48 Iranians Kidnapped in Syria Released
Al-Manar | January 9, 2013
Forty-eight Iranians held hostage by armed groups in Syria since August, were released on Wednesday.48 Iranian abductees
State television reported on Wednesday that the Iranians, who were threatened with execution, were released, but without saying further details.
Iran has appealed to Turkey and Qatar, both with close relations with Syria militants, for help in securing the release of the pilgrims who were visiting the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, a holy site in the southeastern suburbs of Damascus.
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Netanyahu: Iran Has Not Yet Crossed the Red Line
Al-Manar | January 4, 2012
Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran has not yet crossed the red line Tel Aviv set on its nuclear program.
“Iran remains the number one threat,” Netanyahu said Thursday at the last session of the annual year-end meeting in the Foreign Ministry for the Israeli ambassadors serving abroad.
“There is a chance for positive change in the region if that country was prevented from getting a nuclear weapon,” he said referring to the Islamic Republic.
The prime minister added that in the short term he expected regional tribulations to continue.
During a speech at the UN in September, Netanyahu drew a red line on a picture of a bomb signifying when Tehran would be 90% on the way to development of a bomb. He said Iran would not likely pass that line until the spring or summer.
“And this will give more time for sanctions and diplomacy to convince Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons program altogether,” Netanyahu added on Thursday.
The Israeli PM also addressed the Palestinian issue, saying Hamas could take control of the Palestinian Authority “any day,” and therefore “concrete security arrangements” must be included in any peace agreement, as well as recognition of the Zionist entity as the “state of the Jewish nation,” an end to the “right of return” and a sincere declaration on the end of the conflict.
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US imposes fresh sanctions on Tehran, including ban on Iranian media
Press TV – January 4, 2013
The United States has imposed fresh sanctions on Iran that include bans on the country’s media despite Washington’s claims of protecting freedom of speech.
The new bans are included in the $633-billion military bill for 2013 which US President Barack Obama signed into law on Wednesday night.
The anti-Iran sanctions portion of the bill, among other economic features, blacklists the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and its president Ezzatollah Zarghami and will block all the IRIB assets and prevent others from doing business with it.
The sanction against IRIB is an attempt by the West to silence Iranian media. It is on top of another flagrant violation of freedom of speech by satellite providers Eutelsat SA and Intelsat SA which stopped the broadcast of several Iranian satellite channels in October.
In November, the Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat) also took all Iranian channels off air in East Asia under pressure from the US.
In a similar move in December, Spain’s top satellite company Hispasat ordered its satellite provider Overon to take Iranian channels Press TV and Hispan TV off the air.
The restrictions on Iranian media are interpreted as an attempt to silence the truth-telling media.
This comes as US lawmakers say the fresh anti-Iran sanctions portion of the bill is part of measures aimed at pressuring Iran to halt its nuclear energy program.
The United States, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Over the false allegation, Washington and the European Union have imposed illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran refutes the allegations and argues that as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is entitled to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
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Tom Friedman’s Geography Disability
By Jerome Slater | December 26, 2012
Tom Friedman has been getting better on the Middle East lately, though he still has a long way to go before he can be taken seriously, at least in terms of his analytical acuity as opposed to his unfortunate influence. For example, consider today’s column on Obama and Chuck Hagel: not bad at all (though certainly not up to Steve Walt on the same topic, at http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/), with the rather large exception of his remarkable contention that Israel “is surrounded by more implacable enemies than ever.”
Well, let’s see about that. To the west of Israel is Egypt–ok, probably not as “friendly” to Israel as in the Mubarak days, but with no indication that the new regime intends to abandon its peace treaty with Israel. To the north is Lebanon, too weak to threaten anyone but itself and with no intention–that includes Hezbollah–of embarking on an unprovoked attack (maybe not even a provoked one) against Israel. To the northeast lies Syria, which under the Assads, father and son, has not only rigorously prevented any attacks on Israel from its soil but has been willing to sign a peace treaty with it, if only Israel would withdraw from the Golan Heights.
To the east is Jordan, if anything a de facto ally of Israel. Finally, close by lies Saudi Arabia–the same Saudi Arabia that for thirty years has been the leader of the Arab Peace Initiative, which offers Israel not only a peace treaty but full normalization of diplomatic and economic relations, provided that Israel ends its occupation and agrees to a two-state settlement with the Palestinians.
