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The Current Transcript for October 6, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Because I didn't have pen and pencil initially, I wrote with the tail of my toothbrush on the marble stone just to remind, to make mental note.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Not everyone thinks to take notes when they are suddenly and falsely imprisoned, but Homa Hoodfar is an anthropologist so she fell back on what she knew best—treating her own incarceration in Iran's notorious Evin prison as something to study, refusing to be afraid. And she had lots of time for notes with the end of a toothbrush—she was there for more than 100 days. The Montreal professor is finally home. Another Iranian-Canadian whose visit to her homeland took an inexplicable and harrowing turn. In half an hour, Homa Hoodfar tells us her story. Also today, whose reality is it?

SOUNDCLIP

What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counter-terrorism. It is barbarism.

AMT: Despite condemnation in the UN and Western media attention that chronicles and analyzes Russia's role in the Syrian government's relentless bombing of civilians in Aleppo, Russia's own news organizations present a far more benign view. We're asking about the message in the media in Moscow when we check in on the stories we've been following in an hour. But first, delightful or frightful?

SOUNDCLIP

There was clowns running in the woods telling the kids that they had candy and they would give it to ‘em.

[Sound: Evil laughter]

AMT: What's with those creepy clown sightings? I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

Creepy clown sightings set off hysteria across North America

Guests: Stacey Laureyssens, Benjamin Radford

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: Circus]

VOICE 1: Dude I’m [unintelligible] but I think I see a clown, dude.

VOICE 2: There’s no clown, that’s fake.

VOICE 1: I swear to god. Dude, what the hell?

[Yelling]

VOICE 1: Oh my god. Oh my god.

[Music: Circus]

VOICE 3: Holy crap, this cannot be real. Hold on, let me slow down. Roll down the window, roll down the window. I want to talk to him. [giggles] Hey buddy. How’s it—oh god, he’s running. Oh, he’s running. He’s chasing us. Oh my god.

[Music: Circus]

[Shrieking]

AMT: Believe it or not, what has all those people spooked are clowns. Creepy clowns. They have been popping up eerily across North America from Nova Scotia to Texas and online videos such as the ones we just heard purport to document the unsettling encounter, often cutting out after the so-called evil clown attacks. Hoaxes or not, there have been some real life repercussions to this bizarre trend: from a ban on clown costumes in one Connecticut school district to an arrest in Georgia where an 11-year-old girl took a knife with her to school to fend off clowns. In Toronto, two 15 year olds were detained and cautioned. One was dressed as a clown. The other was filming as the clown chased students coming out of a high school. In Nova Scotia, police are investigating two clown-related threats to schools and individuals including Halifax West High School. The CBC's Alex Mason hit the streets of that city where he met 22-year-old Ashley Doyle.

SOUNDCLIP

ALEX MASON: What do you know about the clowns on Instagram?

ASHLEY DOYLE: I've seen like all the videos. They have their own page and people keep posting stuff. Like there was a really creepy video, there was a bridge and there was two guys and they were running and they saw them and they were like “What are you doing at 7:30 in the morning?”

VOICE 1: Have you heard about all this s***? People are freaking out about this.

VOICE 2: Yo Patrick, he has a knife.

VOICE 1: Dude what—

ASHLEY DOYLE: And then the guy came running out them with a knife and they took off and they were just gone.

ALEX MASON: So the clown had a knife.

ASHLEY DOYLE: Yeah. Like a real knife.

ALEX MASON: Where was that video from?

ASHLEY DOYLE. I'm not sure. I think it was like—I’m not positive exactly where it was but it went viral. Like everybody was sharing it.

ALEX MASON: How much buzz is there about that around town?

ASHLEY DOYLE: A lot because apparently there were threats at Halifax West and in Truro. So I mean it's kind of getting closer to home.

ALEX MASON: What is it that people are worried about?

ASHLEY DOYLE: I think they're kind of curious, right? I think everyone's just curious if it's actually posing a threat or not because nothing has actually come from it. But I mean why are you dressed like a clown running around the city threatening people? And people—honestly. But I mean I just want to know like what the purpose of this is.

AMT: Well, we're looking for answers as well, starting with Stacey Laureyssens. She is a clown. She performs under the name Empress Cherry Sunday. She's also the interim president of Clowns Canada. And we have reached her in Montreal. Hello.

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: Hi. How are you doing today?

AMT: Well, I'm well. What do you make of all these sightings of creepy clowns?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: Well, they're coming up all over the place. They are easily purchased costumes. But I can tell you that these people who are pranking, they are not clowns. A clown is an art form that has spent hundreds of thousands of years. And eye contact is actually extremely important when you are performing in clown, and reacting in that moment and working with true emotions. As soon as you put on a mask and you can no longer see your eyes, technically cannot be considered a clown. This is a costume and they are pranking. So I prefer to think of them as costumed prankers. If they were dressed as doctors covered in blood with knives, they'd still be scary. But you wouldn't blame a doctor for that.

AMT: So we shouldn't blame the real clowns.

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: Correct.

AMT: So is the creepy clown hype a threat to the business of people like you? Legitimate clowns?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: I would always say that a bigger threat to any small business, especially one that has to do with the arts and entertaining children or theatrical cabarets or anything along those lines, is budget cuts. Budget cuts would definitely be a bigger impact on our business than creepy clowns.

AMT: Than pranksters. Well, I have a clip I want to play for you. This is Jordan Jones. Jordan Jones is a self-described scary clown. He works at Screamland Farms in Maryland. He goes by the clown name Snuggles. And in response to all of this he began a Facebook group called Clown Lives Matter. Listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

My biggest concern is you know that I'm scared that in Pennsylvania, I'm scared that something is going to happen like you know banning clown masks, where you can’t be a clown. That would be absolutely crazy because that’s what I love being, that’s what I get paid to do. It shouldn’t be like that. Life shouldn’t be like that. It's other people out here who’s ruining it for professional actors like me. And little kids trick or treating—you know a lot of little kids that are trick or treating, they love being clowns. Now they can’t be a clown no more because you know police officers, chief of police are taking this serious now.

AMT: What do you think of what he's saying, Stacey?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: Well, first I want to say that this gentleman is a performer hired by a haunted house by the sounds of it. Correct?

AMT: Yeah. Sounds like it. Screamland Farms.

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: So when you go to a haunted house, the expectation is that you are safe but you are there to get the adrenaline thrill of a scary place. But you know that you are safe.

AMT: Again, we’re conflating, you’re saying.

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: But people who are maliciously trying to scare people and children and adults on the street in an area where you should feel safe is definitely an issue.

AMT: Well, tell us a little bit about your work as Empress Cherry Sunday. When you're performing, who do you perform for?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: I usually do birthday parties, school events, festivals. I'm an international award- winning face painter. And I do balloon sculptures and puppeting and bubble activities for children.

