Mr O’Connell appears to sidestep the growing criticisms of VOA’s Persian Service. Ghaderi and Abdian make some excellent points. Contrary to what Mr O’Connell is saying, there is very little discussion of ethnic minority rights in Iran, apparently because non-Persian groups are a threat to the agenda of Reza Pahlavi II.
Anyone who knows Iran knows that the paid “experts” featuring on VOA shows are close allies and advisors of the self-proclaimed monarch-in-exile, who refuses to even broach the subject of ethnic minority rights. Why? Because the Pahlavi monarchy was predicated on Aryan supremacy, which put Persians at the top and the semitic Arabs and Jews at the bottom of the racial hierarchy, with other ethnic groups fitted in between – an ideology that has been maintained under the mullahs.
I have news for Mr O’Connell. In 1979, the whole of Iran was united against the Shah. Iranians (the ones living in Iran and not the rich ones in California who control VOA Persian Service) don’t want the monarchy back, even if they despise the mullahs just as much.
Mr O’Connell’s deliberate exclusion of minority rights movements on the basis that they, as he says, “advocate secessionism” is simply a reiteration of the racially insulting propaganda from the Iranian regime – propaganda that the monarchists are keen to push, because they do not want any challenge to their racial elitism. It proves that VOA is infected with ethnic chauvinism.
The VOA only allows the voices of monarchists and supporters of the regime onto its Persian language service. Naturally, minority groups will never be heard if we only hear these two sides. Name one Balochi activist interviewed on VOA about the regime’s attacks on their villages. Name one Ahwazi activist interviewed on VOA about land confiscation. The fact is none have been interviewed because the Balochis and Ahwazis do not fit into the monarchist/Islamic regime agenda, which are the same. So there is nothing about the suffering of these people on VOA, despite the fact that non-Persian ethnic groups make up at least half the Iranian population and despite the fact that ethnicity is one of the mobilising democratic forces against the regime.
No doubt Mr O’Connell and his monarchist friends will dismiss me as a “ranting separatist”, which is their usual tactic against anyone who disagrees with them. But he can’t get away from the conclusions of the government’s interagency Iran Steering Group. It stated that Iranians don’t regard VOA or Radio Farda as a reliable source of news and that they never publish anything that would upset the Iranian regime. Iranians call Radio Farda “Radio Khatami” because it promoted the Khatami administration at a time when it was murdering Iranian students in the streets of Tehran.
If anyone is interested in the complicity of VOA/Radio Khatami with the monarchists and the regime, read the following article: http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/2/13/154601.shtml?s=sr