Who’s left? Well, Iraq is over 500 miles away, possibly a threat to Israel under Saddam Hussein, at least in theory, but obviously not today. Ok, Iran, the single implacable enemy of Israel, but at 1000 miles away, hardly “surrounding” Israel, and in any case lacking all capability or any apparent intention of attacking Israel–as opposed to the other way around.
Perhaps Friedman was sick during the week when they taught world geography in the third grade. Even so, that hardly explains why the Times would allow such mind-boggling absurdity to be published.
Wired’s Weird Propaganda and the Most Dangerous Man in the World
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | December 22, 2012
Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani, Wired writer Robert Beckhusen
The wizards of Wired‘s Danger Room blog have posted a year-end click-bait listicle identifying who they – Spencer Ackerman, David Axe, Nathan Shachtman, and Robert Beckhusen – believe to be “The 15 Most Dangerous People in the World.”
While Paul Broadwell starts the list for some strange reason, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan clocks in at number four (with entry author Ackerman studiously avoiding any mention of Brennan’s rampant lies over the murderous drone program he oversees, or the staggering civilian death toll for which Brennan and his boss are personally responsible) and Bashar al-Assad at number two, the Danger Roomers peg Iranian Brigadier General Ghasem Soleimani (they write it as Qassem Suleimani) – head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Qods Force – as the single most dangerous man on Earth.
Beckhuser, who wrote the final entry for Wired, begins with a truly bizarre formulation. “As the country most likely to spark a world war,” he writes, “Iran has to be considered the most dangerous country on the planet.”
Let’s read that again and then unpack it. Iran – in Beckhuser’s estimation (one that he seems to think is a pretty uncontroversial assumption) – is “the country most likely to spark a world war.” (emphasis added) In fact, United States intelligence has long held that Iran maintains defensive capabilities and has a military doctrine of self-defense and retaliation, but will not begin a conflict.
In April 2010, Defense Intelligence Agency director Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess told the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, “Iran’s military strategy is designed to defend against external threats, particularly from the United States and Israel. Its principles of military strategy include deterrence, asymmetrical retaliation, and attrition warfare.”
Burgess’ intelligence report, delivered in conjunction with his testimony, also included the assessment that Iran maintains a “defensive military doctrine, which is designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities,” and that “Iranian military training and public statements echo this defensive doctrine of delay and attrition.” The identical position was reaffirmed by Burgess’ testimony in March 2011, during which he explained that, if attacked, “Iran could attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz temporarily with its navy, threaten the United States and its allies in the region with missiles, and employ terrorist [sic] surrogates worldwide. However, we assess Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict or launch a preemptive attack.”
This year, Burgess repeated these conclusions (which have been the consensus view of U.S. intelligence for years), reiterating that the Defense Intelligence Agency “assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict.”
So what does Beckhuser mean when he claims that Iran is “the country most likely to spark a world war”? While an unprovoked attack on Iran is widely seen as a terrible, “stupid” idea (and a war crime of obvious and unequivocal illegality) by those not of the neoconservative persuasion, and one that could potentially lead to a global conflagration, the idea that Iran would start such a war is not actually a consideration. Even former Israeli Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy warned, “An attack on Iran could affect not only Israel, but the entire region for 100 years.” Note how the potential attack suggested by Levy is on Iran by an unmentioned aggressor, and not by Iran on any other country.
Maybe that’s why Beckhuser wrote “spark” rather than “start.”
In so doing, however, the Wired writer is effectively – in this warped thought experiment – blaming Iran for getting itself attacked by Israel or the United States. He appears to be saying that if Iran responds to a foreign military assault, it would somehow be culpable for “sparking” a global conflict, the instigator of a new world war. The twisted logic of such an assertion reveals a very specific perception of Iran as a perennial provocateur of violence visited upon itself.
It is apparently irrelevant to Beckhuser that Iran’s wholly legal nuclear energy program is thoroughly monitored by the IAEA, an organization that continually confirms that its program has not been weaponized and admits it has no evidence Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons program, or that the United States intelligence community and its allies have long assessed that Iran is not and never has been in possession of nuclear weapons, and is not currently building nuclear weapons. All indications are that Iran’s leadership has not even made a decision to build nuclear weapons and Iranian officials have consistently maintained they will never pursue such weapons on religious, strategic, political, moral and legal grounds.