AMT: What does your clown costume look like?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: I tend to go with more of a corporate circus sort of look. My makeup is actually—I would actually describe as a Marilyn Monroe-style makeup with a white mask and a blue nose because I'm Canadian so I'm a bluenoser.

AMT: Oh, okay. So you're a glamorous clown. [chuckles]

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: I actually call it glamour clown.

AMT: Uh-huh.

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: And my costumes tend to be more in the theatrical vintage style.

AMT: Have you encountered children who are afraid of clowns?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: I've actually encountered more adults who—when I talk to them either in clown or out of clown—say oh, you know I don't really like clowns. They see my clown and they're like oh, you're not scary at all because I do have a unique look that's not really seen outside of my close-knit community. So there's only a few of us that do glamour clown at this point. But it definitely is a unique and new wave perspective on approaching the clown appearance.

AMT: And how do you relate to kids? Like what's your secret?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: The secret is being present in that moment and reacting with true emotions and being fun and open to that art of play so that improvisational moments happen. And it's a lot of fun. Like kids are great. And when you show them love, they show you love.

AMT: So you say that some adults are afraid of clowns. Why do you think that is?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: There's definitely an aversion to the over-the-top circus makeup which was originally designed for three-ring circuses to be seen from very long distances between the audience and the performer. And in my experience, there's definitely people who do that up close—maybe don't have the technical skills to get fine lines or anything like that—and the technique tends to be sort of an older style. But I've seen some beautiful traditional clown makeup and there is such a unique difference between circus makeup and traditional theatrical clowning like Amelia Dell'Arte which uses masks. So there's so much unique things happening. But for true art of clown, it is about interacting with your audience and eye contact and being present in that moment. As soon as you put on a mask, all of that is gone and it's a costume.

AMT: And how much training do you go through to be a clown?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: You never stopped training. You always—any art form, yhere's always new techniques that you can learn and you know you can learn something from someone who is younger than you. You can learn something from someone who's been doing it for 40 years. And there's all these different art forms that go along with clowning. And the World Clown Association has conventions. So does the Clowns of America International and Clowns International in Europe. There's also the Clown Gathering UK which I'm the graphic designer for. And Clowns Canada has a biyearly carnival where we have international performers come and lecture so that we keep our skill level really high. Here in Toronto, there's actually the TCA family entertainers which used to be called the Toronto Clown Alley. That changed its name to be more inclusive to other types of performers like jugglers and magicians. And you know we get together once a month with a lecturer and you know learn a new skill so that we can have a very broad understanding of entertainment.

AMT: Why are you a clown?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: Because it's so much fun. It really is. My clown sort of started in sort of a vaudeville circus community. And I really love children but I know that I won't have any in my own life. And this is a great way for me to interact with children and bring them joy. And it's so lovely to be around children who are just so honest and so loving and it's just a great experience.

AMT: So what do you think when you hear about these people who appear as clowns for cheap thrills? These creepy clowns.

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: Well again, these costume prankers are maliciously trying to scare people and children and I definitely don't agree with that. Hearing all of these articles and stuff like that—there is one where the suspect was a mentally ill person and it was really upsetting to like think that that person could have also been harmed.

AMT: On the other side, yeah.

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: And there's been lots of threats against clowns as well. One of my protégés actually had to stop three conversations the other day where people talked about hurting clowns if they ever saw one.

AMT: Because they’re afraid now that all this talk is going on, right?

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: Yeah.

AMT: Okay. Well, Stacey, thanks for your time. We’ll talk to somebody about some of the prevalence of these stories right now. He's waiting in line. So thank you.

STACEY LAUREYSSENS: Have a great day.

AMT: That is Stacey Laureyssens. She's a clown, the interim president of Clowns Canada. She's in Montreal. So clowns have a unique ability to delight but as the creepy clown trend shows, they can be uniquely terrifying even to adults. Benjamin Radford has puzzled over this paradox. He's written a book called Bad Clowns. Benjamin Radford is in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hi.

BENJAMIN RADFORD: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: What's a bad clown?

BENJAMIN RADFORD: A bad clown. Well, in my book I sort of define it broadly, so that’d be a clown that is malicious or evil or unpleasant in some way. So it's not just a clown that's trying to harm you or scare you such as the one that Stacey referred to, but also ones that might insult you for example, at the CNE or a carnival midway. Essentially the clown is a trickster figure and so oftentimes you see in these trickster figures both good and bad and happiness and scaring people.

AMT: Well, we're seeing this rash of creepy clown stories in the US and Canada but this isn't new, is it? When did you first notice this happening?

BENJAMIN RADFORD: Well, it's interesting. There's actually two different things going on here. The first one are what I call stalker clowns and these are clowns, these are people that basically dress as clowns. They're pranksters, they're hoaxers. They're the kind that Stacey referred to. And they get a thrill out of dressing as a clown and walking around, for example, the city at night, a park, things like that, often with a component of social media being involved. So they will go post photographs of themselves for example and then those of course go viral because you know why wouldn't it? It’s a scary clown. But in all these cases, you know there's actually—the intent is not actually to harm people. I mean there's very few reports of anyone dressing as a clown to actually stab or harm anybody. It's essentially sort of a viral stunt. So that’s—and that actually began, the first major one was in Northampton, England in October 2013. There was a person that called himself the Northampton Clown and he and a friend posted photos of himself on social media dressed as a clown and there's been copycats and copycats of copycats. So that's part of what's going on. But there's another aspect to it which are—in my book I call phantom clowns—and these clowns date back to the 1980s at least and some versions earlier. And in these cases, you have witnesses—almost always children, occasionally adults but mostly children—who claim that they were menaced or they see clowns lurking in schoolyards or parks and things like that. And of course as you can imagine, this alarms parents and police who then go investigate. But in all these cases, no evidence of them is ever found and so the specific type of bad clown that I refer to again as phantom clowns and also researcher Loren Coleman talks about as well. These are essentially sort of a folkloric entity in some way similar to the Slenderman phenomenon.

AMT: Okay. But chatter about this has gone all the way to the White House. Reporters actually asked about it at a press briefing this week. Stephen King the author tweeted: “Guys, time to cool down the clown hysteria. Most of them are good, cheer up the kiddies, make people laugh.” What do you take from Stephen King's attempt to dial back hysteria on bad clowns?

BENJAMIN RADFORD: I think it’s a positive step. I mean certainly Stephen King is one of the most famous people who promoted from—and of course profited from—the scary clown motif in his—

AMT: In his book It.

