Iran's Ultraconservatives Push To Take Over State Television
Ultraconservatives appear to be completing the takeover of Iran's state television, also called the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Organization (IRIB).
Ultraconservatives appear to be completing the takeover of Iran's state television, also called the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Organization (IRIB).
The push to take over the country’s only broadcasting organization started in December 2021 with the appointment of Vahid Jalili as acting IRIB chief for cultural affairs and policy “evolution”.
IRIB operates under the supervision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office, so the changes must have received his approval.
Vahid Jalili is the brother of Saeed Jalili, former chief nuclear negotiator, and ultraconservative Paydari Party’s presidential candidate in 2017. Saeed Jalili and IRIB chief Payman Jebelli were close colleagues at the Supreme Council of national Security in early 2010s.
It took Vahid Jalili only a few months to begin the “evolution” at IRIB. In early May, he chose ultraconservative Mohsen Barmahani as his deputy for TV operations. In less than one week, Barmahani, whose previous position was the head of the documentary department of Iran’s English-language rolling news channel Press TV, appointed new heads for six of IRIB’s key channels.
Like Barmahani himself, all the new channel chiefs are hardliners close to the Paydari Party. The Public Relations Office of the IRIB celebrated the appointments by publishing a poster that showed the pictures of Mohsen Barmahani and Meysam Moradi Binabaj who has been appointed as the chief of Channel 1, and the new managers of other channels.
The chief of Channel 3, Ali Forughi has been re-instated in his post. Vahid Rahimian, an Iranian filmmaker, wrote in a Twitter post that all of the new directors belong to the ultraconservative Ammariun Group close to former nuclear negotiator Said Jalili and that all of them are members of the ultraconservative Paydari [Steadfastness] Party. Ammarium is also close to the cultural wing of the Revolutionary Guard, IRGC.
A report by Iran International earlier this year revealed that many IRGC intelligence officers were in charge of IRIB's news operations.
Reformist news website Ensaf News also confirmed that “nearly all of the newly appointed state television managers are close to Saeed Jalili,” but warned that “instead of heralding an ‘evolution,’ the appointments marked a resemblance to the managerial style of Channel 3 Chief Ali Foroughi,” who is a relative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and is notorious for his despotic management and firing some of the popular TV personalities such as sports commentator Adel Ferdowsipour who were not quite obedient to him.
Ensaf News noted that the appointments were in contradiction to Jebelli’s promise of “Giving a voice to the voiceless,” when he was appointed as IRIB Chief in 2021. The Paydari and Saeed Jalili have no shortage of media outlets as they control nearly all the state-owned print media, the official news agency IRNA, as well as some of Iran’s key news websites including their mouthpiece Raja News.
The new managers have served in key positions at the Ammariun Film Festival and IRGC’s Owj Media Center which produces movies and TV series that propagate the hardliners’ ideological line of thought. One of the center’s well-known productions is the TV series Gando about the alleged infiltration of foreign elements and Iranian liberals in key organizations such as the foreign ministry.
The official news agency IRNA introduced the new managers as “young revolutionaries,” a characteristic first mentioned by Khamenei as the new generation that will steer the Islamic Republic in its second 40 years.
According to IRIB’s Young Journalists Club, the oldest one of the new managers was born in 1974, while the rest of them were born between 1981 and 1988.
Hamed Esmaeilion, the chief spokesperson for the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims, in his opinion piece for Canada’s Globe and Mail Tuesday said that that soccer in Iran is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) which is expected to send members to accompany the Iranian team to Canada for the exhibition game and said it is shocking that Canada Soccer is inviting the Iranian national team.
The invitation, he said, is a “slap in the face of everyone who has been affected by the January 8, 2020 downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752.” The invitation is also “ignorant of the security and safety of Canadians who have been frequently harassed by Iranian security agencies for years, including the families of victims,” he said.
Esmaeilion, a Canadian-Iranian citizen, lost his wife and daughter in the tragedy which claimed the lives of all 176 onboard. “There are many other opponents Canada Soccer can play instead, if they wanted to keep politics out of sports,” Esmaeilion, who has tirelessly campaigned against the Islamic Republic since the tragedy, said.