Beckhuser doesn’t explain how Iran – a country with no modern military history of invading or attacking any other nation, a demonstrated refusal to respond in kind to chemical weapons attacks on its own citizens, and with a military budget of roughly 4% of what the United States spends annually, dwarfed by U.S.–backed states in the region – would be responsible for sparking a military conflict were it to be attacked. Does Beckhuser think that by consistently offering to curb and cap its enrichment program, accepting international cooperation in its energy sector and taking significant scientific and technological steps to reduce its medium-enriched uranium stockpile in an effort to allay fears of possible militarization of its program, Iran is acting provocatively?
Are we to believe that, in the event the United States or Israel initiates a war of aggression against Iran – thereby committing the “supreme international crime” as defined by the Nuremberg Tribunal – that Iran should be seen as “the most dangerous country on the planet“?
For decades, headlines around the world have routinely speculated and asked, “Will Israel Attack Iran?” Not the other way around.
Who is currently terrorizing civilian populations and killing an extraordinary number of children in at least six foreign countries with flying robots; has an arsenal of over 5,100 nuclear warheads; is responsible for three-quarters of the global arms market, flooding the world with weapons to the tune of $66.3 billion last year alone; is itself the gun violence capital of the world; maintains the most sophisticated and lethal military on the planet and a global empire with more than 1,000 military bases and installations all over the world, and whose legislative body stridently works to literally outlaw diplomacy and lay the groundwork for more war forever and ever?
Who begins reelection campaigns by murdering over 160 people in an aerial bombardment of an impoverished, caged, blockaded and besieged refugee population; constantly violates ceasefire agreements to commit war crimes; threatens to attack sovereign nations on a regular basis; continues an over four-decade-long illegal military occupation in order to fulfill its century-old founding settler-colonial ideology and displace, dispossess and disenfranchise its indigenous population; has been found to be the world’s most militarized nation for nearly 20 years in a row?
Who do the majority of people living in Iran’s neighboring and regional nations fear the most?
Iranian officials consistently speak out against the possibility of a new war. The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, in a recent report suggesting that direct negotiations with the United States could resolve the standoff over the Iranian nuclear program and begin to lift decades of Western-imposed sanctions, stated, “One way to fend off a possible war is to resort to diplomacy and to use all international capacities,” adding that, as the risk of war appears high, “it is an unforgiveable sin not to prevent it.”
Meanwhile, the threats against Iran continue unabated.
Beckhuser also fails to note that in the past few months, the United States led a massive naval war game exercise in the Persian Gulf, amassing the floating firepower of nearly 30 countries just off the southern coast of Iran, and is rapidly arming its dictatorial Gulf allies with more and more weapons while replenishing the stockpiles of Israel after its eight-day bombardment of Gaza in late November.
The Washington Times recently reported, “The largest infusion of U.S. arms ever for Persian Gulf allies has shifted more toward offensive weapons at the same time that President Obama’s military strategy says it will rely more on allied firepower in any future war,” and added that due to “U.S. sales of air defense-penetrating F-16s and F-15s, satellite-guided bombs and a pending order for ordnance that can burrow deep and then explode, analysts say Gulf nations could participate in a U.S. air campaign to strike Iran’s nuclear sites.”
Business Insider reports, “This week the U.S. Department of Defense notified Congress of a $647 million agreement to provide the Israel Air Force with 10,000 bombs — more than half of which are bunker-busters — along with 6,900 joint direct attack munitions (JDAM) tail kits, which convert unguided free-fall bombs into satellite-guided ‘smart’ weapons.”
Yet it is not Iran that is flying drones in American airspace; it is not Iran that is engaged in cyberwar and industrial sabotage against the United States; it is not Iran that is murdering American scientists on the street in front of their families; and it is not Iran that is collectively punishing the civilian population of foreign countries in an effort to force their governments to relinquish their inalienable national rights and attempt to instigate regime change.
Beckhuser’s attempt to establish Iran as the most dangerous place on Earth (a formulation lifted wholesale from Netanyahu talking points) reflects a perpetual and practically pathological predisposition in the mainstream narrative – both liberal and conservative – to view the Islamic Republic of Iran as a sinister domain of unadulterated violence and malevolence; or, as the common refrain goes: “Iran poses the greatest threat to the stability and security of the Middle East and the entire world.” Never mind that a majority of knowledgeable foreign policy and security experts consider such a statement to be not only a gross exaggeration, but a total absurdity.