BENJAMIN RADFORD: In his book It. Yeah. And the TV mini-series starring Tim Curry as Pennywise the clown. So you know I am glad that King is weighing in on it or telling people to dial it back because my concern is not so much as there are actually evil malicious people dressing as clowns trying to harm or lure children. My concern is more that the public's overreaction to it and sort of sharing these rumors and you know getting parents and schools concerned when there really isn’t need for it.

AMT: Well, you know we spoke to Professor Andrew Stott at the University of Buffalo and we asked him why he thinks this is happening now. Listen to what he says.

SOUNDCLIP

It seems to me to be very apparent that this outbreak of so many clown sightings is happening at a time in American political discourse when we've really reached a level of absurdity and counterfactualism that we've never seen before. And that so much of this now—of this just bizarre pronunciations and denunciations by our presidential candidates—that it seems to me to be not totally unrelated that all of a sudden we’ve had a rash of clowns appearing and what I think is an embodiment of this level of absurdity that we’re experiencing as a culture.

AMT: I think he just blamed Donald Trump for the clowns, Benjamin.

BENJAMIN RADFORD: I think he did. [chuckles] I think—you know I think he has a point. I quote him in my book and I think he's correct in so far as the clown, the current clown scare I think in many ways is a crystallization of or a manifestation of anxiety. I don't know that it's necessarily about absurdity because there have been previous clown clusters you know clown reports on and off since the eighties and nineties. And so it comes and goes in smatterings. There will be a handful of sightings, a few years later it'll re-emerge. But it doesn't surprise me that the most recent sightings here in the last month or so would occur in America when you know we are in the middle of a contentious presidential election. There are of course occasional school shootings and terrorist attacks and so I think in many ways, the scary clown is a manifestation of people's fears.

AMT: It's interesting when you look at what the clown can be. You look at Shakespeare, the jester, the fool. We've seen that through entertainment and culture as well, huh? The use of the clown to sort of point out where we are in our world.

BENJAMIN RADFORD: Absolutely. I mean you know if you look at the history of the clown, it’s actually really interesting. I hadn't realized that when I began researching it but you know the clown has always been an ambiguous character. It's always been good or bad. You look at the harlequin character, you look at the court jester, things like that. Clowns were never really good so they didn't suddenly turn bad. They would just sort of—they had different variations of them and it just so happened that the most commonly accepted thought of clown these days are the sort of happy ones and then of course people like Stephen King and others turn that on its head to scare people.

AMT: So what do you make of all of these stories that are coming out in bursts right now? How do you see them?

BENJAMIN RADFORD: I see them essentially as—you know there's not one blanket explanation for all of them. It's a combination of things. Part of it is, as I mentioned, there's hoaxers, there's pranksters. Much of it is copycats and copycats of copycats because you know this clown phenomena is ready made for social media. It's perfect, right? You have this figure that is well-known, a well-known archetype, you know with the Joker and John Wayne Gacy and all these actual genuine scary clowns in pop culture and in real life, that sort of crystallize into this figure that it's both—it's humorous and it's scary—it's funny and it's frightening. And people love this idea. And so what happens is what folklores call ostension. It's basically people enacting legends and so, people see these clowns in news media—particularly kids and teenagers—and they say hey, I can do that. I can go to the bookstore and put on a mask and do that.

AMT: And in fact they are. We have to leave it there. We're out of time. But it's interesting to talk to you. Thanks for your time.

BENJAMIN RADFORD: Thanks for having me on.

AMT: Benjamin Radford, author of Bad Clowns. He's in Albuquerque, New Mexico. What do you think of all the clown sightings? You can tweet us @thecurrentCBC, find us on Facebook or on our website www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us, the news is next and then we follow, you know we did follow closely the case of Homa Hoodfar on this program—the Iranian-Canadian academic who is imprisoned in Iran. She's out. She’s got lots to tell us about what happened. This is The Current.

[Music: Sting]

Back To Top »

Homa Hoodfar shares her story after 112 days in an Iranian prison

Guests: Homa Hoodfar

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Well, The Current’s Friday host is the host of Cross Country Checkup, Duncan McCue. He joins me in half an hour to check in on your feedback on some of the stories we've been following. But first, speaking of stories we have been following on The Current, this one at last has a happy ending.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Evin prison. Just that name is enough to conjure fear. The Iranian detention centre is notorious for torture, mock executions, brutal interrogations. Many who go in do not come out. In June, Homa Hoodfar, an Iranian-Canadian academic was detained in Evin. She had been in the country visiting friends and doing research but the anthropology professor spent months swept up in Iran's Kafkaesque legal system. She had been charged with collaborating with states hostile to Iran and was finally released last week in what Iran called “humanitarian grounds.” Homa Hoodfar is back home in Montreal and that's where we reached her. Hello.

HOMA HOODFAR: Thank you. I’m very happy to be home.

AMT: How are you feeling?

HOMA HOODFAR: My body is full of aches and pains but I feel wonderful to be home. And I'm grateful to all the people who launched this global campaign to get me free. I got support from all over the world, from Afghanistan to Korea to Jordan, Egypt and of course back here home and Europe and Brazil. [chuckles] I was overwhelmed when I came back to realize what a widespread campaign was launched to get me free.

AMT: You only really knew once you got home, I guess, eh?

HOMA HOODFAR: Oh yes. I was quite surprised when I arrived in Montreal airport to see there's so many cameras and reporters waiting to receive me. I mean I've said this before, but I've always been a bit media shy and now I was overwhelmed to see that so many people are waiting to welcome me home.

AMT: Well, it's good that you are home. Let's go back. What took you to Iran last February?

HOMA HOODFAR: Well, I went to visit some old friend from school but also I thought it was a good opportunity—I had never been in Iran during the parliamentary election—just to also observe that and while I’m there, I also wanted to go to the parliamentary library to get some old documents from the early parliaments there. But it was mostly—my intention was to visit. I had not been in Iran for a while. I had gone for a few days in November but I was very sick so I couldn't really see friends. But then I went this time for that purpose. But it ended up to be a bigger trip than I had planned.

AMT: Yes. Yes. And not in the way you planned.

HOMA HOODFAR: Not in the way that I planned. [laughs]

HOMA HOODFAR: So you went and you were looking for some papers in parliament? Was that what they saw? Is that what triggered something? Do you know?

HOMA HOODFAR: No. Well, I was looking for some old document in the parliament but I don't—I think what triggered this was that the Conservative forces lost very badly in an election, especially in Tehran. So they were looking for things to blame their loss rather than accept that they had lost the popular support. So they—me being in Iran and I had given an interview on the situation of women in the parliament—which was focused on my book that was published five years ago in 2011 on the state of women in different parliaments in the world—which had nothing to do with Iran. Iran was not even in a footnote in my book. But then they took that as a reason why I was there and I was trying to muddle in Iranian parliamentary election and to bring my feminism into politics overall, which was a bit far-fetched, but here we are.

