[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[Scooter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52897-2005Jan31.html

washingtonpost.com
The Iran Channel
From McLean, Station Hopes to Broadcast Change

By Darragh Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 1, 2005; Page C01

The next Iranian revolution is starting here, in a strip mall in McLean, next to the Jazzercise Fitness Center.

"We are going to change the regime!" pronounces the oracular Ahura Pirouz Khaleghi Yazdi. "This is going to happen very fast."

(So very fast, he adds with an insistent waggle of his heavy black eyebrows, that he worries about this article's timing. If too many days pass before publishing, it could be too late. The story may change: Mere days after the vote in neighboring Iraq, the new Iranian revolution may already have begun. Launched from McLean.)

Later this week, Yazdi persists, "I have a very important announcement to make." On the worldwide broadcast of his satellite TV show, "Dr. Yazdi," as he calls himself, will establish how to set up an "interim government" in Iran -- a country where he has never had a home.

It would be simple to write him off. To decide that blowing spitballs at the very governments President Bush railed against in his inaugural address -- those who keep "regions of the world simmer[ing] in resentment and tyranny" -- must be insane. (That's precisely what "the pro-government press in Tehran has described [Yazdi] as," the BBC posted on its Web site last September, adding that his claims are "loopy.")

But would that be snobbery? Cynicism? A sophisticate's sneer denying, as President Bush also intoned in his inaugural address, "the force of human freedom"?

Because freedom is exactly why this quixotic 24-hour channel exists. Rang-A-Rang TV, which translates roughly as "a colorful array of views," broadcasts from its 9,400-square-foot storefront everything from a Persian-language "Car Talk" to an Iranian rabbi's talk show to a Chris-Matthews-like Farsi "Hardball." The station's mission, however, is singular and summed up three times a week in Yazdi's sprawling exhortation, "Real World."

For the last year, he has sat behind a standard conference table draped in black velvet, alight with candles and piled with silk flowers. Beside him stands the pre-revolutionary Iranian flag, and behind him, sometimes, glows a wall-size planet Mars. With 12 phone lines blinking, he talks with his viewers, preaching "the old-fashioned Persian way of life" -- Zoroastrian philosophy -- which he sums up as "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds."

Yazdi looks like a shorter version of actor Eugene Levy from "American Pie." He is a 60-year-old, self-proclaimed "aviation expert," who says he co-founded the fledgling Air Iraq, then turned it over to the king of Jordan. The son of an Iranian father and a Kurdish mother, he grew up in Europe and only spent childhood summers in Iran. Still, he has adopted a strong connection to the country's current residents: "I feel their pain. I feel their struggles. I feel sorry for them. And it is my destiny to do something."

He worries so much, he adds, that even as he incited "thousands" of Iranians to demonstrate in the streets last fall, he was also, Gandhi-like, urging those protesters to resist peacefully.

"Bring flowers and chocolates and sweet things," he remembers saying, "so if the police come, they can give them chocolate and say, 'I love you. You are my brother.' "

(Lest you see this as treacly naivete, Yazdi is also prone to such savvy-but-strange musings as: "The mullahs are worser than the Talibans. The Talibans are only killing people. But the mullahs, because they receive money from the oil, they hire PR companies.")

Whatever, the Voice of America called the September rally a "rare pro-democracy demonstration." The BBC, Reuters, the Economist and London's Financial Times also covered it.

"This Dr. Yazdi," scoffs Zia Atabay, the owner and founder of Los Angeles's National Iranian TV, a larger competitor. He laughs at Yazdi -- at the way he promised viewers that on Sept. 25 he would take dozens of chartered airplanes to Iran to celebrate the end of the regime. As Atabay describes it, he made "people think that the CIA and FBI and American Army would be escorting him." Yazdi then changed the date to Oct. 1, and then regretfully informed his viewers that, because of plots on his life, he would have to postpone indefinitely.

