Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 12:00 am Post subject: Sunday Herald feature
Galloway stirs up a new storm with TV defence of regime By Martin Williams
sundayherald.com
27th June 2009
HE IS the firebrand Scottish politician who took on the US Senate, fiercely campaigned to overturn economic sanctions against Iraq and fought for the rights of Palestinians in Gaza. But George Galloway's confrontational approach to politics has created a malestrom for him. He stands accused of inflaming anti-British sentiment in Iran after its supreme leader publicly singled out "evil" Britain as the foremost enemy of the Islamic republic. Galloway appeared on Iranian television backing the regime of President Ahmadinejad and blaming the BBC for helping foment unrest in Tehran.
Galloway has already been accused of treachery to Britain, and his latest outburst on Iranian TV won't help. Denis MacShane, the former Europe minister and a fellow Scot, once likened Galloway in the House of Commons to William Joyce, alias Lord Haw Haw, the infamous wartime traitor who collaborated with Hitler, broadcast Nazi propaganda and was hanged for treason.
Footage of the former Glasgow MP has sprung up across the internet, showing some of Galloway's most inflammatory statements, and has been met with some equally explosive protests and a questioning of his motives. One of the Dundee-born Respect MP's most contentious remarks was that it "may very well be that foreign hands" were behind "some of the activities" in the streets of Tehran where protestors challenged what they saw as rigged elections.
At least ten are thought to have lost their lives in the demonstrations over the election which saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad get a landslide victory with 63% of votes. Thousands took to the streets despite the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banning protests, and warning of bloodshed, while Iran's Revolutionary Guard and paramilitary-style security forces enforced the bans with water cannon, tear gas, baton charges and live rounds fired into crowds.
Galloway's show The Real Deal is broadcast by Tehran-based Press TV, an English-language international television news channel which is funded by the Iranian government. On it, Galloway defended the conduct of the Iranian election, saying George W Bush had "actually stolen" the American presidency, referring to the presidential election of 2000. Galloway accused some of those who opposed Ahmadinejad of being the kind that make a "beeline for the BBC and CNN cameras". The BBC - or as he put it, "the Bush and Blair Corporation" - and the Fox network in the US, provided "opinion masquerading as fact, at length and usually on shaky cam".
During a half-hour phone-in show devoted to the Iranian election result, one London-based South African incurred the wrath of Galloway when he questioned how democratic the elections were. He pointed out that the candidates for the election had to be approved by a central body and screened for"absolute obedience" to the country's top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Galloway, who earlier this week was found by Ofcom to have breached broadcasting rules over impartiality after he encouraged TalkSport listeners to attend demonstrations against Israel, said: "In the end the opposition was defeated and there was a lot of disappointment about that amongst the Iranians and especially amongst western commentators, and you can work out why. Why they hate the Islamic republic of Iran, why they hate President Ahmadinejad. It's not for any bad things he has done or any mistakes ... it's because Iran will not bow the knee to western power. Because Iran will not bow the knee to the Zionist settler state of Israel which is an apartheid state, I remind you. That's why they hate Ahamdinejad. Ask yourself, you're a South African, you should know better."
But his uncritical support for the government has angered the likes of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, the British charity set up in 2002 to support Middle Eastern women at risk of honour killings, domestic violence, forced marriages and physical abuse. Its director, Diana Nammi, believes the MP has betrayed his country in support of the Iranian regime. "He lives in a free country and is hurting that country. George Galloway has never lived in Iran. He has never been beaten for criticising the Government. If he could live in Iran for a month then he could say it is a democracy. He has freedom, but I don't think he lives on this Earth. How is it George Galloway cannot see what is going on? " Nammi says she is shocked by the scenes, which have been appearing on video-sharing sites, of the shooting of protestors in the streets of Iran.
In his latest statement on Press TV, Galloway defended his stance, saying: "Press TV is Iranian-owned but that doesn't influence my opinion which is that until there is even a scintilla of evidence that the election was fiddled, we have to accept the verdict of the Iranian people, however much some of us might not like it."
Press TV has stated its intention to cover world news differently from western channels and insists that it is not beholden to any commercial or governmental entity, and does not face constraints on its editorial independence.
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It's good to see that the Sunday Herald have enough nouse to slip their 'nazi collaborator' implication in there, without making it libellous. But why say that anyway when there is no war with Iran? Pathetic.
I'm not a traitor ..or a hypocrite By George Galloway
Jun 29, 09
dailyrecord.co.uk
Without even trying to speak to me, a tiny, American owned Scottish Sunday newspaper brands me a "traitor" in a headline, which is manna for my libel lawyers salivating for a fresh kill. I'm accused of defending the Iran regime on my TV shows, while the truth is that I've been fiercely critical of the biased coverage of the recent election and aftermath. The BBC - the Bush and Blair Corporation, as I call it - and other broadcasters have constructed this false narrative that an evil dictatorship has rigged an election, going on to violently suppress resultant protest which foreign agents have provoked.
Here's the true story, which I stated on my show, The Real Deal. " Press TV (which broadcasts the show) is Iranian-owned but that doesn't influence my opinion, which is that until there is even a scintilla of evidence that the election was fiddled, we have to accept the verdict of the Iranian people, however much some of us might not like it."
I deplore the brutality with which demonstrations have been put down, but still we're waiting on a scrap of proof that the election was stolen. A couple of weeks before the vote, a poll by the BBC and ABC predicted a two-to-one victory for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Mir Hossein Mousavi, which is much the way it turned out. The official result is also similar to the split in the second round of the previous election, where Ahmadinejad took just over 61 per cent of the poll.
Yes, the total number of voters increased in this one, but is that so unexpected given the unprecedented focus on its importance the election received? I don't think so. Even the head of the intelligence agency of Iran's most implacable enemy, Israel's Mossad, said there were no greater irregularities in the Iranian vote than in liberal democracies.
There have been 10 presidential elections in three decades in Iran, few if any in the surrounding Arab countries - excepting Palestine, a democratic result we don't recognise - and none whatever in Saudi Arabia where, if women could vote, they would have to do so with their faces shrouded and in the presence of their husbands. But of course Saudi Arabia hosts US bases, buys our armaments, accepts our bungs and does what our leaders demand. I was in Iran recently and it is at least semi-democratic, it is independent of outside influence and is rightly suspicious of the West.
It was Britain and the US, after all, who, in 1953, orchestrated the overthrow of the moderate and elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh after he nationalised the oil industry. Our intelligence agencies then eased-in one of the world's most brutal dictator, the Shah, and tens of thousands perished.
Iran is loathed because it opposes the US military presence in the region and supports resistance to Israeli aggression. Iran has not attacked another country in its modern history, Israel never stops doing so and continues to occupy Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian territory. The world frets over the Iran nuclear energy programme, while keeping mum about Israel's 200-plus rockets and nuclear warheads.
Most of the rest of the world outside Britain and the United States thinks this is rank, rotten hypocrisy.'The BBC and other broadcasters have constructed this false narrative that an evil dictatorship has rigged an election'
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