AMT: Yes, yes. You still had to live through it. So they came looking for you about a month after you'd been there, right? Well, what did they actually tell you? What did they want when they first came to see you?

HOMA HOODFAR: Well, they just raided—they came and knocked the door and then raided my apartment when in fact I had three guests, I was in the middle of packing my suitcase as I was talking to—and they just took my computer, my passports, my phone and books that I had. And they had an interview with [unintelligible] that I had conducted in ’97 and ‘98. And then they ask me to appear before the court within five business days and also go the next day for interrogation. They made a file out of the interrogation and my emails once they had taken them.

AMT: You say for interrogation, what was going through your mind when they started to talk like that? When they said they wanted you for questioning and interrogation.

HOMA HOODFAR: Well, I was familiar enough with the politics in Iran because this was Revolutionary Guard people who had come for me which are part of the Conservative forces. So I knew that they probably want to question me and I thought they were going to make this a big issue. But I, at that point in time, I didn't think they would imprison me. I thought they would just want to question and maybe want to write some article and accuse me of being there for the parliament but I didn't think it they would go as far as imprisoning me.

AMT: Can I just clarify too? You said they took books and other papers and interviews you had from years before. Was this your apartment? Did you have work there over time or was that stuff you were traveling with?

HOMA HOODFAR: No. This was my brother's wife’s apartment, a small apartment that they had kept in Iran. So in the last few years when I went back to Iran, I stayed there. I always—in the last few years—I had stayed there when I had gone to Iran.

AMT: Okay. I understand. So you had been going in and out without any kind of incident.

HOMA HOODFAR: Oh yes. I had been going in and out actually since 1991. I never had a problem. This was the first time that I had a problem.

AMT: So when they interrogated you that first time, they questioned you but you were released. What happened?

HOMA HOODFAR: Well, they interrogated me then they—when I appeared in court, they released me on bail but they asked me to go in for further interrogation. And then sometime after days of interrogation, they asked me what—because I had tried to keep this very quiet. I didn't allow any of my friends to make it public because I thought it was a misunderstanding and once they talk to me it will solve the problem. And I had told my sister and friends if they take me in, they can go public and they had overheard us on the phone when I had been talking to my sister. And I guess that's when they decided they're going to take me in because I think they really wanted this to be a public issue.

AMT: Why?:

HOMA HOODFAR: Well, it's Iranian politics and complicated. We really have—in the administration, in the state, we have two governments. One is the elected body and the other is non-elected. The elected body includes president and the ministers but the non-elected include Revolutionary Guard and their media. Many of their powers are actually in a non-elected body including judicial. And when the Conservative forces who control the non-elected body, where had lost badly in the election, they wanted to embarrass them. So they wanted this to be public because they knew then the pressure is on the elected body to get me free. And so it was—it was putting pressure on the administration and in their negotiation, I guess they would get some advantages. So it was really a power struggle between the two sides of the government.

AMT: And so when you knew you were going to Evin prison, what were you thinking? What was going through your mind?

HOMA HOODFAR: I had no idea of what followed. But as of the following day, I had the interrogation and right then I knew the case is much bigger than I had imagined and I thought I’m probably going to be there for a very long time.

AMT: That must have been frightening.

HOMA HOODFAR: It was. It was frightening. The first week was very difficult. But after the first week I thought well, here I am. It's a very difficult physical condition because I'm in a small cell with very little air and natural light but I'm an anthropologist and I'm here. So I thought well, I look at it as field work and participant observation. So I look at how they interrogate me and then later on when they put me with—they brought some time other inmates to be with me—and then they moved me also in different cells. So I talk and chatted with everybody. And I considered this as a field work and I made a mental note. And because I didn't have pen and pencil initially, I wrote with the tail of my toothbrush on the marble stone just to remind, to make mental note. So every night, I would then make more notes and review my previous notes even though it was just mental notes. Some of my cellmates felt I was crazy writing on a wall with the tail of my toothbrush. [laughs] But that’s how I—I actually made notes of what was happening but also made it a lot easier to deal with the situation because it—okay, they had their purposes but then I thought I have my purpose, which is doing anthropology of interrogation.

AMT: That's extraordinary that you were able to do that to get yourself through. And so you’ve come home with notes, I guess?

HOMA HOODFAR: In Oman, I started to write my notes, to write down what was happening. Even on the 19-hour flight from Oman to Montreal, I had no sleep. I just kept writing and writing because I didn't want to forget what was happening, what happened before. My notes are very important for me.

AMT: So what did you learn? What did you observe? What can you tell us about what it was like in there?

HOMA HOODFAR: It was hard physically but I tried to understand the process of the interrogation which goes through trying to break your spirit and de-humanize you and how through that process, they put themselves in power over you. And it wasn’t—also talking to other women who were actually there, they're not for political reasons as such, but they were mostly sex workers who happen to work in Dubai and not in Iran. And so their process was for them, it was much harder to deal with this but for part of the process was breaking their spirit and making them feel powerless and frightening them of the consequences, like they were continuously told they were going to be executed. But so that kind of treatment was—which was consistent. It didn't matter whether you're a political prisoner or whether you are charged or you are kept on other charges. They tend to use that kind of method and when I was going through interrogation, I could also hear this, that they were interrogating other people. It was exactly the same method as they were applying for interrogating me, but the questions were slightly different.

AMT: So you could hear others’ interrogations. Did they cause physical harm as well? Were they asking questions? Were they threatening? What were they doing?

HOMA HOODFAR: They were threatening certainly and they were shouting. But there was no, in my experience, there was no physical harm but psychological harm, really. And so they were saying that they were going to be executed and they're never going to see the outside light again, and so this kind of treatment. But for me, they were always saying that you know you're going to get 10 or 15 years, you're going to—at your age, we’re going to send you back, your dead body back to Canada. And I kept saying well, I had 65 years of good life. I have achieved a lot of what I wanted and some, most people don't even have that chance so it's okay. If my life is going to be in prison for the rest of my life, that's fine too.

AMT: I'm struck as well. You're an anthropologist, you study gender, am I correct? You study women and so that you use this, not only to take notes on what was going on with you, but the sex workers in an Iranian prison, you got to study the treatment. They were not expecting you to be able to—

HOMA HOODFAR: No.

AMT: —to advance your academic research.

HOMA HOODFAR: In some way, they thought because I work on politics and they had heard me over the phone to say that well, when my sister was very upset I had said that don't worry, if they put me in Evin prison, all the intellectuals are there and journalists are there so I will be in good company. So it doesn’t matter. So they kept telling me so are you now in good company? Because they put me with sex workers because I guess they thought I had nothing in common with them. But in fact, it was quite an interesting situation. And what happened during while I was in a cell with them, I often ended up to be like their social worker because there was no one for them to talk to. I've met quite a few of them too because they would move me to a different cell. So it gave me a good opportunity to do my research.

