U.S. TV Stations Stir It Up In Iran

July 9, 2003 -- — When student demonstrations began rocking Tehran last month, Sarah H. learned what was happening outside her apartment in the Iranian capital in part from an unlikely source — a satellite TV channel beamed in from distant Los Angeles.

Along with her friends, Sarah, a 25-year-old former English literature student who asked that her name be change for fear of arrest, quickly determined it was too dangerous to join the protests in the early hours of June 11, shortly after baton-wielding police and militias arrived to disperse the crowd and the protests turned nasty.

But in the anxious days that followed, she was hungry for news about the demonstrations that rocked the sealed-off Amirabad area around the Tehran University dormitories.

While the Internet quickly sprouted Web logs and postings, Sarah found the most visceral news of the demonstrations could be found on a handful of satellite channels brought in from L.A.

With a lively, often impassioned mix of political talk-shows, news summaries and patriotic music from a bygone age, Farsi-language satellite TV stations established by Iranian immigrants in Southern California were broadcasting up-to-the-minute news of the protests, inviting viewers to call in and share their experiences, and exhorting Iranians to join the cause.

Their raucous on-air rabble-rousing did not go unnoticed by the Iranian government, which had been attempting to crackdown on protests against Islamic clerical rule spreading across the country. Within days, senior hardline Iranian leaders were denouncing the "evil" TV stations that "America had established."

Stirring Audiences

Since the Islamic revolution more than 20 years ago, the Iranian government has been quick, if not necessarily adept, at pointing accusatory fingers at the United States — the "Great Satan" in hardline Tehranspeak — for a host of problems facing the nation.

And while she's no fan of the hardliners, Sarah believes this time there was an element of truth to the government's claims.

"These satellite TVs were informing people about the riots and Tehrani people could easily find out in which part of the city there were riots," she told ABCNEWS.com in a telephone interview from Tehran. "They were moving people to go to the riots."

Satellite dishes are technically illegal in Iran. But in a society that draws a sharp distinction between public and private spaces, where homes are refuges from the theocracy's strict rules, foreign satellite channels are a fact of upper middle-class Iranian life.

Offering a range of foreign channels — including the popular Turkish TV stations — satellite dishes in Iran present viewers a welcome alternative to the dreary fare on state-owned channels.

Jamming the 'Subversive' Signals

But for the Iranian authorities, sowing the seeds of political discontent from abroad is a lot more worrisome than melodramatic Turkish sitcoms. And in the days following the outbreak of the student demonstrations, the Iranian government proved unwilling to tacitly look the other way.

Residents of upscale Tehran neighborhoods — where satellite dishes mushroom from roofs and garden walls — said government microwave trucks designed to jam satellite signals were making street rounds. And there were rumors that large circular white boxes installed on the grounds of government compounds were in fact satellite signal jamming devices.

But in a characteristically Iranian display of civic deception, owners of satellite dishes have been devising ingenious ways to catch the "subversive" signals, from attaching tins on their dishes to inserting strips of aluminum foil.

"They can't do it," said Reza Fazelli, TV host and station manager of the California-based Azadi TV, referring to the Iranian government's efforts to jam their signals. "They try to disturb the wave of Azadi TV, but they can't cover the whole country."

But at Channel One TV, one of the fastest growing L.A.-based Farsi TV stations, the executives are taking no chances.

"Most of our satellite feeds are being blocked by government signals," said Iman Foroutan, vice president of Channel One TV. "So we have decided to add a shortwave radio station and a [print] magazine, and we're also going to use the Internet to reach people."

Eyes on the Future of Iran

Almost a month since student protests broke out in Tehran, Iranian-Americans today demonstrated in support of a general strike called in Iran to mark the fourth anniversary of the July 9, 1999 crackdown on protesting students.

At a demonstration in Washington, D.C., today, Sen. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., addressed a gathering of Iranian-Americans, expressing his support for young Iranians fighting "the mullah minority."

Earlier this year, Brownback proposed the Iran Democracy Act, which seeks $50 million to promote democracy in Iran and fund Iranian opposition groups abroad.

