Iran bars Iraqi reporter from working -TV station

Reuters: Iranian authorities have told an Iraqi reporter working for a Gulf-based television station he can no longer work as a journalist in Iran, his employer said today.
Abu Dhabi TV correspondent Najah Mohammed Ali is the second foreign journalist to fall afoul of Iranian authorities this year. Reuters

TEHRAN – Iranian authorities have told an Iraqi reporter working for a Gulf-based television station he can no longer work as a journalist in Iran, his employer said today.

Abu Dhabi TV correspondent Najah Mohammed Ali is the second foreign journalist to fall afoul of Iranian authorities this year.

An American reporter working for Britain’s Guardian newspaper was told to leave Iran in May.

”Our correspondent has received notification to stop his journalistic operations in Iran. There was nothing specific against the operations of Abu Dhabi TV or the office of Abu Dhabi TV,” said a senior official at the government-owned station.

”We have been informed that this is a specific issue that has to do with our correspondent and has no reflection either on Abu Dhabi TV or on the ties between the United Arab Emirates and Iran,” he said.

Officials at Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which oversees media activities, declined to comment.

But a source close to Abu Dhabi TV’s office in Tehran said the ministry had refused last week a routine request by Mohammed Ali and his four colleagues for renewal of their press credentials and ordered the office closed.

”They were asked to close the office and told they cannot work here any more,” said the source, who declined to be identified.

”They didn’t say why they were doing this.” The source told Reuters that Iraqi-born Mohammed Ali, who has worked as a journalist in Iran for 25 years — the last five for the Abu Dhabi station, would leave Iran shortly in protest at the move.