Naturally, Beckhuser doesn’t elaborate on his opening statement, but assumes his readers agree and moves on from there. In making the assumption that Iran is the “most dangerous country,” Beckhuser then seeks to identify “the most dangerous man in that most dangerous country,” and (taking his cue from the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute) hits upon General Soleimani, whom he describes as “ruthless and mysterious,” just like all caricatures of nefarious Orientals.
Why is he so dangerous? Beckhuser explains,
…if Barack Obama or Bibi Netanyahu were to strike Iran’s nuclear program, it’ll be Suleimani and the Quds Force in charge of taking Iran’s counterattacks beyond its borders, as Iran launches waves of commando and terrorist strikes against the U.S. and its allies across the region and the world.
Yes, you read that correctly: if the elected leaders of the United States and Israel defy the wishes of their own citizens by launching an illegal military adventure against Iran, the “most dangerous man” in the world is the guy who would be tasked with retaliating, not the ones who actually launched the attack and started a new war.
That’s like saying you consider the polar bear at the Central Park Zoo to be the most dangerous animal in New York City because, if you punch it in the face, it might bite your hand off.
One would be hard-pressed (to use Beckhuser’s verbiage) to explain how responding to an unprovoked assault (a war crime in international law) by targeting the heavily-armed, uniformed soldiers of the world’s only superpower stationed halfway around the world could reasonably be considered terrorism, by any stretch of that politically manipulated term’s increasingly irrelevant definition.
So, to sum up: Starting a world war? Whatever. Responding to a military attack on your country? DANGEROUS!
By perpetuating fear-mongering propaganda about Iran, it appears that the most dangerous thing in Wired‘s Danger Room might actually be its own staff.
Benjamin Netanyahu, not dangerous according to Wired’s Danger Room.
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The Real Obstacles to Successful Nuclear Diplomacy with Iran Lie in Washington, Not Tehran
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Race for Iran | December 23rd, 2012
We are just back from another visit to the Islamic Republic and see even more clearly that the real obstacles to successful nuclear diplomacy with Iran lie in Washington, not Tehran. Prior to our visit, we outlined several of the reasons for this in an extended interview on Ian Masters’ Background Briefing about our forthcoming Going to Tehran; click here to listen.
We open by taking issue with the conventional wisdom that the upcoming talks between the P5+1 and Iran will be the “last chance” to reach a nuclear deal with Tehran before the Islamic Republic gears up for its presidential election next year. On this point, Flynt notes that the only reason nuclear talks over the next few months would be a “last chance” is
“because of arbitrary deadlines and frameworks that the United States and some of its partners have imposed on these negotiations. In the end, the Iranian nuclear problem is actually quite simple: if the United States was prepared to accept Iran’s right to enrich uranium, under safeguards, on its own territory, you could have a deal in fairly short order… You could probably get limits on Iran’s 20-percent enrichment, you could get much more intrusive verification on its nuclear activities. But you would have to accept the Islamic Republic as kind of a normal state, with legitimate interests and rights.”
The Obama administration, of course, has shown no willingness to approach nuclear talks with Iran on such a basis. Instead, it has imposed the arbitrary deadlines and frameworks highlighted by Flynt. The dysfunctionality of this approach is reinforced by deeply flawed—and self-deluding—assessments of Iranian decision-making. As Hillary explains,
“The anxiety here, or the urgency, is because it’s put out that, if we don’t do something now, if we don’t try to make a deal now, the Iranian elections will come… and that will somehow derail any possibility for talks. This is something that, time and time again, permeates the American debate—that somehow the problem with negotiating with Iran is in Iran, is in Tehran… It’s either the “mad mullahs” are so crazy, so irrational that we can’t count on them to negotiate like a rational state, or various things are going to come up in their calendar, particularly elections (which in itself should make us question this idea that there are “mad mullahs” there)…
The whole debate here is that something is wrong in Iran, something is wrong in Tehran that is going to derail talks. There’s never any examination of what drives American politics to demonize countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran… The issue is something here; it’s about domestic politics here.
If President Obama cannot get a negotiation going with the Iranians in the next few months, he has a problem domestically here, because domestic constituencies here—and the Israeli government—will say, ‘Time is up. You’ve had enough time. We can’t let the Iranians continue to progress in their nuclear program. You have to take even more coercive action, either more coercive sanctions or military action.’ It’s a domestic problem here. It’s not because of something going on in the decision-making or some irrational craziness among Iranian clerics or Iranian lay leaders.”
