Head of Iranian State Television Sacked

Ezzatollah Zarghami, the head of IRIB and a fervent Ahmadinejad supporter, has been fired. (Zarghami gained international fame when he claimed that Neda Agha-Soltan's death was faked and a joint-production of the BBC and CNN). Rahmani Fazli has been appointed as his replacement.

Unlike Zarghami, Fazli is not aligned with Ahmadinejad but is instead an ally of Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament. Perhaps not coincidentally, Larijani was himself the head of IRIB immediately before Zarghami.

It should be noted that an objective presentation of events on IRIB has been one of the things that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has specifically and repeatedly demanded. Programming has been unashamedly one-sided since the election.

Mohsen Rezaei had earlier been rumored to be in consideration for the now-filled position.