Report: Iran convicts WaPo journalist Jason Rezaian
Meet the new Iran, same as the old Iran:
Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, imprisoned in Tehran for more than 14 months, has been convicted in an espionage trial that ended in August, Iranian state television reported.
News of a verdict in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court initially came early Sunday, but court spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei did not specify the judgment. In a state TV report late Sunday, Mohseni-Ejei said definitively that Rezaian, The Post’s correspondent in Tehran since 2012, was found guilty.
But many details remained unknown. Rezaian faced four charges ”” the most serious of which was espionage ”” and it was not immediately clear whether he was convicted of all charges. Rezaian and The Post have strongly denied the accusations, and his case has drawn wide-ranging denunciations including statements from the White House and media freedom groups.
Statements from the White House. That’ll do the trick.
Rezaian is a dual Iranian/American citizen born in this country to an Iranian father and an American mother, but he was tried in Iran as an Iranian. For a while, reports have been “floated” that the Iranians would be willing to exchange him for a couple of Iranian prisoners held in American jails for violating sanctions, but that hasn’t gone anywhere so far. Previous Americans held by Iran have been released after the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars in “bail.”
The WaPo article, and the statement by the paper’s executive editor, manage to report on—and condemn—this latest development re Rezaian without once mentioning the missed opportunity of the Iran deal negotiations, where the Obama administration refused to even discuss matters such as Rezaian’s release. But this paragraph, which comes at the very end of the long WaPo article, hints at what is quite obvious:
With hard-liners under Khamenei, the country’s ultimate religious and political authority, firmly in control of key levers of power, the case served to underscore the relative impotence of the Rouhani government in judicial and national security matters.
That’s the end of the article. The paper decides not to draw the obvious conclusion, which is that Obama’s deal supposedly rests on the idea that the Rouhani government and other so-called “moderates” have some power to change things in Iran, which seems to be either a lie or a delusion.
Barry hasn’t even cut the mullahs the check.
He’s scheduling that for 10-15-2015.
Didn’t you love how Barry dis’d Vlad for running Russia’s economy into the ground ?
“Obama’s deal is that….”
Alas, it’s not a “deal”.
It’s a capitulation—a sell out, a total empowerment of the mullahs—in the guise of a “deal”.
As such, it cannot and will not be overturned.
And it doesn’t even matter if the mask is slipping from those malevolent clowns, from that Doomsday Administration in the WH. Or has already slipped.
File under: Let’s make a not deal!!!
Of course it is always possible that this latest conviction is more pure theater (of the absurd? of the criminal?).
That the mullahs will decide to release Rezaian at some point in the near future—in spite of his “guilt”—so that Obama will be able to crow about what decent folks those mullahs be and how absolutely correct Obama/Kerry were, etc., etc.
Barry Meislin:
I agree that it is also theater. The mullahs have an interest in making it appear as though they’re ready to deal, as well. They’d like to see a great many more Obama-like presidents. So although they are hardline, they might throw Obama a little bone now and then, or a pretend bone.
Bho will gladly watch anyone on the left twist in the wind if it suits his agenda. He will let hrc twist, and a wapo employee is just a nobody, of no importance.
Neo: I would carefully examine even a pretend bone for a fuse, or a clock invention type thingy.
@neo, Off Topic
Since your blog is a endless source of amazingly good links, I think you’re gonna like this one:
http://www.israellycool.com/2015/10/11/dennis-ross-confirms-obama-not-netanyahu-tanked-us-israel-relationship/
But after Obama did his famous bow and grovel they were supposed to love us.
Whar were Rezaian’s charges? Was there evidence?Of what quality? Was there a defence? Of what quality? What was the applicable law(s)?
Why are we in the West predisposed to defend his innocence?
He was a WAPO reporter after all, a gatherer of information, some of it likely forbidden, given that it is Iran.
I personally don’t give a flip about some dude that tries to snuffle about in a place where he and his employer are anathema.
Obama’s deal is obamas front position for public consumption, which is how they work, what its really about is other things.
anyway, once the US started pusing global application of their laws based on citizenship, they oppened the door to everyone being arrested on vacation… ie. if you do something legal in X location, and then come back to the US where its illegal you can be arrested now… but if you do something Y finds illegal and your in the states, you now can be arrested when you go to the other country.
its their tactic for global laws…
its hegelian and we are under constant hegelian warfare and i laugh as no one “gets” it, they just discuss each point and dont see the commonality!!!!!
