You can respect Jeremy Corbyn for being a man of principle. You can respect him for rebuilding the Labour party with a massive influx of new members who were previously unengaged with politics. And you can respect the fact that, daily, he has to deal with a hostile Conservative tabloid press that has spread the most bizarre lies and distortions about him.
But his relationship with Press TV, the state TV media arm of Iran, just looks plain wrong.
Business Insider writer Adam Payne reported yesterday that Corbyn made a series of paid appearances on Iran’s Press TV despite the fact that Press TV reporters had filmed the forced confession of a torture victim, broadcast in Iran. Corbyn even appeared on Press TV after it had been investigated and banned from the UK by Ofcom, the government TV regulator, for its links to the torture-confession broadcast.
We have repeatedly requested an explanation of Corbyn’s relationship with the Iranian state broadcaster and his team declined to comment. We welcome their input if Corbyn changes his mind.
In the meantime, this is just plain weird. Most of us, left or right, get through our entire lives without cashing cheques from Iran. Most of us have entire careers without working for companies that are banned from the UK over their links to torture.
But not Corbyn.
Prior to the Ofcom ban, Corbyn had a partial excuse. All he did was go on TV, and debate with others there about Middle East politics. He probably had no idea that other staff at Press TV were filming Maziar Bahari, detained in the Evin prison for more than 100 days, answer a series of fake questions on camera in order to escape further beatings.
Corbyn’s excuses ran out in January 2012. That was when Ofcom banned Press TV and fined the organisation £100,000 ($132,695) for broadcasting Bahari’s forced confession and because its editorial decisions were being made in Tehran and not by independent journalists in the UK, a broadcast licence requirement. Press TV didn’t pay the fine.
Yet Corbyn returned to Press TV in June of that year, and took another payment from the state-controlled station, which at that time couldn’t even be seen in the UK.
People on the left should be against torture, against forced confessions, and against media outlets that are controlled by Islamic republics that abuse human rights.
The Conservative government has never been weaker. It is literally leaderless right now, after Prime Minister David Cameron lost the EU Referendum, plunging the UK into what looks like a simultaneous economic and constitutional crisis. There may be a new general election before the end of the year.
As a matter of tactics, Labour needs a leader who can press the party’s advantages without being distracted by its baggage. Yet Labour is going into this fight led by someone who took money from a company linked to torture in Iran. And Corbyn has not explained why he did that.
This cannot be right.
Plantagenet on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 11:10 am
Leftists like Corbyn have a weird blind spot to the religious intolerance, bigotry, misogyn, torture, war crimes etc. of totalitarian states and theocratic states like Iran.
You’d think Corbyn’s politics would lead him to oppose Iran and all it stands for but in practice it doesn’t work that way.
Cheers!
Anonymous on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 11:48 am
Your so cute when you are trying be ah, ‘clever’ plantaglut. You simply swallow w/e bullshit neo-liberal rags like BI dish out whole. You have no knowledge of this event, persons, or any way of verifying if any of this is remotely true. Nor do have any evidence to support the contention that Iran is engaged in war-crimes, is a totalitarian state, or even bigoted. Compared to who or what Plantaidiot?
Even an infant would have noticed that the connection between the (alleged) events described above, is paper thin, at best. IoW, its character assassination 101. And a ham-fisted one at that.
‘Independent UK Journalists’ Lol, That’s a good one. If any do exist, they sure as hell aren’t working @ Business as Usual Insider, or any ‘mainstream’ media in the UK for that matter.
.5 on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 4:04 pm
Cowardly anon foul mouth strikes again. I’ve been reading this site for a number years, and with the passing of time the anger here grows. What the hell do you retard nut cases want (hey that was easy!)? By the way are urine proof sheets tax -deductible? Do you get a kook subsidy on your mattresses?
Human lice, most of ‘ya, dawg halp us all.
Makes TOD look like A Socratian lecture.
thylacine on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 9:34 pm
We may start to get some clarity today, as to what the hell is going on in UK Labour Party politics.
The Chilcott report into the 2003 Iraq war is due out today. It’s expected to be damning in its conclusions about then Labour PM Blair and the way the whole war was concocted. It’s also expected that the current Labour leader, Corbyn will use the report to denounce Blair and his cohorts who duped the nation into the war. Perhaps he may also call for Blair’s trial in the Hague for war crimes.
Anyhow, the knives are out for Corbyn – presumably to try and shut him up or at least discredit him before he releases the Kraken.
JuanP on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 11:05 pm
I read Iranian Press TV and I consider it one of the few honest, reliable, realistic news sources left in the world today. Jeremy Corbyn must be as proud of working with them as I would. This article is nothing but pure, unadulterated Western MSM bullshit.
Western MSM has become impossible to read, listen to, or watch; I have only used non Western news sources for years now. The West no longer knows hot to report news any more; all they can do is create unbelievable propaganda like this crap for the sheeple masses.
Apneaman on Wed, 6th Jul 2016 12:28 am
Planty, “religious intolerance, bigotry, misogyn, torture, war crimes etc.”
Good description of the US & GB but add in genocidal.
Of course, that’s why the west had to set up their puppet ,The Shaw, in power and take Iran’s oil for next to fuck all. They weren’t doing it because of greed. They were just punishing them for any periods of religious intolerance during their 4000 years of civilization and any that might come in the future. White mans burden and all that – it’s a dirty job.