Nonetheless, "taxi-drivers, housewives and shopkeepers have been talking about little else," the Financial Times wrote at the time. Commenting that Yazdi's "simplistic views about overthrowing the Islamic government singlehandedly have also angered serious exile opposition leaders," the BBC added that he has been labeled "a demagogue."

Atabay's take was simple: That's how desperate the Iranians are. "You have to remember," he said last week, "the Iranian people, the normal people -- I'm not talking about students and politicians and high-class, educated [society], but the normal people -- they are so hopeless and tired of this government. Even if they know it's not true, they want to believe in the story."

Yazdi, says Rang-A-Rang station owner Davar Veiseh, overextended himself.

"It seems to me premature."

"Well," answers station manager Mohammad Sehat. "Yeah. It was premature."

"The prime reason for Rang-A-Rang's being is, uh, regime change," says Sehat, a Westernized 44-year-old who often references C-SPAN and Book TV and quotes Thomas Jefferson. He left Iran when he was 14 and still retains the slight British clip acquired at boarding school in Blackheath. He calls himself Mo.

Sehat is not married. He has no children. Same story with burly station owner Veiseh, who is divorced and middle-aged. They are ready for the revolution.

"This is where all the energy goes," Sehat says, sitting at a spare desk decorated only with a stapler, a hole punch and two black computers. He looks like an accountant. Shoeboxes at his feet overflow with paper.

"When you are going to do something dangerous and big -- " Veiseh booms. "I'm like -- a soldier." He looks the part, like a commando in his plaid flannel shirt and full beard.

"Well." Sehat fidgets. "He's . . . " He halts, trying to explain.

"I'm crazy!" Veiseh grins.

"I'm," Sehat clarifies, distancing himself slightly, "more of the businessman."

Which is to say, the thick-accented Veiseh is the visionary. The missionary. He and Yazdi work in tandem at sowing the seeds for revolution, while Sehat, in his preppy V-neck sweater and blue-and-white striped oxford shirt, wires the computers and the control room. He monitors the mounting bills.

This is not to say that Veiseh isn't the brains behind the operation, too.

"I'm businessman!" he insists. Eager to include these biographical facts, he rattles off a chronology: In Iran, he says, before he left in the late 1980s, he ran an import-export auto parts company and worked in customs clearance. But he was also involved in politics, and living in exile has only affirmed his aversion to what the 1979 revolution has done to Iran.

He came to Northern Virginia because Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah, lives there, but Veiseh has since decided, "I don't see anything in him to save Iran. That's why I did it myself. I can send my voice to the people over the television."

The voice is power, he says. "In 1979, they did it from the radio," Veiseh says. "I believe we can do that now with the television. We can send Yazdi's message to the people -- and change the government."

He is businessman, he says. "And soldier."

So what is this station? Is it crazy? Effective? A political front? An exile's folly -- attempting to remain relevant?

Rang-A-Rang claims its satellite signal can be picked up by 80 million Persian speakers in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and North America. In Washington, people with a 30-inch satellite pointed at Intelsat Americas 5 can tune in, too, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. And while the producers of Rang-A-Rang have no idea how many people actually watch it, they say about 5,000 people call in every week.

Veiseh started 14 years ago with a show he paid to have played on local Cox cable. In the summer of 2002, he began paying for the medium-powered satellite broadcast channel. ("If we were able to afford . . . say, $10,000 more," Sehat points out hopefully, "we could be on a more powerful satellite.") It's been a heady morphing from "Wayne's World" to "Che," even as costs have climbed beyond the stratosphere -- literally.

Today, the satellite bill comes to about $40,000 a month, they say, plus more to stream over the Internet at www.rang-a-rang.com. To run the station costs another $20,000, half of that for the rent alone. Ask about salaries, and Sehat laughs through both his nose and mouth. "What salary? Haah haaah haaaah." They have a couple of part-time employees who edit commercials and do camera work. They have electric, phone and office-supply bills. And whatever's left, "five, six thousand dollars a month, we split," Sehat says, pointing back and forth at himself at Veiseh.