On Israel’s role—and its motives for constantly pushing an alarmist view of the Islamic Republic, Flynt says,
“The Israelis are perpetually concerned—I think that their concern is exaggerated—but they are perpetually concerned that the Obama administration is going to try, in a serious way, to pursue a deal. Because the Israelis know that the only kind of deal you could really get out of this process that would have any meaning for both sides would be a deal that actually recognized Iran’s right to enrich—again, under safeguards, not building a nuclear weapon, but they do have a right to enrich… That’s what the Israelis are out to stop. They do not want the United States, other Western powers, to accept this basic fact of international law and international life—that the Iranians have this right, and they are not going to be bullied into giving it up.
This is something that I think the United States really has to come to terms with. For its own interests, it needs to get a nuclear deal with Iran; it needs to start realigning its relations with this important country in the Middle East. And we need to be able to separate Israeli preferences—that have more to do with [Israel’s] own commitment to military dominance in the Middle East—and Israeli security. Iran enriching uranium under safeguards doesn’t affect Israeli security at all. But we need to be able to sort out what our real interests are.”
Against the stereotypes of Iranian “irrationality” and internal political divisions that render effective diplomatic engagement with Tehran impossible, Hillary outlines some important realities about the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy and national security strategy:
“There is consensus [among Iranian policymakers] that Iran should and can engage with almost any country in the world, if [engagement] is to protect its own interests. Where it draws the line is anywhere that Iran would be asked to or expected to cede any of its sovereign rights. Iran is not going to agree to that kind of negotiation… In terms of what Iran should push for, what kind of deal Iran could make in the end, there is certainly discussion and debate—vociferous debate—in Iran about those kinds of tactics. But the strategy—that Iran is a strong country, that it can and should negotiate and deal with other countries in its own interests—is something that is really put forward by the Supreme Leader, by Ayatollah Khamenei. And it’s something, I think, that every senior official follows…
You hear in Washington, especially, periodic discussion… some days it’s Ahmadinejad is the hardliner and he would never be able to deal with the United States. And then someone points out, ‘Well, he actually wrote a 20-page letter to Bush. He actually wrote a congratulatory letter to President Obama on his first election.’ Then people say, ‘Well, maybe the issue is really the speaker of the parliament, or maybe it’s this person or that person.’ There’s a constant attempt in the United States, particularly in Washington, to read the tea leaves, as if [the Islamic Republic is] a very opaque system. These kinds of critics analogize it to the Soviet system.
But it’s not really opaque. If you listen, read, talk to [Iranian] officials, talk to a range of people in their political class, on their political spectrum, and take what they have to say seriously… you can really understand their strategy. You can understand where they’re coming from, and their strategic determination to be a very strong, independent country. The problem, I think, on our side—why we try always to see where there’s some daylight, where this person is competing with that person—is that we’re very reluctant to accept that Iran could be a strong, independent, not secular, not liberal, but still legitimate political entity…
We document rather exhaustively in our book the number of times that the Iranians have engaged with the United States… [In one of these episodes, I] worked personally with them as an official in the State Department and in the White House, with a small team of American officials, to deal with Afghanistan and the problem we were facing there after 9/11 with Al-Qa’ida… [The Iranians] were not paralyzed by internal conflict. The internal conflict was here. It’s the opposition that I had when I was in the White House, from my superiors or people who worked for Vice President Cheney, trying to undermine what Ryan Crocker and I were trying to do with the Iranians.”
Looking ahead, Flynt underscores that, notwithstanding recurrent debate among American political and policy elites over Tehran’s willingness to talk directly, on a bilateral basis, with Washington, “the Iranian position on dealing with the United States has been pretty clear and consistent for a long time, for years. They are open to improved relations, they are open to dialogue and diplomacy to facilitate serious improvement in relations. But they want to know, upfront at this point, that the United States is really prepared to accept the Islamic Republic as a legitimate political order representing legitimate national interests. And they want to know upfront that the United States is really serious about realigning relations with them.
They are not interested in having negotiations just for the sake of having negotiations. They are not interested in having negotiations if they think that the United States is just going to keep piling sanctions on them. They want to know upfront that the United States is serious.
