The Iranians have released some of their ‘proof’ that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training Iranian journalists when she worked for the BBC in the form of some of her emails. The BBC will only admit that she worked for the BBC’s Media Action ‘charity’….which is, to be blunt, in fact an organisation that trains foreign journalists to subvert political regimes in their own countries…it is ‘soft power’ deployed by Britain to influence events and politics abroad.
As yet the BBC has not reported this latest Iranian statement [Sky, The Mail, Evening Standard, Telegraph, Independent, the Sun Huffington Post…all have reported it many hours ago] though they were quick off the mark, and quite vocal about it too, to report when an Iranian court said Boris’ comment about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe proved she was guilty. The BBC used this to put enormous pressure on the figurehead of the Brexit campaign and continually suggested that ‘perhaps he should resign’.
Why might they not be so keen to report the latest statement? Because it proves Boris was correct [as we knew] and because it puts the blame squarely on the BBC which has been trying hard to avoid any ‘contamination’ from this story…flying the flag for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe but not quite all the way up the flagpole….did the BBC ever advise Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe about the likely consequences of going to Iran in light of her job? Consider the huge effort the BBC put into getting Alan Johnson back from Gaza…a massive amount of publicity and effort….where is that in this case? The BBC denies everything saying…
“Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was never a journalism trainer but undertook administrative duties such as travel bookings, typing, and filing.”
Her husband doesn’t say that the emails are faked and they do seem to back the suggestion that she was more than a ‘clerk’ as the BBC would like you to believe.
The BBC have a lot of questions to answer not least their attempt to exploit the situation to topple a government minister that they do not like….I guess if you can’t topple the Iranian Mullahs then why not have a go at the Tories at home?
Certainly not going to help the lady supposedly everyone is concerned about.
Especially with Thommo elbowing in too.
So the BBC has a go about Russians trying to influence events but seems to want to have a monopoly of itself influencing events around the world .
The BBC surely would not use its considerable soft power so irresponsibly, would it?
https://bbcwatch.org/2017/11/27/gazas-electricity-crisis-continues-but-bbc-reporting-does-not/
Wax lyrical; wax off.
When she left the BBC faux-charity she moved on to yet another faux-charity, run by a Canadian Broadcaster registered as a charity in the US with an HQ in London, as a Project Coordinator. That faux-charity carries out exactly the same kind of training for foreign journalist on how to operate in countries where press activities are highly restricted or are subjected to heavy censorship.
Of course she is just a poor innocent Charity Worker, as the media like to make her out to be, as if she is nothing more than somebody operating in some poverty stricken country rendering aid and assistance to the poor suffering, starving population. Whilst the description may be factually correct in the narrowest sense it is used with the expressed intention of deliberately misleading the less well aware majority into believing she is nothing other than an unfortunate, innocent aid worker picked on by a bullying, heavy handed regime.
What is being deliberately missed out of the story is that during her period at the bBBC faux-charity, operated by the bBBC World Service, working for it’s Iranian Service there were attempts in Iran, encouraged by certain sections of their media, to overthrow the regime in power. This occurred during the same period of the Arab Spring Revolutions in other parts of the Muslim world. Just over a year prior to her visit to Iran several allegedly ‘Foreign Trained’ Journalists had been imprisoned for their activities during the failed revolution in Iran, something which she, and every other part of the organisations training such foreign journalists.
The simple truth of the matter is that the very misleading way this story is being peddled, with huge inconvenient parts being deliberately ignored, makes the whole issue nothing more than typical bBBC promoted Fake News.
Wishful thinking but, wouldn’t it be a strange twist of events if the Iranians helped to expose Beeb corruption and bring down the corporation?
On the other hand Lucy, the Iranians might simply get the standard: ‘Your comments have been noted’ response. Bringing down the corporation has apparently been engineered to be beyond parliament and the press, despite extreme and frequent levels of provocation and justification. What’s needed is a Henry II type, a ‘who will rid me of this turbulent organisation’ sort of character.
Shocking but expected of the biased BBC, if this is true then heads will roll.
I still think there will be a fairy tale end to this- an image of Comrade Corbyn or Keef Vazz bringing our plucky beeboid spy home
in time for the cliched christmas re union then a 4 page pull out in the Mail and a round on breakfast telivision to sell the accompanying book. or I could be wrong.
This is what she was doing four years ago.
A bit like: The BBC told Mensa members that it had no scientific investigative journalists. Therefore the “Thomson Reuters Foundation” are pleased “NOT” to announce the launch of a one-year project that aims to significantly improve scientific investigative reporting at the BBC. The BBC will also not investigate corruption cases in climate science and environmental activist groups.
BBC journalists will also not be trained in ethical and objective approaches to investigative reporting on European Union corruption and governance issues. A hypocrite at the BBC said “A responsible and professional media is the backbone of any democracy, and journalists have a key role to play in tackling corruption”
The Thomson Reuters Foundation leverages the skills, values and expertise of Thomson Reuters to run programmes that help the main-stream media, including the BBC, to maintain censorship.