Gawd are you ever a stunned cunt.
Apneaman on Wed, 6th Jul 2016 1:21 am
planty, to be perfectly honest, I don’t actually give a shit about all these people getting blown to shit and fucked over for empire. I just am so tired of listing to all the millions of merican fuck heads like you trying to justify it. I’m not saying I’m cheering it on, but it’s not like I ever went to a protest march or signed a petition or joined a group, nor does it keep me up at night – just a thousand head shakes and the recognition of the inevitability of it all. I get your non stop, but grade school, defense of your empire – your insecure and that’s why you need to defend it otherwise if y’all was honest then the whole exceptional defense deal would crumble. Your not exceptional. Just a soon to be over empire in a never ending chain of bloody empires and you got their by fluke as much as anything else, although you did do the requite killing. Fluke? Of history and geology. France basically won US independence – you were just a proxy to them and it would have just went down in the history books as one more failed revolt with out their money, navy, troops, supplies. When Europeans conquered present day America no one knew about the amount of oil or it’s future. If the geology was different and only a fraction of it was there – no empire, just a big farm. They came for the land and some resources, but little did they know that the juice that would rule the world was underneath. No French and the world might be ruled by the British empire today thanks to their American oil colony. Exceptionally lucky on 2 counts right there. Had nothing to do with quality or special privilege bestowed upon you by your stupid bronze age Jew goat herder god and his son who is also him and a Jew but somehow the religion and god is now not Jewish – sure. Stories. Never ending stories from the paradoxical ape – both killer and scared shitless. STFU with your damn stories.
Apneaman on Wed, 6th Jul 2016 10:11 am
Corbyn just finished finger banging the ghost of Maggie (Iron Crotch) Thatcher and does not like what he smells. She gives off as foul an odor now as when she was alive. Maggie and her cross pond counter part Ronnie are both in hell being toasted (not roasted) by the Devil himself for a job well done. 36 years on and it’s fait accompli.
joe on Thu, 7th Jul 2016 2:17 am
Im seeing brexit through the window of the uk iraq war report. EU law could have been used to put Blair on trial and force uk reparations to iraq. Guess thats finished now.
US iranian relations have changed too. In fact in the context of the period from 2000 to 2016 we can see a pattern emerging that appears to show that iraq has been clearly targeted for destruction and iran brought in to balance Saudi Arabia. Wars in chechnia and ukraine keeps russia busy and has blunted their capability in syria. I guess the missing piece is, why. Corbyn clearly did his job he was supposed to be a soft paw of the left and his performence in the uk referendum can only be described as complicit with the brexiteers. He never attacked one of them. I have no doubt that the US does not really favour a strong eu, because it would not be very sympathetic to us interests and would likley seek peace and trade deals with russia rather than risk its people in confrontations and wars. I believe that the us has more involvement than can ever be known about brexit and will be very happy now that are weakened and dived eu will emerge with eastern european countries looking more to the us for security than to germany and france.
As a side note, the eu just announced a federal coast guard. Watch this space.
Apneaman on Thu, 7th Jul 2016 3:41 am
If you put Blair on trail then you have to put the country that manufactured the evidence (a vial of Tang drink crystals) and started the whole bloody deal on trial – not gonna happen. The EU is already the US’s bitch and given that the US controls NATO, it seems unlikely they would prefer a disunited EU. The whole purpose of the EU was to centralize power. And it worked. Me I’m taking a wait and see approach because all I have seen so far is a referendum vote – nobody’s exited anything yet. Lot’s of Hype. Look at the Hillary email deal – 100 articles a day and non stop chattering from the media monkey’s and blogOsphere. Clearly enough evidence and plenty of precedents to go to trial. What happened? TPTB said NO that’s what happened. The rule of law and votes don’t mean shit anymore when it comes to the masters. I won’t be surprised if we see some politicians and bureaucrats get scapegoated soon, but it won’t be anyone the real power has so heavily invested in like a Hillary or a Blair. Maybe some mid-level people. The sheep need to see a few wolves killed – calm the herd down and let them keep pretending they matter.
Bystander on Thu, 7th Jul 2016 12:35 pm
Blair is a leftist who will follow Washington regardless. Corbyn is an ultra-leftist who doesn’t.
The western empire loves Blair, but hates Corbyn, because he doesn’t follow orders.
Both Blair and Corbyn can be trusted to turn England into an islamic hell hole, but since Britain is the only white country I would actually love to see turn into an islamic hell hole, considering its disastrous policies it inflicted on continental Europe in both WW1 and WW2, I would say to Corbyn: bring it on. The Houses of Parliament turned into the Great Mosque of London by 2025, what is not to like? One headache less.
joe on Thu, 7th Jul 2016 2:55 pm
Come on, they had the vote on a thursday, they had polling stations open from 7am to 10pm for one day, at the very start of holiday season in the uk. Most of those energetic young voters were out getting wasted in Ibiza. The establishment got the result they wanted. The only piece of the puzzle im missing is why. I admit my explanation so far is speculation, but to say that Germany is the US bitch hits the nail exactly on the head. Do they like being a bitch? Especially the bitch of a country that cant even win in Iraq? And why should we imagine they enjoy being the landing pad for all our crazy policies? Just sayin…