Iran – media censorship

RFI reporter threatened by police, takes refuge in embassy

Article published on the 2009-06-23 Latest update 2009-06-23 17:00 TU

RFI's Aída Palau in Iran.
RFI

Iranian police attempted to arrest RFI’s special envoy at her hotel in Teheran last week, forcing the reporter to call Spanish diplomatic officials to protect her. She then spent three days in the Spanish embassy, before leaving the country under diplomatic escort.

A Radio France Internationale Spanish-language journalist, Aida Palau, was in Iran for ten days to cover the presidential election and its aftermath. She had obtained all the necessary visas and permissions to do so. But on the morning of 19 June, when she attempted to leave her hotel in central Tehran, she was confronted by a group of plain-clothes police officers who attempted to confiscate her passport and handcuff her.

They claimed that she would have to wait in the VIP lounge in the Tehran airport until her flight out of the country scheduled for three days later.

The police officers explained that following the blanket restriction on all foreign journalists to report from the streets of the capital, this was the next step, and all correspondents would be individually escorted to the airport.

Palau called several other foreign journalists working in Teheran on the telephone, all of whom denied that they had received this kind of treatment.

When Palau refused to accompany the police officers, they began to raise their voices, threatening her with a pair of handcuffs. She called the Spanish embassy, and was informed that they would send a consular officer over immediately. While the policemen did not attempt to physically restrain Palau, the tension in the lobby was palpable during the wait for the Spanish diplomat.

Palau began to feel pressure from police and authorities shortly after the election on 12 June, once massive opposition protests began across the country.

Iranian authorities keep foreign journalists under close surveillance, approving only the interviews and stories they see fit. Palau believes that she was singled-out during a two-day trip to Shiraz, in the south of Iran, a city where few if any foreign journalists venture.

Upon her return to the capital, she respected the ban on reporting in Teheran, but still left her hotel on occasion to eat.

When the consul arrived, he informed the police officers that any request to detain Palau would have to be submitted to the embassy in writing, and that she would be given sanctuary in the Spanish embassy until her flight out of the country.

“As I was leaving the hotel, the clerk behind the front desk turned to me and said in English: ‘when you get home, you tell people what’s going on here,’” the news reporter said.

Palau, shaken by the turn of events, spent her final three days in Iran in the comfort of an ambassadorial setting, but unable to step outside her virtual prison.