Men are dominant (hold them down), women are weak (favor them), then let the favored beat up and destroy the dominant to make a new synthesis
Christianity is dominant (hold them down), Islam is weak (favor them), then let the favored beat up and destroy the dominant to make a new synthesis
Heterosexuals are dominant (hold them down), Gays are weak (favor them), then let the favored beat up and destroy the dominant to make a new synthesis
Caucasians are dominant (hold them down), Minority are weak (favor them), then let the favored beat up and destroy the dominant to make a new synthesis
USA is dominant (hold them down), other countries are weak (favor them), then let the favored beat up and destroy the dominant to make a new synthesis
Israel is dominant (hold them down), Other States are weak (favor them), then let the favored beat up and destroy the dominant to make a new synthesis
Meat eaters are dominant (hold them down), vegans are weak (favor them), then let the favored beat up and destroy the dominant to make a new synthesis
anyone want to add a dozen more conflicts to the game roster? anyone get that this is a form of soviet mass conflict in which the conflicts cause so much issue and division the opposition to the state becomes nil
here is a few more
Freedom is dominant (hold them down), Statism is weak (favor them), then let the favored beat up and destroy the dominant to make a new synthesis
Capitalism is dominant (hold them down), Communism is weak (favor them), then let the favored beat up and destroy the dominant to make a new synthesis
get it? got it? good! 🙂
its the same thing over and over and we get wrapped up in the distinctions to realize its the same thing…
Heh, a journalist that thinks they can change the world.
If he’s a Leftist, watch the look on his face when his allies sacrifice him.
Josh Earnest said something to the effect that his boss is interested in “resolving” the Iranian hostage issue(s).
I guess that a conviction in an Iranian court constitutes one case resolved. That leaves three.
The Obamaites are such wordsmiths. Must all have gone to law school.
Propaganda via linguistics is taught in Journalism school too, not merely law schools.
I don’t often link to the site The Last Refuge as I usually don’t trust their analysis, but they raise interesting points here:
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/10/12/why-is-iran-holding-washington-post-reporter-jason-rezaian/#more-107078
“For people who might not have followed the story as it unfolded there’s an easier explanation for why Iran is holding Jason Rezaian. The underpinning is Iran knowing the U.S. State Department and CNN collaborate to use media as a tool to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives.
In December 2014 CNN ran and episode of Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown filmed in Iran. It seemed innocuous at the time, yet as with all things Turner Broadcasting, it also seemed to be another set up for a larger political agenda item.
Was something, something important to the administration, coming on the horizon which would benefit from some pro-Iranian sentiment blasted into the U.S. psyche. Something which might be known as a 2015 ‘Iranian Nuclear Deal’, perhaps.
Was it just happenstance that Bourdain interviewed Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi -also a journalist- who was arrested less than two weeks after the segment was filmed.”
The fact of the matter is that it would be perfectly natural for the Iranians to conclude that CNN, indeed our entire MSM, is state-controlled. They do act as if they are. How often have we noticed that they function as an extension of the WH press office? In fact, the WH press corps clears its stories through the WH press office.
They bring up the interesting point of Nic Robertson’s report on the Cairo protests outside the embassy which CNN never ran.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPszLCEyu-I
This was actually on 9/11. Why didn’t CNN run this interview? Because those riots in Cairo were not over an “anti-Muslim video.” The rioters, and more importantly the organizers of the protest, wanted the Blind Sheikh, Abd al Rahman, and all GITMO detainees released.
This shouldn’t have been a shock to anyone. The organizers of the Cairo embassy protest/riots were issuing statements in the Cairo press about what they wanted to achieve. In fact on September 9th they threatened to burn down the embassay and take hostages, something very similar to what did happen in Benghazi, to trade for the detainees.
Protests like these are never spontaneous. They are always organized, and they are always well publicized. In addition to going through the local newspapers, the organizers of the Cairo protest/riot would have been active on social media, they would have had flyers up all over Cairo, and they would have put the word out at Mosques well ahead of time to ensure a large turnout.
But when the Obama administration needed to push a false narrative about the video, CNN spiked this story and carried the administration’s water. The said both the violence in Cairo and Benghazi were in reaction to that obscure video.
CNN, it also must be remembered, carried Saddam Hussein’s water quite willingly just to have the byline, “This is CNN, Baghdad.” The Iranians must have figured that it was doing so with the blessing of, and with the goal of furthering the foreign policy objectives, of the US government.
The Iranians aren’t stupid; they can see what happened. And if walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, they’ll think it’s a duck. Or, if it acts like state controlled media, particularly their own state-controlled media then the Iranians weill conclude it is state controlled media.
So the MSM themselves may have sealed Jason Rezaian’s fate.
The wages of sin is death.