Press TV a thorn in the side of UK govt

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/181473.html

The UK government has launched a smear campaign against Iran's English language Press TV News Channel, spreading lies to undermine the successful media outlet.

This scenario, published in a report in The Guardian newspaper, is part of a broader conspiracy, Press TV had earlier predicted will be in the making by the British.

Iran's 24-hour English language news channel Press TV has managed to win hearts and minds among the world's public, the British in particular, to the detriment of the UK government.

Press TV's success to attract a wide-range of audience among the British is becoming particularly worrying for the UK government, so much so that it has assigned its media apparatus including so-called media regulating body Ofcom and state-sponsored newspapers to conspire to restrict the news channel, which has been founded to be the voice of the voiceless in the world.

The latest conspiracy launched against Press TV by the London-based Office of Communications (Ofcom) hovers around some allegations leveled against the news channel by a fugitive reporter whose bailed freedom was a mistake the Iranian Judiciary system should never repeat in future cases.

Maziar Bahari's story dates back to the last presidential elections in Iran in 2009, which was followed by some unrests and sporadic clashes between supporters of the failed candidates and security forces who are responsible for establishing peace and security.

At the time, the UK's state-sponsored televisions British Broadcasting Corporations (BBC), and Channel 4 aired some footage of an unrest in which some military personnel were shown shooting at what was claimed to be peaceful protesters.

The footage, which was professionally engineered to be biased in favor of the UK imperialist policies against the Islamic Republic of Iran, was supplied to the channels by Bahari, the Iranian born Newsweek writer whose mission was to inflict sabotage, as he later confessed, rather than reporting facts and realities on the ground.

Press TV channel later aired a longer piece of the same event which showed images of rioters attacking a Basij (voluntary) military base with stones and petrol bombs, and the guards who were trying to prevent assailants from reaching the base's armory.

Bahari, whose presence at the scene of the incident raised serious questions whether it was a pre-planned ploy to distort facts, was later arrested at the scene and charged.

Ten days into detention, Bahari appeared in a press conference with his consent and admitted to giving "false and biased" reports about the events that erupted in Iran after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Most of the work I did for BBC and Channel 4 had to do with highlighting problems in various areas… the journalist work I did revolved around daily news and issues such as the parliamentary and presidential elections,” Bahari told reporters including Press TV's.

“Western media are an inseparable part of the capitalist machine of Western liberal democracies. A Western journalist who comes to Iran… is mainly concerned with the interests of the West, which are defined in relation to each issue at every period of time,” he added.

Bahari was released on bail on October 20, 2009 and fled the country to Britain, where he was warmly received by foreign secretary, William Hague.

Later, he became the main architect of a plot hatched by the British government and got underway by its media arms including Ofcom, and newspapers, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and The Daily Telegraph to undermine and/or restrict the successful Iranian news channel Press TV, something that was predicted and written about earlier.