TV International interview with Fariborz Pooya

Patty Debonitas: There have been mass demonstrations in Iran during the past few weeks. Many have been injured or killed and the role of the Islamic regime’s security forces, in particular the brutal Baseej militia forces, have come under increased scrutiny and been condemned. The Islamic regime of Iran, however, has stated that it is not its forces carrying out the indiscriminate violence but ‘armed imposters who have posed as security forces.’ Iran’s Baseej commander, Hossein Taeb, has said that ‘Baseej forces are not authorized to carry weapons.’ Tehran’s Police Chief Azizallah Rajabzadeh has also insisted that his department has had no role in the killings. ‘Policemen are not authorized to use weapons against people,’ he has said, ‘They are trained to only use anti-riot tools to keep the people out of harms way…’

Fariborz Pooya: These ridiculous statements would be funny if the reality was not so outrageous. The track record of the Islamic regime of Iran is marred with its brutal suppression and killing of its opponents and anyone that transgresses its rules for three decades. The regime was born out of the suppression of the Iranian revolution. A hundred thousand people have been executed by this regime, many without trial, and hung in city squares or buried in mass graves.

The difference is that this time people around the world have been able to closely follow developments in Iran as a result of technology now available to the population at large. This is why despite the regime’s censorship, the world has been able to get up to date information on the people’s protests and demands and see first hand its indiscriminate violence and brutality. Despite the ample evidence, the regime continues to manufacture lies. This is part and parcel of its propaganda and misinformation machinery. People in Iran are well aware of these lies and have never believed a word of it. For example, we know that people who are arrested are often charged with sexual deviancy, being enemies of god, apostasy and or being agents of foreign powers.

So even with ample evidence available and reports of more than 250 killed, they have the audacity to say otherwise. It is part of their normal practice but for a change they have been caught red handed. The world didn’t see them hanging young Delara Darabi during her two month ‘court’ approved reprieve, the stoning of Maryam Ayoubi to death, or the flogging of May Day labour activists but they saw this without the usual manipulation by state-run media.

Patty Debonitas: Ahmadinejad has said that the death of 27 year old Neda Agha-Sultan was suspicious! He has asked the regime’s Chief Judiciary, Shahroudi, to investigate her killing.

Fariborz Pooya: Evidently Ahmadinejad has been rattled by the international outrage and sympathy for the protestors in Iran and for Neda. She has become a symbol of this protest movement and the brutality of the regime against the people of Iran. In the last couple of days there has been a surge in this type of misinformation by the Islamic regime and its state-run network, including Press TV, its English language TV station. They claim that Neda was not killed by the Islamic regime’s militia and deny that the Baseejis were on the streets of Tehran. This despite testimony by a doctor who was on the scene and attempted to save her – he first sent out news of her killing and not surprisingly there is now a warrant out for his arrest! There is also eye witness accounts that she was shot by Baseeji snipers from the front, the fact that people managed to catch them and so on. Of course all of this has been denied by the regime.

That Ahmadinejad, after 10 days, decides to go to the head of the Islamic Judiciary and ask for an investigation is a result of the outrage not as he claims because there is a ‘conspiracy against the rule of god!’ As far as we are concerned – and countless people everywhere – the responsible parties are in the government. If you recall, at a recent Friday prayers, Khamanei, the supreme leader of the Islamic regime, called for the suppression of the demonstrations and made a direct threat to anyone who remained on the streets. He ordered the killing of people, including Neda, from that platform. We know the persons directly responsible for this crime and many others are in the leadership of the regime. It’s no good denying it now. They will be prosecuted when this government is overthrown.

Patty Debonitas: You mentioned Press TV earlier; there are Press TV adverts on London buses and underground stations claiming that the station is the ‘Voice of the Voiceless.’ George Galloway, Respect MP, has a show on the station and he has also been defending the regime from that platform.

Fariborz Pooya: Press TV is the Islamic regime’s official satellite channel in English and is propagating the regime’s version of things everyday. George Galloway is on the pay of the Islamic regime now. If he supported the regime politically in the past, now they are paying him to do so. He is supportive of Ahmadinejad and by association the policies of the Islamic regime and the current atrocities including the killings. A viewer calling in to his show from South Africa said the election in Iran resembled the election during the apartheid period there in that it only allowed a certain group of people to stand for election. Galloway replied that Iran is an Islamic country and that is the qualification; every country according to him has a qualification, and this is theirs. Galloway justifies a brutal and fascistic Islamic regime in Iran. The anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and third worldist viewpoint of this so-called left has meant that Galloway has chosen the Islamic regime and political Islam over the people of Iran.

With the fall of the Islamic regime these people will disappear
and will only be remembered as supporters of dictatorship. George Galloway is an extension of the inhumane propaganda machinery of the Islamic regime and he will be remembered for this.

The above is an edited transcript of an interview on TV International. To see TV International programmes, click here.