The ayatollahs of the ISI, Islamic State in Iran, are well aware of the people’s discontent and are afraid of them. To make sure that people will not forget how brutal they are in protection of their revolution they routinely use fear tactics to keep them submissive. Most of the attacks are on women.

In recent weeks, the ayatollahs on the pulpit have been complaining that women are not fully observing their mandatory hijab and must be taught a lesson, encouraging the hoodlums on their payroll to throw acid at the faces of young women in the city of Isfahan.

Thousands of people gathered in front of the “Islamic Justice” buildings throughout the country demonstrating against the atrocities committed against the women. There was no report of the events by Voice of America Persian News Network.

On Sunday 25th of October Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged because she defended herself from rape. She stabled the man in the chest with a pocket knife and when free she called 911. Nevertheless, the regime convicted her for a murder that they know she did not commit. Reyhane would have been condemned to death under Sharia law even if she had let the man rape her.

The people of Iran watch Voice of America Persian News Network broadcasts in hope that their voices will be heard and responded to by the American government. After all, they loudly chanted on the streets of Iran in 2009 uprising and asked the American president to support them, not the Islamist dictators. They hope that the land of freedom recognizes their plight and supports them, as was done for Egypt and others.

However, in Washington DC, the VOA, established to show American respect for freedom, human rights, and democracy, is practicing dictatorship of the Islamist kind in their Persian language broadcastings.

In recent years, the VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) has adopted a hostile attitude towards the Iranian/American opposition and political refugees who have fled imprisonment and torture by the Islamic State in Iran.

They began by firing the young political refugees who talked about corruption, torture, and incessant abuse of human rights of the people by ISI, telling the Iranians about American freedom and democracy. These dissidents were replaced by people who have either business relation or political connection with the ISI ayatollahs and their sons, who are making deals all over the world, selling everything in Iran.

Meanwhile the American “advisors” of the VOA, chosen from the mainstream media, are the policymakers, with Iranian staff members merely tools to carry out the appeasement strategy of the State Department. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), are mostly contributors to the Democratic Party who will follow the policies of the administration.

The next step by the management was to make a list of the Iranian/American opponents who should not be heard by Iranians inside. The blacklisted opposition were not to be interviewed, invited to debates, or discussions of violations of human rights, corruption, thievery and persecution of the people -- especially women.

VOA’s appeasement policy has gone to such extreme that when Iranians speak against the ISI they are cut off and edited out. A well-known Iranian dissident cartoonist was speaking about what had been done to him in ISI prison when the program was immediately discontinued and he was escorted out of the studio. Iranian opposition has been dismayed by such harsh treatments by the American government against their freedom of speech.

During the month of the Shia’s mourning, called Moharram, the VOA’s PNN employees were told that they should wear black shirts and no colorful ties and women were instructed to wear long sleeves, no makeup, and no colors. 

The large majority of the VOA Iranian staffers are contract employees who can be fired at will. That prevents employees from protesting against the draconian rules of the VOA management, because as immigrants who need the job are afraid of getting fired. 

A dissident inside Iran told me that VOA programming sounds like an extension of Iranian state-owned TV.  Voice of America is now broadcasting in favor of the ISI dictators, ignoring the people of Iran.

This is how America loses 75,000,000 friends in the Middle East.