The airliner was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC, as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. Only hours earlier, the IRGC had fired more than a dozen missiles at Iraqi bases hosting US and coalition troops in retaliation for the killing of the IRGC Qods Force Commander Ghasem Soleimani who was targeted and killed in Baghdad by a US drone strike just five days earlier.
Iran failed to explain the plane’s destruction for three days and subsequently attributed it to human error. Some of the families of those who died on the flight have contested the claim that human error was responsible.
Hamid Estili, the Iranian national soccer team’s manager, has told Tasnim news agency in Tehran that the Canadian side will be paying $400,000 to the Iranian Football Federation and cover the team’s expenses during their stay. According to Estili the Federation will only have to spend half of the sum paid by Canada Soccer and can save the rest.
Canada’s The Star has polled its readers about the event. The majority of around 13,000 voters to the poll (85%) by Friday said the invitation was an inexcusable decision.
When asked about the issue Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this was a choice by Soccer Canada but added that he thought it wasn’t a good idea to invite the Iranian team. ‘But that's something that the organizers are going to have to explain.”
Following Trudeau’s remarks, Canada Soccer in a brief statement defended its decision, arguing that sports events can bring people from different backgrounds and political beliefs together.
Esmaeilion who is campaigning for the cancellation of the match argues that the Islamic Republic uses such events as a political tool to paint itself in a normal light and divert attention from the suppression of its citizens.
While many have supported Esmaeilion arguments on social media, others say sports and politics should not be mixed.
Abdolreza Davari, a hardliner politician, in a tweet Friday criticized those who object to the soccer match on political grounds and accused them of hypocrisy. “They are the same people who condemned Iran for refusing to compete with Israel at sports events and said sports should be non-political.’
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has banned any games with Israeli athletes at international sports events.
Reza Safieddine, Hisham Safieddine’s son, is married to Zeynab Soleimani, the daughter of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard general Ghasem (Qasem) Soleimani who was killed in a US air strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
Avikay Edri, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman told Iran International's correspondent on Friday that Reza Safieddine arranges for weapons to be flown from Iran to Damascus on civilian flights and then arranges their transportation and delivery to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
His father who is the number two Hezbollah leader uses his political influence with the Lebanese government to ensure cooperation of officials and presumably security organs for making sure the deliveries are made without any complications.
After the Iranian revolution in 1979 that overthrew the monarchy, the newly established Islamic Republic in the early 1980s created the Lebanese Hezbollah among the country’s Shiites amid lawlessness and civil war (1975-1990). The Hezbollah has been armed and financed by Iran since then as a potent weapon against Israel.
The Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his disciples who have ruled in Iran are sworn enemies of Israel and have many times called for its destruction throughout the years. Iran has armed the Hezbollah with thousands of rockets and missiles threatening Israeli cities that are within the easy range of Shiite-dominated southern Lebanon where Hezbollah freely operates.
Edri also accused Reza Safieddine and the Hezbollah of endangering the lives of civilians by transporting weapons on airliners to Syria, which is a close ally of Iran.
Iran has extensively used its civil aviation to transport weapons and troops to Syria. The Revolutionary Guard controls several Iranian airlines, including one of the biggest Mahan. The United States sanctioned the company in 2011 for its role in the Syrian war.
In November 2020, a senior IRGC official Nosratollah Hosseinipur in a public ceremony had said, “You should know that in troop transportation to Syria it was the wide-body Mahan airliners that saved the day, by landing in Damasuc under enemy fire and disembarking troops.”
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes at targets in Syria since 2017, mostly to destroy Iranian weapons shipments, which presumably also come overland from Iraq. Tehran has had a large military presence in Syria since 2011, when a revolt began against the ruling Assad family.
Israel has made it clear over the past few years that it will not accept Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria, especially near its northern borders in and around the Golan Heights.
Ghasem Soleimani played the main role in Iran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war, dispatching Revolutionary Guard high ranking officers, experts and both Iranian and proxy troops to defend the rule of Bashar Assad. He was Iran’s regional military and intelligence chief, also organizing Iraqi Shiite militias and helping Houthi rebels in Yemen against Saudi Arabia. When attacks against US interests increased in Iraq in the end of 2019, former US president Donald Trump ordered his killing.