satellite television channel beamed into Iran by media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and the Afghan Mohseni family’s Moby Group has quickly become one of the country’s most watched stations. But the station’s popularity has not gone unnoticed by the Islamic regime.
Last Thursday, a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army hacked into the Farsi1 channel’s website and several sites owned by the Mohseni family, and posted a warning: “The allies of Zionism should know this,” the message said. “Dreams of destroying the foundation of the family will lead straight to the graveyard.” Conservative Iranian leaders have for some time complained that the station’s programming, which includes cleaned-up versions of comedies, soap operas and dramas from Latin American, Korea and the United States, is eroding traditional Iranian values and replacing them with Western values deemed shallow and material by the Iranian regime.
Plots of the shows sometimes involve romance and infidelity, but the content is said to edited and male and female contact is not shown so as no to offend what are seen as Iranian sensibilities. “If the script says anything that is not right or appropriate, we edit it,” The New York Times quoted Zaid Mohseni, the chief executive officer of Farsi1, as saying. “Visually, if there is something not appropriate, we edit it out. We know that the majority of viewers are watching with their families. We are very sensitive to this.” The Iranian campaign against Farsi1 shows the rising fear Iranian leaders have over the increasing penetration by private broadcasters. With private, nonstate, broadcasters offering unique, new content, the state’s monopoly over the flow of information is being whittled away. But Farsi1 carries no news or political content. It is pure entertainment. The cyber attack is not the first attack on Farsi1.
Earlier this year, Iranian authorities reportedly tried to jam a satellite used by the channel. Personal attacks on the politically hard-right conservative Murdoch—who founded Fox Broadcasting and owns Western publications like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post—as well as on Saad Mohseni, the chairman of the Moby Group, have also appeared on Iranian television and newspapers. Murdoch’s News Corporation and Mohseni’s Moby Group each own half of the channel. US officials and a spokesmen for both the Moby Group and the News Corporation say Farsi1 doesn’t receive any funding from any government. But that hasn’t calmed fears in Tehran. “Satellite TV programs such as those broadcast on Farsi1 destroy the chastity and honor of our families and encourage the young to take up lovemaking, wine drinking and Satan worship,” Mohammad-Taghi Rahbar, a Majlis deputy, told the Iranian Students News Agency, adding, “The channel is funded by Zionist money and planned and managed by Iran’s enemies. What family that has any dignity would let its members watch Farsi1?” Mohseni estimated that Farsi1 has been able to draw several million viewers a day and said, “If people feel we are destroying the culture, they will not watch us.” Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) head Ezatollah Zarghami said, “The opinion polls show that a high percentage of the viewers of Farsi1 admit that the films shown by this channel spread immorality. Why people continue watching this channel is a different question.” But during an Expediency Council meeting earlier this year, Mohsen Bani-Hashemi, a community expert at IRIB’s university, reportedly contradicted Zarghami’s comments, sharing results of a survey that indicated 94 percent of viewers did not believe Farsi1 promoted immoral behavior.