AMT: Now you do have a health condition. What—can you tell us about—

HOMA HOODFAR: Yes. I have a neurological condition. It’s myasthenia, which affects my breathing and also like if I'm not taking my medication or have a good control over my diet and my rest, it affects my—give me my headache and also affects my voice. In fact, my voice has changed quite a bit while I was there. I'm hoping that I can go back to how it was once I get more treatment.

AMT: Well, you weren't getting all the medication you needed, were you?

HOMA HOODFAR: Initially I wasn't getting the medication. They wouldn't let me have the medication. But finally, even my family—after two weeks or so they brought my medication. They gave me the medication there but then physically I was really weak and frail by the end of my imprisonment.

AMT: They had charged you with what it was essentially, according to the prosecutor, “dabbling in feminism and security matters.”

HOMA HOODFAR: I know. They said dabbling in feminism but the charges were put on collaborating with hostile states, against the Iranian state because dabbling in feminism is not actually a crime in Iran. Feminism is not a crime. But of course to them, me being a feminist was itself like working with collaborating with hostile states and trying to import Western cultures, where in fact there are homegrown opposition and women have been struggling to change the situation.

AMT: We know that the Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion met with his Iranian counterpart while he was at the UN but that was 106 days into your incarceration. Did that seem like a long time for Mr. Dion to get involved? Did that meeting change things?

HOMA HOODFAR: I'm not aware of what happened but I knew that the Canadian government would be working through some means because I knew after what happened to Zahra Kazemi, I knew they're not going to take my case quite easily. So I wasn't aware of what was happening but I knew that people are taking action as far as is possible for that. But I had no idea. I only understood that there are diplomatic contacts which possibly leads to my release on a Saturday before I was released. I was released, put on a jet to Oman on Monday. On the Saturday night, I had two and a half hour of talk with one of the interrogator on camera. So they basically discussed issue with me on camera on Saturday night and on Sunday night. And from their conversation, I understood that there was some understanding that they are going to maybe release me.

AMT: And the interrogation was what, to finish up or was it to get something on the record from you to try to get you to confess? What were they doing?

HOMA HOODFAR: Well, what they do, they normally—yeah, they do have this long, long filming of all of the conversation. And I actually told them I hope you're not going to edit this and just present it the way you want. And he said no, no, no, this is for our record that if later you say things that contradicts what you said here, we can use it. But I mean everyone knows they get this films and then they edit it to say what they want to say, not actually what I said.

AMT: The day you were released, what was that like? What did they say to you? How did that happen?

HOMA HOODFAR: They told me to be ready at eight o'clock. At 12 o'clock at night, they told me to be ready at eight o’clock in the morning, which I was, but they didn't take me out until 10:30. They took me briefly in my apartment with two women and three or four men and some other car following our car. The women had put something in the suitcase and the women throw some other things out. They kept saying hurry up, hurry up. And then they decided they need to take me to the beauty salon to dye my hair. My hair had already grown white, which I wanted to keep it that way but they said no, you can't. And they basically fixed my face and my hair and chose what I am going to wear which is bright colour. It was quite—

AMT: So they wanted you to look a certain way. They wanted you to look like you had been healthier.

HOMA HOODFAR: Yes. Because while looking in prison, the way your clothes and everything is as made to make you feel—like it's a process of dehumanizing, right? You don't look like yourself. And then when they wanted to take me to airport, there wasn't enough time but they insisted that I should go and cut my hair and dye my hair, fix my face and eyebrow and wear the bright clothes and then go to the airport.

AMT: When you got to the airport and on that airplane, how did it feel?

HOMA HOODFAR: Well, I wasn’t even sure that everything is going to happen because in Iran, everything—I mean the course of events may change in the last minute. Once I got on the jet and the jet was in the air, I knew I was free. But not until then, nothing was 100 per cent sure.

AMT: Can you ever go back?

HOMA HOODFAR: They told me if I go back, I shouldn't do any networking and all of that. But I told him I'm not going to go back because the Iranian government has triple-divorced me. So I said the Islamic republic doesn't want me here and has triple-divorced me so I will not go back again. I don't want to go through this experience again.

AMT: It’s so sad, huh? That is—you have so many ties there, yeah.

HOMA HOODFAR: It is sad. This is the reality.

AMT: A lot of Iranian-Canadians go in and out of Iran. There seems to be a randomness to who gets arrested when. How wary should Canadians of Iranian descent—who have two passports—when the other one isn't even looked at when you get there—how worried should they be about going to Iran?

HOMA HOODFAR: Well, anyone who is social scientists or sometimes scientists that work on issues of interest to the Iranian, they should be wary because social sciences in Iran is considered a criminal activity. And therefore, I think they should be a bit careful and certainly they should not take their computer and e-mails there because that's what they used mostly against me.

AMT: Homa Hoodfar, I really appreciate you taking the time and effort to talk. I know as you say you still have health issues. It's good to talk to you and it's good to talk to you now that you are home. Thank you.

HOMA HOODFAR: Thank you very much. It was good to—you. And I want to thank Canadians for all the work they did to get me back home.

AMT: Homa Hoodfar at her home in Montreal. Let us know what you think of that conversation—an anthropologist who ends up in Evin prison and starts taking notes, using her toothbrush to write the notes. Quite something. If you have thoughts on what you heard as you listened to her, let us know. We are @thecurrentCBC on Twitter. You can find us on Facebook or go to our www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. If you're joining us partway through, download the podcast from there or go to iTunes and hear the whole thing. Stay with us.

[Music: Sting]

AMT: Coming up in our next half hour, it is that time of week when we get to your e-mails, your tweets, your Facebook posts about the issues we cover. Our Friday host is Duncan McCue. He joins me in 90 seconds. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM and online on www.cbc.ca/thecurrent.

Back To Top »

Homa Hoodfar's detention in Iranian prison not unique, says Human Rights Watch

Guests: Tara Sepehri Far

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I don't understand why when it’s a husky, the owner’s responsible. But when it's a pit bull, the dog is responsible and we must outlaw them all.

VOICE 2: I take to Syria all the money I have collected in Finland and I have to always make sure that I do have 700 toys with me.

VOICE 3: You need actions that create jobs, investments in infrastructure, much more work in energy efficiency.

VOICE 4: It's amazing lifestyle for the boys. I mean you couldn't wish your kids to grow up anywhere else but there. It was lovely. But then this last year has really taken its toll.

AMT: Well, that's a taste of the week that was, the week that is here on The Current. The host of Cross Country Checkup is this week's Friday host Duncan McCue—also a familiar face from CBC television, a long-time CBC television reporter and he's here. Hi.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Good morning.

