Iranian journalist seeks political asylum at nuclear talks

[Solomon2]

World | Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:23am EDT
Related: WORLD, DAVOS

Iranian journalist seeks political asylum at nuclear talks

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iranian journalist who previously served as a media advisor to President Hassan Rouhani has sought political asylum in Switzerland where he was reporting on Iran's nuclear negotiations, Iranian news websites reported.

Iranian news website Tabnak named the journalist as Amir Hossein Motaghi, who helped Rouhani to his landslide win in the 2013 presidential elections.

Britain's Daily Telegraph quoted Motaghi complaining about censorship, saying he could "only write what he was told".

"My conscience would not allow me to carry out my profession in this manner any more," the Telegraph reported him as telling IraneFarda, an opposition news website based in London.

Motaghi was in Lausanne covering the nuclear talks for the Iran Student Correspondents Association (ISCA) but that organization said it had now ended its relationship with him.

"Following reports of a known person seeking asylum ... ISCA informed the (Iranian foreign) ministry it had cut all ties with this individual," the ministry said in a statement cited by Iran's Fars news agency.

The Swiss authorities declined to comment.

"For reasons of protecting personal data, we never give any information about individual cases," said Celine Kohlprath, spokeswoman of the Swiss state secretariat for migration.

(Reporting by Sam Wilkin; additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; editing by Robin Pomeroy)

 

[Tshering22]

Traitor.

How could he betray his nation?

 

[Arminkh]

@Abii

You see what I mean? Having a selective approach towards a nation is all this is about.

What I'm trying to do is to balance the postings on the forum by posting news like this:

UN says Israel, not Iran, North Korea or Syria worst violator of human rights | Fox News

Traitor.

How could he betray his nation?

Iran is not like North Korea. He could always leave the country when he wanted. The reason they seek asylum (and in case of Iran only the political is available) is that they are seeking the monthly payment that they are entitled to in certain countries when they seek asylum.

If he was really under any kind of pressure for his political beliefs, he wouldn't be sent to cover an international event. He betrayed his employer as well.

I personally think Iran is a better place without these kinds of dishonest people.

 

[Minute by Minute]

How stupid to think, that journalists in the West are free to write, what ever they want, as if it has ever happened or will ever do!
He will learn, what it means to do journalism in the West and we shall visit his counscious a few years from now, when he has prostituted himself in every aspect of the word for the West!
I already feel sorry for him, for the man he is going to become! Wouldn't you know, the BBC has been firing British journalists and hires iranians for their iranian channel, they are going to give him all the freedom he needs to be used as their Tool to destroy our nation in the name of democracy, freedom of the press and all that jazz!
If there ever has existed an all destructive enemy of freedom and ultimately the human race, it is journalism and mass media!
I read at RT today, that AP wants to make it a warcrime to target journalists! Imagine that! And my comment to that article was, that being part of an organisation like AP should automaticly make on a candidate as warcriminal and if there is Justice in the World their journalists would be hanged side by side of their warcriminal generals, politicians and presidents!
Ask any honest westerner, they all know, that long before the western leaders send in their bombers and genocidal soldiers, they send in their journalists to pave the way for their tanks and bombers!
Reporters without borders, freedom of speech, democracy and human rights, Amnesty and hrw, YAHH in his dreams and the nightmares of their torn apart victims!
Let me tell you a secret about true patriots, freedomlovers, revolutionaries and believers: They will even hold on to their screams under torture, if the alternative is for the enemy of their people to use it to justify the destruction of their nation!
But then Again, people like this guy dress themselves in other people suffering for their own person gain!
Shame on you and may you die all alone and without a people amongst those, whom you serve!

 

[Solomon2]

Traitor. How could he betray his nation?

See Reza Kahili's book, A Time to Betray: A Gripping True Spy Story of Betrayal, Fear, and Courage.

 

[vK_man]

How much was that guy paid is the real question.

 

[Serpentine]

Perhaps, the only reason he had not sought political asylum till now was that he didn't have the money for ticket to Europe. His employers paid for his tickets and he had no other obstacles. Good to see these pieces of craps never returning to Iran.

Right after he did it, he started singing Netanyahu's song: telling Obama not to sign a deal with Iran. Let him bark on some foreign media, after a while, no one will even remember him.

 

[Solomon2]

Perhaps, the only reason he had not sought political asylum till now was that he didn't have the money for ticket to Europe. His employers paid for his tickets and he had no other obstacles. Good to see these pieces of craps never returning to Iran.

Right after he did it, he started singing Netanyahu's song: telling Obama not to sign a deal with Iran. Let him bark on some foreign media, after a while, no one will even remember him.

You don't think it likely that a man with such close and lengthy ties to Iran's top leadership is a plant rather than a genuine defector?

 

[Serpentine]

You don't think it likely that a man with such close and lengthy ties to Iran's top leadership is a plant rather than a genuine defector?

Are you saying he is a spy sent by Iran?

He has no close relationship with any top leadership, he was just a journalist working for a second hand news outlet, sent to Swiss to cover the negotiations. That's it.

 

[Tshering22]

See Reza Kahili's book, A Time to Betray: A Gripping True Spy Story of Betrayal, Fear, and Courage.

Treason to motherland is the most shameful thing one can do.

In Sanskrit, we have a saying which goes like this," जननी जन्मभूमिश्च स्वरगादपि गरीयसी॥"

It translates to "mother and motherland are higher than heavens".

No amount of money would ever buy an honorable man's love for his homeland.

Working abroad as expat is okay but treason is not, man.

 

[Solomon2]

Treason to motherland is the most shameful thing one can do.

"Treason to the motherland" or "Treason to the mullahs"?

No amount of money would ever buy an honorable man's love for his homeland.

Reza says he's the one who initiated contact. For the rest, you'll want to read his book.

 

[Hassan Al-Somal]

The story is a plant. No truth whatsoever in it.

 

[Arminkh]

Treason to motherland is the most shameful thing one can do.

In Sanskrit, we have a saying which goes like this," जननी जन्मभूमिश्च स्वरगादपि गरीयसी॥"

It translates to "mother and motherland are higher than heavens".

No amount of money would ever buy an honorable man's love for his homeland.

Working abroad as expat is okay but treason is not, man.

I think the key word here is "honorable". Let's face it: in a 78 million strong nation, you can find any kind of personalities many of whom are not honorable at all.

 

[Tshering22]

"Treason to the motherland" or "Treason to the mullahs"?

Reza says he's the one who initiated contact. For the rest, you'll want to read his book.

Friend, an Iranian may hate the mullahs but will always want the best for Iran.

I will check this book your said.

 

[Minute by Minute]

To the halfbrain solomon, you must learn to be ready to be insulted back, if you insult us!
For us "treason to the mullahs" as you call it, is the highest form of treason. But what do you know about loyalty? Your entire society is a sweage of corruption, pollution, dehumanisation, apathy, ignorance, treason, genocide and devilworship! For Gods sake, you are an American, and for us, there is no greater insult, than being American, a nation of dumbdowned, idiots, that can't even find their own nation on the map! You are the metric system of stupidity!
You may walk like the rest of us, you may talk like the rest of us, but you are nothing more than animals dressed in human skin! And this World would be a better place and millions of people would be alive, and billions of poeple would have a better life without you.
Yes, we are the followers of our beautiful, knowledgable, decent, Faithfull uncorruptable, honest and selfsacrificing MULLAHAS! And we are proud to follow them.
So go bend over for Mccain!