Revenue comes from commercials purchased by supportive Iranian-owned business; from hourly TV slots Veiseh sells to those who produce their own programs; from the carpets they sell nightly in a QVC-style show, except that "it is totally live, and each carpet is totally unique, unlike QVC, where you can sell 1,000 in an hour," Sehat says. The rest of the revenues are, he adds, "contributions or credit cards." He nods at Veiseh. "Especially Davar's credit cards."

"People call us," Veiseh says, and they gush, "We like you. We are going to support you." He does not say who these people are, or how much they give. Ask if any of the money comes from United States intelligence services, seeing as how Rang-A-Rang and the U.S. government might seem in tandem here, and Sehat looks encouraged: "We want to see freedom and democracy in Iran. You have to be realistic. It takes resources. And anyone who's willing to offer us help to reach that goal fast -- we welcome that help."

Veiseh is more cautious. By accepting official government money, he points out, "we don't know what they want in return."

"What strings are attached," Sehat says. "We really value our freedom." He pauses. "But anyone who wants to help -- including the U.S. government -- we're more than happy to accept contributions."

Outside the studios, the Public Storage warehouse glows pink in the sunset as traffic on the nearby Dulles Toll Road starts clotting. On this same day, President Bush has called a press conference to clarify the meaning of his inaugural address. In the White House briefing room, he tells reporters, "America is at its best when it leads toward an ideal. And certainly a world without tyranny is an ideal world. . . . And so I look forward to leading the world in that direction for the next four years."

Inside the cavernous studios on Spring Hill Road, where Persian carpets dot the floor and more line the walls, waiting to be sold, Sehat and Veiseh reconsider what they have been explaining for the last few hours.

"It all might sound . . . " Sehat stops. Behind his spare desk, in his Western V-neck and trimmed beard, he hears himself as the rest of America must hear him -- like he's crazy. Like this is crazy. But he's sincere.

" . . . like a dream," he continues. "A pipe dream. But we really think that if we have the right support and necessary resources, we can really -- "

Veiseh finishes the thought.

"We can really be a serious threat to the government."

Washington Post researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.

[Spenta]

didn't Ran-a-rang used to be one of the regime's stations?

[Kian25]

[Iranian Boy]

[irani]

Ah that's the Iranian spirit! let's keep bashing each other and see if it will get us anywhere in the next 26 years? The sooner we stop calling each other traitors the sooner were going to get anywhere, otherwhise ill see you in free Iran year 2031 In-sha-alla !

[blank]

Are they doing anything to keep Azadi tv going? I heard it was closed due to the lack of finances.......they should do the same as NITV go on 60 minutes program and ask for money they may be able to get some money for their program.

[Kian25]

Correction, I clearly made a mistake about rang-a-rang. that Davar guy is nr1.alamdar after Rafiei from omide iran.
The other day they were showing a program with a mullah in La who was preaching the same BS as allways, and the name of the program was " Goftegoye mohabbat ". I wiped my eyes a few times to make sure, but no, there it was.
_________________
Ze Khabe geran bayad az chashm shost, Ze rokh barafkande nangin, shost.
Bia ta bekoshim va jang avarim, boron sar az in bare nang avarim.
Biarim an abe rafte be joy, magar ze an biabim baz aberoy.
FERDOSI
www.IDreamOfPersia.com

[Liberator]

Rangarang TV station hosts individual from the vast Iranian political spectrum from Monarchists to Mollah's/Islamists (and everything in between); hence the name "RANG A RANG". People should be intelligent enough to know a mollah for a mollah, therefore this tv having a mollah talking SHIITE on tv doesn't automatically make this tv IRI-sponsored or anything else.


Ba Sepaas
_________________
JAVID IRAN!



www.anjomane-padeshahi.org
http://aryamehr11.blogspot.com/

[Kian25]