AMT: So? You liking radio?

DUNCAN MCCUE: You know it's a bit of a shift from TV land, this new radio beast for me. And do you have any advice for me on making that shift?

AMT: Well, you know I realized I will not die of face powder lung because now I don't have to do that. [laughs]

DUNCAN MCCUE: Absolutely. And you don't have to get dressed up for radio either.

AMT: That’s true, that’s true.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Although I'm wearing a tuxedo right now, of course.

AMT: And I'm in my pajamas, of course. Yes. Yeah, yeah. [laughs] But it’s true. It is different in some ways and not in other ways. It's fun to work with picture but it's also, you know when people listen to radio actually, they see things, right? They see images of what we're talking about so.

DUNCAN MCCUE: And the connection with our radio listeners is so wonderful. That's what I love about Cross Country Checkup is just the connection with the people right across the country.

AMT: We’re in your head.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Yeah.

AMT: Okay. So on that scary note, let's look at what's been going on. Last Friday we heard about the debate over a ban on pit bulls after Montreal passed a bylaw banning new ownership of the dogs. Current owners will need special permits, they'll face new restrictions.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Why is my dog dangerous? When the husky killed the baby, the owner was charged. There was no bylaw outlawing huskies.

VOICE 2: You know what I would say to you is that our responsibility as a municipality is to deal with issues of public safety.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Yesterday, a Quebec Superior Court judge suspended Montreal's ban and restrictions on pit bulls until the SPCA’s legal challenge of the bylaw can be heard. And Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre intends to appeal that suspension. Many listeners wrote to us about this story on Facebook. Christopher Trider writes: “If you have ever owned a pit bull, you know they are wonderful, loyal, intelligent, friendly, trainable, affectionate dogs. They are from a family of dogs that are guard dogs that are there to protect you. Unfortunately, people have abused these dogs and learned how to tap into their aggression. The problem is never the breed, it is the owners and you are seriously wrong if you think otherwise.”

AMT: Grace Waszkiewicz had this to say: “Pit bulls are unique in a way that their bite locks in. It’s impossible to get free from it unless the animal decides to let go. To own a pit bull requires a special person. Banning dogs will not help, screening future owners will.”

DUNCAN MCCUE: John Lovas in Halifax writes: “Pit bull supporters use the same argument as the NRA— it's not guns but owners who are responsible for gun-related deaths and injuries. Pit bulls are bred and too often used as weapons. Both should be banned.”

AMT: Carl McCrosky in Stella, Ontario wrote in about our coverage. He says: “Your pit bull show was biased against pit bull bans. I object. Your show reduced the issue to a battle between bans and controls. Pit bulls were designed to fight. There is no reason I should have to live among trained fighters.”

DUNCAN MCCUE: And finally, Sandy MacRae writes from Amherstview, Ontario: “Banning a breed is a knee-jerk response to a human irresponsibility issue. Ignorance breeds fear. Tighter regulations and laws need to be established against the humans. All animals deserve protection against horrible people. We are the problem. Not the dog.”

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Tracking the story.

[Music]

HOMA HOODFAR: In my experience, there was no physical harm but psychological harm, really. And for me, they were always saying that you know you’re going to get 10 or 15 years, you’re going to—at your age, we’re going to send you back, your dead body back to Canada. And I kept saying well, I had 65 years of good life. I have achieved a lot of what I wanted and most people don’t even have that chance, so it’s okay. If my life is going to be in prison for the rest of my life, that’s fine too.

AMT: Earlier today, we heard my conversation with Iranian-Canadian Professor Homa Hoodfar about her return home after months of captivity in Iran's Evin prison. Her case highlighted the Iranian government's use of courts and prisons to stop ideas the regime prohibits. Tara Sepehri Far is a researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. She investigates human rights abuses in Iran and Oman. She is with me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Good morning.

AMT: So as you listen to her, what were you thinking?

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Well, I think it was very insightful to listen to Professor Hoodfar talking about her experience. I think she very thoroughly explained the patterns of torture and misabuse that we document in Iranian prisons and it's not unique to Iranian dual nationals. And also the point she mentioned about the prisoners, the sex workers she was imprisoned with, those were also very interesting because those are the ones that we don't get to document as much because of lack of access to Iranian prisons.

AMT: They're the ones we never know their names in the Western world, right?

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Exactly. And I think Professor Hoodfar very thoughtfully explained the complexity behind her case and I think that also mirrors the pattern we see in the cases of other dual nationals who have been arrested over the past few years in Iran.

AMT: What did you think of her release? What were you thinking as that happened? What was going on behind the scenes, do you think?

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Well, it was unexpected. We were not aware of the backchannel negotiations. I'm very happy to hear that Professor Hoodfar is released and she's safe at home. But obviously this is not a process that should be encouraged. A transparent process of negotiating prisoners release behind the scene only raises concerns about the reasons behind these arrests and why and makes us wonder if there are going to be used as bargaining chips any way in negotiations with Iran.

AMT: It's interesting because our foreign affairs minister spoke to his Iranian counterpart at the UN and that was like 106 days into her incarceration in Evin. And then the release happened very quickly. So would it be your understanding that something happened right there between the two of them or?

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: We don't have enough information and the reason we don't have enough information is that this process happens behind the scene and it's untransparent. My understanding is from also the prime minister statement is that the meeting at the UN and also the correspondence with the Omani government had something to do with the release and at least helped facilitate conveying the message. But as I said, we don't have enough information to exactly know what happened.

AMT: And of course we know that she came off a plane that was the Air Force of Oman. So what is Oman’s role in all of this? How do they influence? What are they up to?

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Well, actually the government of Oman has a history of helping some of the Western governments and negotiating some of the tough issues with the Iranian government and their name was first mentioned in the nuclear issue all the way back in early 2000. So this is not the first time the Omani government is facilitating negotiation between Iran and the West. And while I have to say that they definitely played a constructive role in securing release of Professor Homa Hoodfar, I only wish that they were also kind enough to their own journalists and critics who are often arrested and charged for criticizing the government.

AMT: So if we're going to get any transparency on this, it's going to have to come from Canada. It's not going to come from Iran or Oman.

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: That's my understanding too.

AMT: And so far, Canada's not saying much about the nitty gritty details of what went on behind the scenes.

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Not that I have seen.

AMT: Okay. Now, she was convicted by branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court. What is that?

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: So the Iranian court system has a particular court. It's called Revolutionary Court. And that court has jurisdiction over a wide range of crimes including the crimes that we call “national security crimes.”

AMT: And that’s crimes in quotation marks as well.

