14-Feb-11: The protests on Tehran's streets

It's Monday evening, around 18:00 Israel time. Things are happening in the Iranian capital Tehran. Iran's mullah-dominated, terrorism-supporting regime has a fully-controlled media outlet called PressTV. The two screen shots below, taken seconds apart, serve as an indication of the kind of policies the Iranian clergy impose and how much they ought to be believed.

Here's the home page of BBC News as of five minutes ago.

Now here's the home page of the repressive Iranian regime's mouthpiece, PressTV, taken ten seconds later.

It's too early to say whether this time, the demands of Iran's citizens to be freed from the tyranny of the Islamicists who have ruled their land with iron-fisted medieval zeal since 1979, will get more Western support than they did two years ago, or whether the head of the free world will do more now than he did then. (An authentic hero of peaceful protest and democracy, Natan Sharansky, has some carefully worded comments about the way Obama completely dropped the ball when Tehran last erupted in protest in 2009.) 

But it's not too early to observe how completely dishonest and unreliable their media channels are - today, and chronically. Here - in the BBC's words - is what's happening literally under the noses of PressTV's editors:

"Iranian police have fired tear gas at opposition demonstrators gathering in central Tehran in support of the protests in Egypt. A BBC producer in the Iranian capital, who was affected by the gas, described central Tehran as "total chaos". He said "severe clashes" were taking place between protesters and police and there had been many arrests. Iranian police have placed opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi under house arrest, his official website says. It says the move is intended to block him from attending the rally in Tehran. The BBC's Mohsen Asgari in Tehran says thousands of people defied the government ban and gathered in the city centre chanting "death to dictators"."

We can find not one word about these events on the 24 hour a day station's website. 

When PressTV launched in 2007, the head of the Mullah-rich regime then and now, the appalling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, described its mission: "Disseminating correct and timely news, and presenting correct analyses and disclosing behind scene of the mankind's enemies propaganda networks are among new TV's basic duty."  We'll keep those ringing and noble words in mind as we scan a short list of notable notables who have provided input to its output over the past three years and made their contribution to "behind scene of the mankind's enemies propaganda". Yvonne Ridley, the former Al Jazeera and Sunday Express (London) journalist is a presenter. So are George Galloway, a notorious former British parliamentarian, Tariq Ramadan, Lauren Booth and Ken Livingstone, a former mayor of London.