Iran launches fresh attack on media ‘distortion

          
          5/27/2011
          Article - Untitled Article
          Publication: Guardian 1821-2000; Date: Sep 13, 1979; Section: None; Page: 8
          Iran launches fresh attack on media ‘distortion'
          From LrThiiV d !t '
          in Tebran
          Kurdish gunman have killed
          tw r1flinic guardsmen and
          wounded four others in an
          attack on (lie small town of
          Maliabad, in the western pro-
          vince csf Kurdestan.
          News or vie attack, which
          was seen as the most serious
          guerrilla incident since the
          small Kurdish centre fell to
          troops o Ayatollah Who-
          int'ini Past week, coincided with
          the expulsion of a West Ger-
          man television tcam yeslerdey.
          The Germnn team, made up of
          a correspondent and two
          camera men, were given 48
          hours to leave Iran yesterday
          morning for “ur and false
          reporting' of the Kurdish
          crisis. Their expulsion —brisigs
          to 18 the number of Journalists
          ordered to leave the country
          since June.
          The ARD camera team said
          that it had received official
          accreditation from the Afinislry
          on Thesday and was being
          expelled because of a collea-
          gue's recent coverage of the
          events in Icurdestan. Typical of
          the coufu,,lai :n Than today,
          the Government n agency
          put out a statement saying that
          the team's expulsion was
          because of Its coverage of Aya-
          tollah Taleghani's funeral, an
          event which the Germans had
          neither attended nor reported.
          Government reports from
          Kurdestan, meanwhile, said
          that two Islam Ic guardsmen
          were killed on Tuesday during
          an attack on the local prosecu-
          tor's office and radio station in
          Itlahabad. The Kurds were re-
          portedly driven—beels in the
          attack, the first raid on the
          town since It was recaptured
          en September 3 after nearly six
          months of de (o tto Kurdish
          control —
          In a seemingly sharp depar-
          ture from official policy act by
          the holy city of Qein, Iran's
          Prime Minister has calleS—êse.
          greater toleration of the West
          and suggesled the creation of a
          new islam taking “whatever ts
          best front both Eastern and
          Western worlds.”
          Ills speech, broadcast yester-
          day, was in noticeable contrast
          to recent attacks by Ayatollah
          Khomeini, the 79 - year. old
          Iranian leader who earlier this
          % Saccuscd his critics of
          Westoxification” and urged
          the Moslem faithful to turn
          their backs en imported ideas
          and t' Westernised writings”
          “We cannot close our doors
          to every foreign idea,” said the
          Prime Minister, emphasising
          that “the very concept of Iran
          as a nation-slate was born -east
          of reritact with the West ?' Mr
          Razergan's appeal came in a
          speech on Tuesday at funeral
          services for Ayatollah Tsieg-
          hani, Iran's second-ranking reli-
          gious r who died the day
          before of heart failure,
          Signiflcantly, the speech,
          seen as further evidence of the
          Prune Minister's growing un-
          happiness with the direction
          the revolution was taking, was
          not broadcast until yesterday.
          Reater odds from Teleraso: A
          crowd of untdentified attackers
          tried to destroy the most holy
          shrine of the minority Baha'i
          faith in Iran, officials said yes-
          terday, Bet-sac damage was in-
          flicted, they said.
          A spokesman for the Islamic
          revolutionary prosecutor's
          office in the southern city of
          Shirar said that militia forces
          earlier this week drove back
          the attackers when they tried
          to storm the House of Bab, a
          place of pilgrimage set sop by
          Baha'uliah, the founder of the
          faith.
          © Guardian News and Media Limited
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