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Exactly. Because those are the very vaguely defined charges in the penal code that are often used against activists, journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers who criticize the government or assemble in the most peaceful manner. And this particular court has a history, and the sitting judge, Judge Abolghasem Salavati has a long history of sentencing activists to prolonged prison sentences. And we've documented many cases of defendants being denied access to the legal defense of choice which was also the case that happened to Professor Hoodfar and my understanding is that the judge denied the lawyer the family chose for Homa.

AMT: You have your own experience with that side of the Iranian system. What happened to you?

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Well, I was a student activist back in Iran and in the aftermath of the 2009 presidential election and the consequent peaceful demonstrations that happened, I was also arrested and detained for about a month in 209 ward of Evin prison and was ultimately released on bail.

AMT: And how did you get out of the country?

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: As I said, I was released on bail and decided to leave the country before my trial so I didn't go through the trial process.

AMT: Okay. And you can’t go back then.

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: I was sentenced in absentia so at the moment I don't want to take the risk of going back because there's a warrant against me that I still need to figure out a way to deal with.

AMT: And you have—in your work with Human Rights Watch, you of course are documenting Iranians who have no other citizenship and also those with dual citizenship. She named Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who is Iranian-British who was in there with the Reuters charitable agency. There are a couple of others who have been picked up around the same time. Is there something specific going on or is this a constant thing where people are picked up?

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: So over the past three years, and particularly after the nuclear agreement between Iran and 5+1, we have seen several cases. Half a dozen Iranian dual nationals have been arrested on accusations of working with foreign governments and basically facilitating an infiltration network led by the West. So this is—Iran has always been suspicious of even the cultural activities led by Western government but I think part of the Conservative establishment does believe that the Western governments are after influencing Iranian values and that's how they operate. Intelligence agencies arrest dual citizens and try to present evidence against their activities but so far they have failed to provide any evidence of any suspicious activities. Our understanding is that these are people who are not doing anything wrong and they are being arrested because of—

AMT: Internal things then.

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Internal politics.

AMT: Which is what she mentioned.

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Yes, exactly. Professor Hoodfar emphasized that. These cases are being used primarily as bargaining chips in the domestic politics. They want to have the upper hand when it comes to engagement with the West. They want to hold on to something that they could pressure the elected officials to not go too far in their negotiations and engagement.

AMT: Interesting. Interesting, the internal dynamics. Thank you for coming in.

TARA SEPEHRI FAR: Of course. Thank you for having me.

AMT: That is Tara Sepehri Far. She is a researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. She investigates human rights abuses in Iran and Oman and she joined us in our Toronto studio.

Back To Top »

Russian media coverage of the Syrian conflict is propaganda, says journalist

Guests: Alec Luhn

DUNCAN MCCUE: Okay. Moving onto another story we brought you this week: the story of a man known as the toy smuggler of Aleppo.

SOUNDCLIP

RAMI ADHAM: And why do I do this? It’s the smiles I get back. It's the beautiful positive atmosphere that we create, giving them a glimpse of childhood, a glimpse of hope, some joy to their heart.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Monday on the show, we interviewed Rami Adham. He walks over 12 hours into war- torn Syria across the Turkish border to deliver toys to children. The 44-year-old father of six, who has lived in Finland since 1989, is originally from Aleppo. For the past four years, he's been making this perilous journey in order to distribute medicine, money and most importantly, toys.

AMT: Quite the guy, huh? Most of our listeners were touched by this story. Michel Lavigne of Edmonton writes: “Bless this man! The little girl he was talking about, the way she witnessed the loss of her father, burned, in front of her! How can we possibly let such atrocities happen? I hope that Rami's message reaches more people. We need to know to stop the violence.”

DUNCAN MCCUE: @darlenecalli tweets: “I was tearing up listening to this story this morning. The Aleppo toy smuggler, Rami Adham, is my new hero.”

AMT: On Facebook, Tamara Moon posted this: “I listen to the podcast every day here in France while I make supper for my family. Today I had to stop to wipe tears off my face before they fell into the food.”

DUNCAN MCCUE: Tears in the food. Nice. And lastly, Shanon Odell writes: “I hope he makes many more safe trips. What a brave man. What a commitment to children.”

AMT: Well, on to another story. Tuesday, the Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna joined us to defend the Liberal government's new carbon pricing ultimatum after three provincial governments walked out of climate talks.

SOUNDCLIP

You know most of the provinces stayed in the room and what we’re proposing is really not—it shouldn’t have been surprising for anyone. There’s been working groups that have been working the past month, including on carbon pricing. I've had bilateral meetings with all of my colleagues a number of times. We have technical people that have gone out to all the provinces and territories and right now, over 80 per cent of Canadians live in a province where there's a price on pollution.

AMT: This story generated a lot of conversation. Kevin Johnson posted: “It wasn't a 'climate talk'. It was a 'climate decree'.”

DUNCAN MCCUE: Bc Martin writes: “Pay now or pay later. The earth is not a dollar store.” Pete Hillier says: “What exactly are we paying for? What will this tax grab do to reduce carbon emissions? I don't blame the three provinces for walking out. Those folks are currently bogged down in tax. Until you've experienced it, don't throw support around so frivolously.”

AMT: Graham Rannie posts: “How much more are you prepared to pay for groceries? Agriculture, fertilizers, trucking and refrigeration are high users of energy. If that energy becomes more expensive there are two choices. Groceries become more expensive, or Canadian-produced food becomes scarce. You make your choice.”

DUNCAN MCCUE: And the last bit of feedback is from Trevor Parker, who writes: “The three environment ministers who walked out prove exactly why the feds had to take the stand they took. If the kids won't play nice in the sandbox, dad will take away the toys.”

AMT: There you go. Now, we’re going back to Syria for a story we’ve been following. Last week of course, the bombing over eastern Aleppo was ramped up to the point where aid workers said the hospital and healthcare that was existing in the rebel-held areas were obliterated. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general called those bombings a war crime. He implied that Syria and Russia were responsible.

SOUNDCLIP

Those using ever more destructive weapons know exactly what they are doing. They know they are committing war crimes. Imagine a slaughterhouse. This is worse. Even a slaughterhouse is more humane.

AMT: Now yesterday the UN released satellite pictures showing increased devastation of that besieged area of Aleppo. And today the UN is predicting Aleppo will be totally destroyed within two months. All of this is playing very differently in the Russian media. My next guest says the difference has shaped how the Syrian mission continues to be supported by most Russians. Alec Luhn is a Moscow-based journalist who's written for a number of publications including the Guardian and he joins us from Moscow. Hello.

ALEC LUHN: Hi there.

AMT: How were those bombings covered in the Russian media?