Similar in scope to the Iraq Liberation Act passed by Congress in 1998, the Iran Democracy Act would make regime change in Iran the official U.S. policy and would provide funds to "expand pro-democracy broadcasting into Iran."

In what Ervand Abrahamian of the City University of New York calls "the same scripting" of U.S. policy of backing the Iraqi National Congress before the Iraq war, experts say some members of the Bush administration have been building ties with a number of U.S.-based Iranian groups, including exiled monarchists, in a shared dream to bring about a regime change in Iran.

Although the recent upsurge in guerrilla attacks against U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq has resulted in a cautious ring to Washington's drumbeats for regime change in Iran, influential neoconservatives — including members and supporters of Washington-based Coalition for Democracy in Iran — have been pushing for a more aggressive U.S. policy on Iran.

And while the Iran Democracy Act still awaits approval, the U.S. government has been beefing up its Farsi radio news service by the VOA (Voice of America). According to a Reuters report last week, the VOA has recently launched a nightly news service to provide information to Iranians opposed to conservative leaders.

Quoting an unnamed spokeswoman for the VOA, the report said the news program would run until the end of September at a total cost of $500,000. The news broadcasts are in addition to Radio Farda, a 24-hour U.S.-run radio service.

Where Does the Money Come From?

But funding from Washington is a thorny issue within the Iranian exile community, where rumors of "CIA funding" abound.

And the fact the California Farsi channels played a vocal role in the student demonstrations just as some members of the Bush administration were advocating regime change in Iran, has led several experts to question the source of the TV stations' funding.

"It's unclear where exactly the finances come from," said Eric Hooglund, fellow of Iranian studies at St. Anthony's College, Oxford University in England. "There have been rumors that they [the L.A.-based stations] have not been able to attract the advertising revenue they had hoped. And people are certainly very curious — for the obvious reasons."

Satellite executives, however, insist they are not being funded by the U.S. government for the very same "obvious" reasons. Instead, they say, they are desperately scraping by, paying between $45,000 to $60,00 per month for satellite air time through a combination of advertising and donations from viewers and wealthy Iranian-Americans.

"Air time is killing us," said Fariborz Abbassi, vice president and co-founder of Azadi TV. "If we didn't have such financial problems, we would be able to produce better programs."

While welcoming Brownback's attempts to infuse funds into the Iranian opposition effort, Foroutan said Channel One was "not in a position to accept any money that would compromise" the station's credibility.

"It would be nice to know what the United States wants in return for the money. Otherwise, we'll be viewed like the shah," said Foroutan, referring to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last monarch of Iran who was widely reviled as a "puppet" of the West.

A Vocal Minority

The specter of the late shah continues to haunt some of the U.S.-based Farsi TV stations. Although the Iranian-American community is a diverse mix of new and not-so-new immigrants cutting across religious and class divides, a vocal section of the community are older Iranians who were in the United States when the 1979 Islamic Revolution shook the nation.

Experts say a large section of this group support Reza Pahlavi, the Virginia-based son of the deposed shah. Although Pahlavi advocates a referendum in Iran on the return of the monarchy and says he is committed to democracy, he arouses mixed passions among Iranians. Many of his detractors say the former crown prince — who fled Iran 25 years ago, shortly after graduating from high school — is out of touch with his former homeland.

But some Iranian-Americans say a number of the U.S. Farsi stations are controlled by Pahlavi's supporters who have seized on the recent student demonstrations to lobby for a regime change in Iran. "The people politically active in the community don't represent the community as a whole," said Abrahamian. "They are the ones with aspirations to become leaders in Iran. The vast majority of Iranians do not support regime change in Iran and the articulate minority do not reflect the rank and file."

While most Iranian-Americans do want Washington to support the students' aspirations without getting directly involved, some experts say many Iranian immigrants do not support any U.S. involvement, arguing instead the Bush administration can best support the students by not interfering in Iran's internal affairs.

It's a view Sarah H. in Tehran seconds even as she supports the demonstrating students. "It's very clear we don't want foreign support," she said. "We have voted for [reformist Iranian President Mohammad] Khatami and we want him to deliver. What we have is somehow a democracy and if we try, we can reach for it. This is our country. Americans can do what they want in their own country."