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Sun, May 01, 2011 | The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right), accompanied by Syrian President Bashar Assad, reviews an honor guard at al-Shaab presidential palace in Damascus, Syria. (Feb, 2010/AP)

Iran: Official Media Increasingly Criticized for Ignoring Syria Riots

Despite the escalation of Syria’s political crisis, most media affiliated with Iran’s conservative camp, mainly official media, have continued to ignore almost completely the escalating riots in that country this week.

The riots received coverage mostly on news websites and blogs affiliated with the reformist opposition, although those media affiliated with the government’s critics in the conservative camp have also provided more coverage of the political crisis in Syria in recent days, particularly in light of last Friday’s riots, where dozens of demonstrators were killed across Syria.

Asr-e Iran, a website affiliated with the pragmatic conservative faction, provided extensive coverage of the riots earlier this week and even featured photos published by the Syrian regime’s opponents. The website also pointed out several inconsistencies between the reports released by the Syrian regime on the riots and the number of people killed, and the reports published by the Syrian opposition (Asr-e Iran, April 23). It should be mentioned that the website has recently strongly criticized Iran’s official media for almost completely ignoring the riots in Syria.

News websites affiliated with the reformist opposition also extensively reported on the violent protests in Syria. Kalemeh, a website affiliated with the supporters of reformist opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, compared the Syrian TV coverage of the riots to the Iranian media coverage of last year’s riots in Iran. The website strongly criticized IRNA, the government news agency, for reporting a supposedly “calm Friday” in Syria when even official Syrian media admitted that a number of civilians had been killed in the riots (Kalemeh, April 24).

In an article published on the Iranian Diplomacy website, former deputy foreign minister Seyyed Mohammad Sadr also criticized the coverage of the riots in Syria by the official media. Syrian TV itself reported on the riots, even if belatedly, the article says. On the other hand, Iran Broadcasting acted “holier than the Pope”. According to Sadr, ignoring important world events reflects a lack of understanding about the role of media, whose prime responsibility is providing the public with objective reports. Otherwise, it becomes a kind of propaganda. Iran cannot accuse the U.S. of adopting double standards with regard to world countries when its own attitude towards the Arab world is similarly biased. Sadr called on the Iranian government to change its policy, suggesting that, instead of censoring the demonstrations in Syria, it recommend the Damascus regime to comply with the citizens’ demands, safeguard their rights, guarantee their freedoms, and continue the implementation of political reforms (Diplomasi-ye Irani, April 24).

Criticism of Iran’s media was also voiced by the daily Roozegar. An editorial titled “Syria and Us” said that the friendship between Syria and Iran does not justify completely ignoring the events taking place in that country. There are many things happening in the world that may be not to Iran’s liking, and they should not be ignored. While Iran would do well to wait and see how events unfold in Syria before taking a stance on the developments, they cannot be ignored and left to foreign news agencies to cover. While Syria is Iran’s friend and stands at the forefront of the anti-Zionist struggle, it does not mean Iran has to accept everything that happens in Syria or ignore news it finds unpleasant (Roozegar, April 24).

A blogger affiliated with the reformist opposition criticized the regime’s policy towards the political crisis in Syria, accusing the Iranian authorities of taking a two-faced approach towards the developments in the Arab world. The blogger addressed a fatwa recently issued by Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi-Amoli, the Friday prayer leader in the city of Qom, in which the senior cleric declared that the royal houses of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are “infidels” because of their involvement in killing civilians in Bahrain. The blogger wondered whether the killing of dozens of Syrians after the Friday prayers by Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s ally, did not justify a fatwa and a condemnation, whether the Assad family should not be considered infidel as well, and whether Muslims around the globe should not react to the acts of Syria’s leaders (http://green13.persianblog.ir, April 23).