{"id":88872,"date":"2021-09-04T17:05:13","date_gmt":"2021-09-04T15:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=88872"},"modified":"2021-08-27T06:51:24","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T04:51:24","slug":"04-05-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=88872","title":{"rendered":"New York Times Opinion Writer Was Paid Iranian Propagandist, Prosecutor Says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>New York Times Opinion Writer Was Paid Iranian Propagandist, Prosecutor Says<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Ira Stoll<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Kaveh Afrasiabi. Photo: Screenshot<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A frequent\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0opinion writer facing criminal charges for allegedly being a paid foreign agent of the Iranian government appeared virtually this month before the federal judge hearing the case, as a prosecutor told the judge that the writer\u2019s crime was not only \u201clobbying\u201d for the regime in Tehran but also \u201cthe dissemination of propaganda.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLobbying is not the only means by which he committed the offense,\u201d the prosecutor, Ian Richardson, told Judge Edward Korman. Richardson said the writer, Kaveh Afrasiabi, had also served as an \u201cagent of influence\u201d by disseminating propaganda.<\/span><\/p>\n

Afrasiabi, an Iranian national who is a US permanent resident,\u00a0pleaded not guilty in February<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. Prosecutors say he was paid approximately $265,000 by the Iranian UN mission since 2007 and also received health insurance benefits. Afrasiabi has\u00a0acknowledged<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Algemeiner<\/em>\u00a0that he received the money.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a July 12 court filing, Afrasiabi said the charges \u201cstem from a basic misjudgment of the nature of my work as a responsible social scientist committed to the cause of peace, dialogue, and harmony between nations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The filing says, \u201cuntil my arrest by the FBI in January, 2021, I never thought that my consulting role with the Mission of Iran to United Nations was unlawful. To reiterate, various Iranian ambassadors to UN, beginning with ambassador Javad Zarif in 2007, repeatedly assured me that under UN rules Iran was entitled to two outside consultants and that it was perfectly legal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Much of the July 14 status hearing was devoted to procedural issues. Judge Korman expressed impatience with delays. \u201cI think it\u2019s time to set a date for the trial,\u201d Korman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The prosecutor, Richardson, said some of the evidence in the case against Afrasiabi is secret. \u201cThere is potentially discoverable material that remains classified,\u201d Richardson said, expressing an intention to disclose the material under the Classified Information Procedures Act.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me this is being unnecessarily dragged out,\u201d Korman said, urging the prosecutor and the defense to narrow the scope of the discovery \u201cso this case doesn\u2019t drag on forever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAre you sitting on exculpatory evidence?\u201d Korman asked Richardson, who responded, \u201cno.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A sideshow was Afrasiabi\u2019s complaints about computing resources. \u201cThe government took two of my laptops. I have not been able to review any discovery,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Korman was alternately sympathetic and less than sympathetic to that concern. \u201cYou don\u2019t have a computer that works. That has to be solved,\u201d Korman said, suggesting that Afrasiabi, who is at his Boston-area home, use a computer at the library, or travel to New York to use a computer at the office of the federal defender serving as his standby counsel. Perhaps he could borrow a computer from the US attorney for the eastern district of New York.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want you could lend him a computer \u2014 you must have some used ones,\u201d Korman said to Richardson.<\/span><\/p>\n

Korman also told Afrasiabi, however, \u201cthe fact that you don\u2019t have a computer is your problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Speedy Trial Act set a goal for federal criminal trials to begin in 70 days after arraignment, in keeping with the Sixth Amendment\u2019s guarantee of a \u201cright to a speedy and public trial.\u201d Korman said that helped advance justice, as with the passage of time, \u201cmemories fade,\u201d and \u201cevidence gets lost.\u201d In practice the Speedy Trial Act has been effectively suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the 70-day goal was \u201crarely ever met\u201d even before the pandemic, Korman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Afrasiabi seemed in no rush, perhaps hoping that the charges against him would be dropped in connection with an eventual renewal of the Iran nuclear and sanctions-relief deal, which the Biden administration has been pursuing, so far fruitlessly, in negotiations at Vienna. The case is \u201cnot even six months old. I respectfully request the court\u2019s patience,\u201d Afrasiabi said. \u201cFor the sake of justice it\u2019s imperative that I be given the time and the resources necessary.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Korman reassured Afrasiabi: \u201cNobody is going to deprive you of looking at material that is relevant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the best news for Afrasiabi at the hearing was Korman\u2019s indication of some skepticism about one of the two federal charges against Afrasiabi, who is charged both with not complying with the Foreign Agents Registration Act and with conspiring to violate the act. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t worry about the conspiracy,\u201d Korman said. \u201cThat is a common form of charging to unnecessarily complicate cases.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0has yet to cover the news of the criminal charges against its own frequent opinion page contributor, and Afrasiabi\u2019s articles\u00a0remain available on the Times website<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>without any disclosure by the newspaper that their author is being accused in court of being a paid Iranian propagandist. By contrast, the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0made\u00a0a front-page story<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0out of an indictment of a Trump friend and campaign fund-raiser, Thomas Barrack, Jr., on a charge of failure to register as a foreign agent of the United Arab Emirates.<\/span><\/p>\n

It sure looks like a double standard. A Trump friend accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for a country at peace with Israel gets front-page\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0coverage, while a\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0opinion writer accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for a country hostile to Israel gets no\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0coverage at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ira Stoll<\/strong> was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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New York Times Opinion Writer Was Paid Iranian Propagandist, Prosecutor Says Ira Stoll Kaveh Afrasiabi. Photo: Screenshot A frequent\u00a0New York Times\u00a0opinion writer facing criminal charges for allegedly being a paid foreign agent of the Iranian government appeared virtually this month before the federal judge hearing the case, as a prosecutor told the judge that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88872"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88876,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88872\/revisions\/88876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}