," and although they embrace Islam, "they don't want it to occupy every corner of their lives."
Friedman wrote that President Mohammad Khatami has failed to
fulfill this generation's hopes, and he predicted that it would "eventually find a new political horse to ride and, when it does, Iran will change -- with or without the ayatollahs' blessings." Anbarlui agreed with Friedman's assessment partially: "He has understood things correctly; the bomb will explode, but, instead of destroying the system, the explosion will deliver the coup de grace to America's national interests in Iran."
Friedman interviewed Amir Mohebbian, another member of the "Resalat" editorial board, for a column that appeared in "The New York Times" on 19 June. Mohebbian reportedly said: "At the time of the revolution we offered certain [religious] values to the society in a maximalist way.... Now we are witnessing a backlash.... If we go on pressing for maximalist religious values we will increase the gap between the generations." Mohebbian defended himself by saying that he assumed that Friedman had gone through the appropriate legal channels to enter Iran, ISNA reported on 3 July. Nor did he see anything wrong with giving newspaper interviews, Mohebbian said,although he drew the line at foreign radios.
"Jomhuri-yi Islami" daily on 7 July claimed that Friedman wasinvited by a "certain political current," is "an envoy of an adviser to the American president," and has "recommended the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran's system." Hamedan parliamentarian Hamid Reza Haji-Babai, in an interview with "Jomhuri-yi Islami," declared his opposition to any contacts with the U.S. outside of official channels. Haji-Babai went on to say that Friedman "published the worst and most insulting articles in 'The New York Times' against Iran's Islamic system," and he condemned the official failure to react to "the presence of an American national who has entered the country only for the purpose of conspiring against and overthrowing the state."
This is not the first time that a foreign reporter who haswritten about his/her observations in Iran has been accused of espionage by the hard-line media or has been made to feel unwelcome. In December 1998 Douglas Jehl of "The New York Times" and Alexandra Avakian of "National Geographic" were accused of espionage, too (see "RFE/RL Iran Report," 21 December 1998). Other times, foreign journalists cannot get visas for a few years, and then they are informally told that their next visa application will be successful.
Foreign journalists who live in Iran face difficulties, too. Genevieve Abdo of "The Guardian" and Jonathan Lyons of Reuters had to leave Iran in February 2001 after they quoted jailed journalist Akbar Ganji as saying that "future events [in Iran] may act as a detonator for an explosion." Moreover, resident correspondents must renew their exit visas every three months, and sometimes one's departure is delayed if the renewal is not forthcoming.
But Friedman's work was hardly espionage, and it did not cover new ground. RFE/RL Persian Service correspondent Siavash Ardalan pointed out on 3 July that Friedman's columns were intended for a Western audience, whereas Iranians read about the country's political disputes and problems every day in the reformist newspapers. (Bill Samii)
<< Home