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Episode details

World Service,11 Feb 2013,28 mins

The Dangers of Being an Iranian Journalist

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Available for over a year

There has been international condemnation of the Iranian government's recent crackdown on journalists, ahead of next summer's presidential election. One Iranian journalist person who's been in a similar position in the past is Masih Alinejad. She now lives in exile in the United Kingdom and she told Lucy Ash about the professional challenges she had to cope with back in her homeland. Then, Matthew Bannister meets Reverend Alfredo Cooper, the Protestant chaplain to the Chilean President Sebastian Pinera. As a young man, Alfredo was a committed atheist, but he says that his spiritual side was unlocked after he took part in a séance. He then went on to study Theology and ended up working as a missionary in Chile. And we are joined in studio by Malian musician Fatoumata Diawara. When militant Islamists took control of Northern Mali they banned all music and dancing. Many musicians fled to the capital Bamako, but now they're fighting back: Fatoumata Diawara has just got 40 of Mali's most renowned musicians together to record a song calling for peace. Photo: Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad

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