Free Republic

Iran's state broadcaster, Irib, has sacked the head of a regional TV channel after it broadcast a Jackie Chan film without removing a sex scene. A video posted online apparently by a viewer on Kish Island showed the Hong Kong martial arts star having sex with a woman in the film Shinjuku Incident. Iranian media said the "immoral" scene was aired by Kish TV in "total violation of Irib's regulations". Physical contact between men and women is not permitted on screen in Iran. Censors are also said to be required to remove men and women exchanging "tender words or jokes",...

Three of the top cybersecurity officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are retiring from government service, according to people familiar with the matter—departures that come as cyberattacks are a major concern for the country’s security agencies. Senior U.S. intelligence officials warn that the country is at a “critical point” facing unprecedented cyberthreats, including Russia’s ongoing attacks on the American political system. The retirements also come as the FBI is facing regular criticism from President Donald Trump and his supporters, and is working to attract and retain top cyber talent. Scott Smith, the assistant FBI director who runs the Bureau’s...

Iran’s government mouthpiece Press TV is panicking over the prospect of a defeat for President Barack Obama and warns that Mitt Romney will steal the election through “black-box” voting machines that "manufacture election outcomes.” It also charged that the polls – virtually all of which now show Romney in the lead or at least in a dead heat – are fraudulent. Press TV has picked up on some American website tweets that predict black Americans will riot if Obama loses. Obama is far from being a friend of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the prospect of a hawkish Republican candidate...

Cuba blows the whistle on Iranian jamming By Safa Haeri The Islamic Republic of Iran might lose one of its very few friends in the world, Cuba, which, according to American officials, has officially informed them that the Iranian embassy in Havana was the source of jamming programs send out by US-based Iranian radio and television stations aimed at mainland Iran. The jamming related to Telestar-12, a commercial communications satellite orbiting at 15 degrees west, 22,000 miles above the Atlantic, which carries programs by the American government as well as by Iranian radio and television stations based in the US...

June 21 — News travels fast between Tehran and Los Angeles. Last Wednesday, during student protests at Tehran University, satellite-TV talk-show host Shahram Homayoun was chatting on the air at Channel One TV in L.A. when a caller from Iran broke in with important news. Students were massing in Amirabad Street, the caller reported excitedly. “They are shouting ‘Freedom! Justice!’ she said. Then she shoved the phone out the window so Hamayoun could hear for himself. The calm Homayoun instantly became animated, exhorting his unseen viewers half a world away. “If you need freedom, now is the time,” he urged,...

Some experts call it a "media movement" or a "satellite revolution." But whatever the label, one thing is clear: A growing network of Iranian American media outlets -- from television to radio to Web sites -- is helping spark the student-led protests erupting in that Islamic nation. The demonstrations would have occurred anyway, the experts say, but satellite networks like National Iranian Television and Radio Iran (both based in Los Angeles) are beaming programming that actively supports the demonstrators' cause into the country.

LOS ANGELES - Reza Fazeli was a household name when he fled Iran in 1979, abandoning a career as an actor and film director. He's back in front of the camera today, but in a much different role - news anchor for one of four Los Angeles Iranian television studios that beams satellite broadcasts every day into Iranian living rooms. When rumors surfaced of an explosion at Tehran University during recent student protests in the capital, Fazeli asked his listeners for information. Within minutes, the phone lines were lit up and faxes were pouring in from Iran, where it was...

Iranian exiles in the United States have played an important role in supporting the recent protests in Tehran - but their role is coming under increasing scrutiny. Arrests have not stopped the rallies in Iran A nondescript industrial estate in the San Fernando Valley on the outskirts of Los Angeles may be an unlikely place to start another Iranian revolution. But Woodland Hills, California, is the headquarters of the satellite television station National Iranian TV (NITV) whose programmes are beamed into Tehran and other parts of Iran to illegal satellite dishes in private homes. It is one of half a...