Media Blacks Out Iran

Iran Blacks Out Day Of Protest - Amir Taheri

"According to the Ministry of Islamic Orientation and Culture in Tehran, 117 registered foreign media correspondents work in Iran. Yet (except for a stringer for a Japanese news agency who appeared at a demonstration in a car factory near Tehran) none paid attention to the workers' day of solidarity.

Osanloo's lawyers phoned the offices of more than a dozen Western news agencies and radio and TV networks in Tehran in the hope of persuading them to cover the events - with no results. "

"Inside Iran, some see global conspiracy to keep international opinion in the dark about what is really happening in the Islamic Republic. They ask: Why is it that world media representatives in Iran never interview any of the thousands of trade unionists, teachers' leaders, journalists, student activists, women's-lib militants and dissident intellectuals? Why is the brutal repression in several provinces, which has already claimed scores of lives, never covered on the spot? "