Wednesday 29 July 2009

Panorama editor on Maziar Bahari

Sandy Smith, the editor of Panorama, has written on the BBC's The Editors blog about Maziar Bahari, the Iranian film-maker, who has been held in a Tehran prison since 21 June.
Bahari worked with Jane Corbin on the Panorama film Obama and the Ayatollah that ran before last month's elections. He has dual Canadian nationality and works for a wide range of broadcasters and publications and is Newsweek's correspondent in Tehran.
Smith says: "Maziar's contributions to Panorama would themselves have caused little complaint in Tehran. He worked on a 2008 film critical of the actions of the British Army in southern Iraq On Whose Orders?".
Smith quotes Jane Corbin who says: ""When I worked with Maziar in Tehran, I was able to appreciate how an experienced Iranian film-maker and journalist sees situations in his own country which the Western media and governments do not always appreciate or understand
"We went to Shiraz to film where 14 people had been killed last year in a bomb attack by an anti-government group. I was able to understand, through Maziar's explanations and translations of the views of people there, that while the West regards Iran as a perpetrator of terror, Iranians often see themselves as the victims of terror."
The Committee to Protect Journalists is collecting signatures until July 31 on a Facebook petition in support of Maziar Bahari.

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