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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