For further details, please contact:
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Programme Coordinator, Independent Journalism
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Email: nazanin.ratcliffe@thomsonreuters.com
http://news.trust.org//item/20130501153759-mv7oi/
Just been listening to the radio BBC news at work and got home and watched the BBC tv news, not a whisper about this Iran thing. The Royal engagement is a Godsend to the BBC just now.
I am quite the Monarchist, but this wall to wall coverage of something that is hardly a suprise is vomit inducing.
I don’t want to sound like I don’t care, but I really don’t give a shit about this!
Boris was pulled up on a technicality rather than an outright fuck-up. The woman has been detained for more than 18 months, so what, exactly, has changed?
Let’s face facts folks – there is no surprise in her detainment in Iran for training Iranian journalists, wherever she trained them. This is not Boris’ fault!
The Government (as a whole) should have raised all the other people detained without reason … this is not an isolated case.
Correct, Iran are known for doing this, Trump was right in what he did recently.
The following warning has been posted on the Home Office travel website FOR YEARS.
“There’s a risk that British nationals and British/Iranian dual nationals could be arbitrarily detained in Iran. In such cases the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has serious concerns that the subsequent judicial process falls below international standards. The Iranian authorities don’t recognise dual nationality for Iranian citizens and therefore don’t grant consular access for FCO officials to visit them in detention”
My interpretation is – don’t go – if you go you’re taking a risk – it’s your risk – so don’t go.
BBC Media Action was formerly the BBC World Service Trust and is heavily funded (£90m.) by the British taxpayer through DfID for mostly nonsense projects as can be seen in these parliamentary answers of a few years ago:
28 Nov 2011: Column WA2-3
BBC: World Service Trust
Question asked by Lord Laird
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the Department for International Development has made a grant of £90 million to the BBC World Service Trust; what proportion of the trust’s income this grant represents; how they have assessed the cost-effectiveness of this grant; and whether they will place copies of the grant application correspondence in the Library of the House.[HL13438]
Baroness Northover: The Department for International Development has made a grant of £90 million to the BBC World Service (WST) in order to increase the scale of its impact on governance, health and humanitarian results. The grant will reach some 200 million people, across 14 countries, most of them fragile, in order to:
improve democratic governance by enhancing political accountability and reducing the risk of conflict; improve the health of people living in poverty, particularly maternal and child health; improve communities’ ability to cope with humanitarian crises; and build a stronger evidence base by making sure that the results from the investment are closely monitored and are used to improve the effectiveness of aid spent on support to media and communication.
The grant builds on development results already being achieved and delivered effectively by BBC WST. It puts the relationship on a longer-term, more strategic basis so as to increase global reach and impact. It increases efficiency by bringing together existing programmes funded by DfID in one place, and builds on the BBC WST proven track record of contributing to governance, health and humanitarian results through media.
The grant represents one-third of the BBC WST’s projected income over the life of the grant and will not exceed 40 per cent in any one year.
The strategic grant was deemed to represent good value for money and be a cost-effective way of reaching a large number of people. The cost-effectiveness was assessed in a number of ways, including looking at the cost per person reached which is £0.45 and the cost of staff time to administer the grant which compares favourably to the cost of managing multiple grants.
The business case for the grant will be published on the DfID website.
20 Dec 2011: Column WA 345-6
BBC: World Service Trust
Question asked by Lord Laird
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Northover on 28 November (WA 2-3), what are the “development results already being achieved and delivered” by the BBC World Service Trust; what are the existing programmes funded by the Department for International Development that will now be brought together and what will be the resulting efficiencies; and whether they foresee any risks arising from the £90 million of funding being provided representing up to 40 per cent of the Trust’s annual budget. [HL14115]
Baroness Northover: The grant to the BBC World Service Trust is building on development results already achieved through governance, health, and humanitarian programmes already funded by the Department for International Development. For example, in Bangladesh, 60 per cent of people thought the “Question Time” programme had made politicians and officials more accountable. In Cambodia, the health programme increased the number of people using condoms, the number of women going to antenatal checks, and the number of people washing their hands. “Lifeline” programmes are reaching people in emergencies with information that is critical to their survival. A young woman’s comment on a Darfur programme was that “when you listen to this programme you feel that it is the only link between you and the outside world”.
The existing programmes being rolled into the new grant are:
a) “A National Conversation” focusing on governance in Tanzania, Angola and Sierra Leone;
b) “Climate Asia” in seven countries across Asia; and c) a health programme in India.
The Government estimate that bringing these together will result in an efficiency saving of just under £360,000. In order to avoid the risk of dependency on funding, the grant will not exceed 40 per cent of the BBC World Service Trust’s overall annual funding.