By Nader Uskowi
Iran expelled Agence France-Presse (AFP) deputy bureau chief in Tehran, Jay Deshmukh, on Friday. The authorities did not give any explanation for their decision. Deshmukh, a 40-year-old Indian national, had been in the country since January 2009.
"Jay Desmukh, in common with the whole of the Tehran bureau, does a great job and with a professionalism that is universally recognized," said Emmanuel Hoog, AFP chief executive, in Paris. "Thus to attack this journalist and AFP, as the Iran authorities have done, is totally unjust and unjustifiable." [AFP, 11 March].
AFP reporting from Iran has been among the most professional and balanced sources of news from the country. Uskowi on Iran regularly uses AFP dispatches, including those written by Mr. Desmukh, and regrets the decision by Iranian authorities to expel him.
We are also concerned for the implications of this decision on the freedom of press in Iran. Many Iranian journalists are in jail. Coverage by foreign correspondents is largely restricted. Most western television and radio networks are systematically jammed in the capital Tehran and in most big cities. The authorities also block many of the Internet websites based abroad.
4 comments:
Fortunate for him he wasn't the Aljazeera reporter that was locked up and tortured at Guantanimo. This fellow merely got his walking papers--that's it.
"merely got his walking papers"- tell that to journalists whose professional responsibilities require them to travel to and work in countries where freedom of press is a scarce commodity.
AFP and balanced? Maybe they worked balanced in Iran, but in other parts of the world they were comparable to Reuters or other Pro-Zionist news agencys. Therefore i really doubt they did balanced news.
Someone ssaid:
"AFP and balanced? Maybe they worked balanced in Iran, but in other parts of the world they were comparable to Reuters or other Pro-Zionist news agencys. Therefore i really doubt they did balanced news."
Of course any news is a baised news. It does not matter it is BBC, CNN, Reuters or any other news agency. As long as they state something we do not like to hear then they must be part of the zionists propaganda machine! All the journalists in jail in Iran are all either zionists inspired or do not know the truth about Iran. Well we might as well tune to IRIB or TV AM. These are bastians of truth. Let us pay any outcast in the west that do not like their government or thrown out of the pedestal to tell us what we like to hear. That is called the truth!
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