Iran: after the revolution
The celebrated photographer and Pulitzer prize-winner Kaveh Golestan was one of the great defenders of free speech in Iran. He reflects in this essay, first published in 1994, on the fallout of the revolution
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Iran: after the revolution
When Ayatollah Khomeini arrived in Tehran on 1 February 1979, a brief period of freedom for Iranians came to an end. Yassamine Mather
looks at the development of the Islamic Republic’s suppression of dissent
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BBC Persian TV launches
The BBC’s Persian TV service goes on air today. At the press launch last week, Nigel Chapman of the World Service said the hope was that the BBC’s combined Persian service (TV, radio and web) would attract an audience of 20 million. Currently, the BBC’s Persian radio service boasts 10 million listeners. Interestingly, only one-fifth of these are in Iran itself, the majority of listeners being Dari speakers in Afghanistan.
The BBC doesn’t have the most tranquil of relationships with Tehran. The authorities refuse to allow a Farsi-speaking correspondent in the country, and the BBC’s website has been banned in Iran in the past. A spokesman for the Iranian embassy in London has already said the government considered the station illegal.
The new TV service promises to be a mix of entertainment (including pop music shows and BBC documentaries dubbed into Farsi) and current affairs — with a heavy emphasis on user-generated content, i.e. emails and texts. On the upside, this could provide another outlet for Iranians, but of course there is a risk that participating in such programmes could draw the attention of the authorities.
Iran: reformist weekly shut down
Shahvrand-e Emrouz (‘Today’s Citizen’), an Iranian reformist magazine, has been temporarily closed by the country’s press watchdog after the unauthorised publication of political content.
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