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Iran’s Soccer Censorship

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Posted on Sep 20, 2009
Iran
wordpress.com

Soccer is wildly popular in Iran. Even the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, occasionally gets into the act.

As protests in Iran continue, the extent to which the government will go to silence dissent has sunk to even further depths of ridiculousness. Protesters at a Tehran soccer match chanted and waved green banners, to which government censors responded by delaying the telecast of the game and editing out the crowd noise and close-ups. —JCL

The Guardian:

Live television coverage of an Iranian football match was blacked-out because sections of the crowd were chanting anti-government slogans and waving green emblems in support of the country’s political opposition, it was claimed yesterday.

The premier league match between Esteghlal and Steel Azin took place at Tehran’s Azadi stadium just hours after tens of thousands of green-clad protesters used the state-organised Quds Day anti-Israel demonstrations to voice their opposition to the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is accused of stealing Iran’s recent election.

The game’s scheduled live TV coverage was disrupted apparently after bosses of the state broadcaster, Irib, learned of the presence of protesters inside the stadium.

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By not gullible like Commune115, September 21 at 3:32 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Here’s the other important quote from the poll:

““The extremely high number of people refusing to answer questions about their voting preference—something not found in response to any other questions—suggests that people have some discomfort with this topic,” says WPO’s Kull. “Thus these findings on voting preference are not a solid basis for estimating the actual vote.”

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/639.php?lb=brme&pnt=639&nid;=&id;=

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By not gullible like Commune115, September 21 at 3:30 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Commune115, you can’t trust a poll of Iranians as though it is a poll taken in a free-speaking, democratic country.  Some anonymous person that calls to take a “poll” is treated with extreme suspicion.  There are 1000s of people in prison from the recent protests.  Many of the people that were in the streets recently all wore masks to shield their identity.  You think a poll of these people is accurate?  Don’t be so naive.  The most telling part of the “poll” is this paragraph:
“Among the 87 percent of respondents who say they voted in the June presidential election, 55 percent say they voted for Ahmadinejad. Only 14 percent say they voted for Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading opposition candidate, and 26 percent refused to answer. Asked how they would vote if the election were held again, overall 49 percent say they would vote for Ahmadinejad, 8 percent for Mousavi, 13 percent say they would not vote, and 26 percent would not answer.”
Add it up—55% said they voted for Ahmadinejad, but only 49% said they would again and a combined 47% said they wouldn’t vote, didn’t answer or would vote for Mousavi.  And the likelihood of error in this poll is 3%.  That’s enough to contradict all the other “approval” votes given in that poll.

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By Aarky, September 20 at 9:50 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

We see the articles about censorship in Iran, but how much willful censorship occurs by our government?
Obama has continued the practice of the Bush neo-cons of not even talking about illegal wiretaps, data mining,torture of detainees,et. cet.
The best example of all was those two articles from Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper on June 17. Mossad: Iran Will Have Nuclear Bomb by 2014” and “Israel Can’t Make up it’s Mind About Iranian Nuclear Timetable” The significance of these two articles was huge and should have been on at least page two in all our newspapers. They were totally censored in Europe and the US. Only an Army newsletter for officers reprinted the article. Read those articles on Google and realize we also practice censorship.

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By Commune115, September 20 at 6:25 pm #

Truthdig also sadly shows how even US independent media obsesses over every little sprout of protest in Iran and yet ignores the massive resistance against the coup in Honduras. Our NEIGHBORS are fighting a coup and the US just turns away because hey, who cares about Latin America right?

Check out this Real News report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMOsYXgFT-Q&feature=player_embedded

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By Commune115, September 20 at 6:23 pm #

Americans better not be putting so much faith in the “Green” movement.

Antiwar.com reports:

Four out of five of the 1,003 Iranian respondents interviewed in the survey released by WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO), a project of the highly respected Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) of the University of Maryland, said they considered Ahmadinejad to be the legitimate president of Iran.

Sixty-two percent of respondents said they had “a lot of confidence” in the declared election results, which gave Ahmadinejad 62.6 percent of the vote within hours of the polls’ closing Jun. 12 and which were swiftly endorsed by the Islamic Republic’s Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Three of four respondents said Khamenei had reacted correctly in his endorsement.

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