ALEC LUHN: Well, the short answer to that is almost not at all. Only a few Internet publications even talked about those bombings. The state media, which is what the vast majority of Russians rely on for their information—especially state television—didn't mention them at all. As a matter of fact, there is a very stark contrast that day, that week, last week that the bombings were being talked about. All Western media were covering these bombings, the hospital strikes in Russia. They were talking about how the Syrian air force was conducting successful airstrikes against militants, against terrorists, how Russian soldiers were delivering aid to other parts of the country. So it was really a completely different picture that they were portraying in the Russian media and just not even raising the issue about these severe civilian casualties.

AMT: So even at a time when aid officials were saying at the beginning of this week that the healthcare system—the hospitals such as they were, were being obliterated—that's not the message that Russians were getting.

ALEC LUHN: Not at all. As a matter of fact, Russians were getting the opposite—the coverage from the opposite sides, so the government-controlled side of Aleppo. There were a couple of pieces—including one on channel one, the main TV station here—that was about how terrorists, as they call the rebels in Syria, were firing artillery and mortars into government-controlled areas of Aleppo. And even the Russian media admits that these government-controlled areas are pretty sparsely populated, not as populated as the rebel-controlled areas. But they were talking about how this could be destructive to civilian lives, meanwhile not mentioning at all the huge Syrian air force bombing campaign going on on the other side of the city.

AMT: So the pictures that we get on various newscasts here and in the papers of destruction, of whole blocks that have been aerial bombed, of civilians in trauma, do those reach people in Russia who are relying on traditional media?

ALEC LUHN: Not at all. I mean what I've been seeing this week there was a bit of death and destruction this week on the Russian state media just because a Russian state media crew actually came under fire. Nobody died, I should note. But then they went on to do a couple of reports, really bizarre reports, about how rebels were planning to conduct chemical weapon attacks on their own people to stage a kind of provocation and blame it on the government, versions of this conspiracy theory realm.

AMT: And in fairness, there are Western journalists who travel with you know the Russian and Syrian forces on the Syrian government's side. But you have Russian reporters doing that, but they never see the other side of the pictures. They never see what the citizens are uploading. Is that what you're telling me?

ALEC LUHN: Yeah. I mean to be fair, the Western journalists have gone to the government side and to be fair, that's probably the only side you can really go to right now because on the rebel side, it's very chaotic and you could end up you know bumping into a genuine terrorist group. Of course when journalists do go to the government side, they see a very tightly controlled picture of what's going on. The Russian government did a couple of press tours where they took journalists to Palmyra, the historic city that was retaken by Assad's forces a few months ago. And they staged a classical music concert among the picturesque ruins of Palmyra. So it was much more kind of a, you know mission accomplished victory in Palmyra kind of story. And journalists were taken on buses to that site and then taken back. As far as Russian state television journalists, they get to move around a bit more. They can go with—they can kind of embed with the Syrian army. But of course the Syrian army is talking about how terrorists are shooting at them and they're not shooting back, and presenting a very one sided picture.

AMT: So how does the Russian media handle the accusations that Russia is responsible for the killing of civilians in Syria?

ALEC LUHN: Well, the Russian media typically takes the official line on that, quoting the Kremlin and Russian officials who have actually blamed all that on a kind of a Western smear campaign against Russia. So for instance, when the humanitarian aid convoy was destroyed outside of Aleppo, an incident that the West and that the United States have blamed on possibly Russia, but definitely Syrian government forces because who else would be doing an airstrike like that, Russia said that that was actually—well, first they said that the convoy was not hit by bombs, it started on fire somehow. Then they admitted that it was an airstrike that they said a US drone had been in the sky during the attack. And so making lots of suggestions, implicate, kind of implying things, eventually a major Russian daily newspaper even came out and said that this was a CIA plot. The CIA had blown up the convoy to try to distract from Obama's failures in Syria.

AMT: So who is controlling the media in Russia?

ALEC LUHN: Usually it’s structures that are very close to the Kremlin. So for instance, Gazprom, the state owned gas giant, natural gas producer, has a media wing that actually owns a lot of television channels and a lot of newspapers. There are also some newspapers like Izvestia, like the channel LifeNews which are owned by—that's owned by kind of a very rich businessman who is known to have very close links to the Kremlin who gets all sorts of incredible scoops from the security services and who actually has a portrait of Putin hanging in his office. It's a bit of a mix but actually the state through state companies actually owns, directly owns a lot of the media here.

AMT: And do Russians seek out other outlets for news?

ALEC LUHN: You know Russia has a lot of—has pretty good internet penetration. A lot of people are on the Internet, a lot of people are on social media you know. And here in Moscow for instance, the Russians I know, they typically tend to you know they might not be on Twitter but at least they're reading Facebook, at least they're reading online. But every survey that comes out, every year continues to show that nine out of 10 Russians get their news from state television so that remains the main source of news throughout the rest of the country.

AMT: And so how much support is there for Russia's involvement in Syria?

ALEC LUHN: Well, the last survey we had, which was done by an independent pollster generally regarded as kind of the most trustworthy, showed that 61 per cent of Russians support Russia's campaign in Syria. That's actually down a little bit from 81 per cent in March. And I talked to the pollster after that poll came out because it was kind of surprising how the support had fallen a little bit and he said that war fatigue is starting to set in here, where you know Russians were promised a very short bombing campaign in support of Syrian forces. Putin even announced a kind of withdrawal, he had kind of his mission accomplished moment where he came out and said we're back in Syria. That was last spring. Of course then the bombing runs continued and the Syrian war, there's no connection, really, for people here. They don't understand quite why Russia is there. And you know to the best that we can tell, the reason that Russia is there is well, of course to keep an ally in the Middle East, but more importantly to kind of keep Russia, make Russia a major player on the international venue and make sure that Vladimir Putin has a seat at the negotiating table, whatever happens in the Middle East.

AMT: Alec Luhn, thank you for your perspective on that.

ALEC LUHN: My pleasure.

AMT: Alec Luhn is a Moscow-based journalist. He reports for the Guardian.

[Music]

AMT: Time to give credit where credit is due. This week on The Current is produced by Idella Sturino, Shannon Higgins, Howard Goldenthal, Ines Calabrese, Lara O'Brien, Julian Uzielli, Josh Bloch, Pacinthe Mattar, Sujata Berry, Liz Hoath, Karin Marley, Kristin Nelson, John Chipman and Willow Smith. Our intern is Jacqueline McKay.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Special thanks to network producers: Anne Penman in Vancouver, Susan McKenzie in Montreal and Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our senior documentary editor is Joan Webber.

AMT: Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto, Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar. And Duncan McCue, you are here tomorrow.

DUNCAN MCCUE: See you Friday.

AMT: Yeah, yeah. Duncan McCue, host of Cross Country Checkup back in here on Sunday, of course. Settle in. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Duncan McCue is here tomorrow. Piya Chattopadhyay is here all next week. We're on a special project. You'll hear more about that later. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti Thanks for listening to The Current.

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October 6, 2016 full episode transcript

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