So they will go the P-5+1 talks; they certainly are not refusing to participate in the P-5+1 process. And if, as part of that, the United States makes it clear that it really is interested in a different sort of relationship—that it really does accept the Islamic Republic and wants to come to terms with it as an important player in the Middle East—at that point the Iranians would be very open, very receptive to bilateral dialogue.”
In the interview, we also discuss the 2003 non-paper sent to Washington by Iran via Swiss intermediaries and why incremental, step-by-step cooperation between the United States and the Islamic Republic doesn’t work to improve the overall relationship (mainly because Washington won’t allow it to do so).
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Iran slams British foreign minister for human rights remarks
Press TV – December 23, 2012
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has slammed recent remarks by British Foreign Secretary William Hague about the human rights situation in Iran.
“These false remarks are yet another attempt by British government officials to exploit human rights issues,” Mehmanparast said on Sunday.
He stressed that Britain does not have the right to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries using the pretext of human rights allegations, considering its long history of colonialism and countless rights abuses.
Mehmanparast’s remarks came in response to Hague’s comments on Thursday, December 20, after the UN General Assembly voted on a Canadian-sponsored resolution on alleged human rights violations in Iran. The 193-member body passed the measure 86-32 with 65 abstentions.
Hague accused the Iranian government of denying human rights to its citizen, claiming that “the promotion and protection of human rights is at the heart of UK foreign policy.”
The British foreign secretary described the death in custody of Iranian blogger, Sattar Beheshti, as “one tragic example” of human rights violations.
Beheshti was charged with and arrested for cyber crimes and later passed away in prison in early November. Iranian Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani ordered an investigation into his death.
On November 11, Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee formed a subcommittee headed by the Iranian lawmaker Mehdi Davatgari to probe the case.
Following the investigations, Davatgari said on November 26 that, “The Judiciary’s measure for arresting Sattar Beheshti was legal, but the violation by cyber police in this case is indisputable.”
In a decree issued on December 1, Iran Police Chief Brigadier General Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam dismissed the country’s cyber police chief, Mohammad Hassan Shokrian, due to “negligence and insufficient supervision over the conduct of his subordinates” who handled the case of the deceased blogger.
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Hispasat orders Overon to take Press TV, Hispan TV off air
Press TV – December 20, 2012
In another blow to freedom of speech one more European satellite provider attacks Iran’s international TV channels.
Spain’s satellite provider Hispasat will take Press TV and Hispan TV off the air as of Friday. It has ordered Overon, another satellite company, to stop the transmission of the two international TV channels.
Overon says the ban on Press TV and Hispan TV follows a similar move by France’s Eutelsat company which has already taken several Iranian satellite channels and radio stations off the air. It says the channels will be removed because of “a wider interpretation of EU regulations”.
Overon says since the EU has blacklisted the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Hispan TV and Press TV must be taken off the air. This is while Hispan TV is officially registered in Spain and operates under that country’s media laws. And, the European Union has confirmed to Press TV that it’s anti-Iran sanctions do not apply to the country’s media.
Hispasat is partly owned by Eutelsat, whose French-Israeli CEO is blamed for the recent wave of attacks on Iranian media in Europe.
Press TV contacted Hispasat and the EU foreign policy chief’s office to get a reaction, but to no avail.
~
How to watch Press TV in the Americas
Following a recent move by the European satellite provider Hispasat to take Iranian channels, Press TV and Hispan TV, off the air in a flagrant violation of freedom of speech, the news networks’ viewers in the Americas can continue to watch the Iranian channels on the following frequency:
Hispasat (1E)
12092
27500
3/4
H
Optus D2 (152E)
12706
22500
3/4
V
IntelSat 20 (68.5E)
12562
26657
1/2
H
Intelsat 902 (62E)
11555
27500
3/4
V
NSS 12 (Encryption) (57E)
11605
45000
4/5
H
Express AM22 (53E)
12582
24000
2/3
V
Badr 5 (26E)
11881
27500
5/6
H
Badr 5 (26E)
12303
27500
3/4
H
Badr 4 (26E)
12054
27500
3/4
V
Eutelsat Hot Bird 13b (13E)
12015
27500
3/4
H
Eutelsat 7West A (7W)
11227
27500
3/4
V
Galaxy 19 (97W)
12053
22000
3/4
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The myth of oil as a dwindling resource
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