Iran Feature: The EA Story That Made It Big in Iranian Media

Picturing EA's Story on Gerdab: Bahrain's King Hamad & Britain's David CameronWe have been informed in the past that EA WorldView is not necessarily the favourite site of those in the Iranian establishment. Although many officials read our coverage, they deny this to others in Iran, blocking the website.

So imagine our surprise when we learned this morning that one of EA's stories --- Josh Shahryar's "Bahrain Opinion: 'Loonies' and The Sins of Bell Pottinger" --- is racing across the Iranian media. Apparently, for all the dislike of EA's coverage of Iran, the regime can reconcile with us on a story which is about the Bahraini monarchy, not particularly liked by Tehran, and about a company based in Britain, also not liked very much.

The tribute begins with BarackObama.ir --- "In the Country Where the US Has No Embassy" --- set up two years ago to take aim at the US President. Its summary headlines, "Bahrain Regime Pays Money to Have Wikipedia's Articles", or in the Persian version,  "Removal of Al Khalifa Crimes from Wikipedia by the British".

There are other differences between the English and Persian entries. The former is pretty much a straight summary of Josh Shahryar's opinion. The latter --- whether from issues in translations or from mischief --- has notable changes. Shahryar, who is from Afghanistan, is now a "Western researcher". His Twitter message becomes the prompt for bloggers and The Independent of London --- those who actually broke the Bell Pottinger story --- to look into the matter. Perhaps most significantly, the PR firm is portrayed as having acted after getting a green light from the British Government and doing so in co-operation with Wikipedia.

It is that Persian re-writing about "the English company that has a higher power to whitewash clear cases of crimes in the State of Bahrain"  that is on the hard-line Raja News, the conservative Jahan News, 2009 Presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei's Tabnak, Khadem News, Shia Online, and other websites. EA even makes it to Gerdab, linked to the Revolutionary Guards.

Iran Feature: If a Protest Occurs and No One Notices, Does It Make a Sound?

For some, it is as if the demonstrations on National Student Day --- 16 Azar --- never happened.

You will not, for example, find any reference in Iranian state media to the protests on campuses across the nation. Press TV's top story prefers the relative security of the nuclear discussions, with Iran's National Security Council "call[ing] on Western powers to exercise commitment to agreements they make with the Islamic Republic".

I guess that's understandable --- no one really likes to mention domestic arguments. A bit more surprising that CNN's website forgot to mention 16 Azar.

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Afghanistan LiveBlog: The 2nd Parliamentary Elections

EA correspondent Josh Shahryar with the latest rolling news from the second elections for Afghanistan's parliament. The LiveBlog is also available on Josh's personal site, The Daily Nite Owl:

1845 GMT

The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan has expressed concern about "extensive irregularities" and called on the Independent Election Commission to ensure the integrity of the rest of the electoral process. 

Insecurity and violence shaped the voting process in large swaths of the country. FEFA observers reported serious security incidents around at least 389 polling centers. Polling centers were blown up in Kunar, Khost and Kandahar and captured in Laghman, Kunduz and Badghis, shutting down voting in the communities those centers served.

Violence by candidates, their agents and local powerbrokers was reported in several areas and so were a worrying number of instances of government official interfering in the voting process to sway the results in favor of their chosen candidates.

Ballot stuffing was seen to varying extents in most provinces, as were proxy voting and underage voting.

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Iran: An Open Letter on Haystack and Human Rights (Shahryar)

This week the testing of Haystack, a highly-publicised system seeking to provide access to the Internet --- free from surveillance and filtering --- to Iranians, was suspended amidst security concerns and criticism of both the technology and the promotion of the initiative.

Josh Shahryar reflects and responds in this open letter:

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