Channel 4 TV offers "spiritual message" from clerical-fascist Ahmadinejad

Submitted by martin on 24 December, 2008 - 10:34

Channel 4 TV, desperate to avoid going bust, screened an "alternative Christmas message" from Iran's clerical-fascist president Ahmadinejad at 7.15pm on 25 December.

The way Channel 4 explained it was: "He will be delivering a spiritual message and his broadcast will also feature a message of seasonal goodwill...

"President Ahmadinejad's views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view.

"This message continues a long tradition of offering a different perspective on the world around us."

Peter Tatchell has commented aptly:

"Channel Four is aiding and abetting a tyrant. President Ahmadinejad is a torturer and a murderer. His regime executes children, journalists, Sunni Muslims, gay people, political activists and ethnic minorities. This is the equivalent of giving Robert Mugabe a prime-time television slot to promote his propaganda. It is an insult to more than 100,000 Iranian dissidents who have been slaughtered since the Islamic fundamentalists seized power in 1979.

"Channel Four executives would not be giving Ahmadinejad this propaganda coup if it was their partners or children who were being tortured in Evin prison, Tehran.

"This Christmas, thousands of Iranian families are grief-stricken. Their loved ones have been jailed, tortured and executed. Instead of inviting one of them deliver The Alternative Christmas Message, Channel Four is giving airtime to the man responsible for their loved ones' suffering.

"Trade union, student and women's rights activists are beaten, jailed and tortured. His government is pursuing a racist, ethnic cleansing policy against Iran's minority nationalities, such as the Arabs, Kurds and Baluchs.

"According to Human Rights Watch, in March this year an Iranian parliament member, Hossein Ali Shahryari, confirmed that 700 people were awaiting execution in Sistan and Baluchistan province, which is only one of Iran's many provinces. Many of those on death row are Baluch political prisoners. This staggering number of death sentences is evidence of the intense, savage repression that is taking place under the leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"In 2004, in the city of Neka, a 16 year old girl, Atefah Rajabi Sahaaleh, who had been raped and sexually abused by men for many years, was convicted of 'crimes against chastity.' She was hanged by the method of slow, painful strangulation, hoisted by a crane in a public square.

"Ahmadinejad's regime exports terrorism. He supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Badr Corps in Iraq, which kill innocent civilians and target dissidents for assassination. The Islamist death squads in Iraq are trained, armed and funded by Tehran. They murder anyone who does not conform to their harsh interpretation of Islam."

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