A Window to the Fatherland/Dr. Nourizadeh/April 1

We begin tonight’s edition of A Window to the Fatherland with Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh reading one of his poems from the book of his collected works.

Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh: Today is the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic republic regime and it is truly a sad and dark day in our country’s long history.I vividly remember that on this day forty years ago I was staying at the home of my close and old friend Ali Meyboudi.In our mutual profession of journalism we respect our colleague’s points of views even if we disagree with them. Ali rang me yesterday and was furious about how some individuals in this business have been verbally attacking me only because they are jealous of how we have been working together on this channel for seven years without any problem and in complete harmony.I reminded Ali that when certain people attack us it must be because we are doing our job properly. They have in the past accused us of being in the pay of the Saudi government and that we have received 20 million dollars from them!!I invite these accusers to come forward and have a look at our sources of finance and go through our annual business accounts for themselves.Another issue that has really troubled me during the last few days is the loss of Morteza Miraftabi. He was the son of a cleric but never forgot his roots even though he rose to fame for his literary works and writing plays for radio and television productions.Naturally our main sadness at this time of national crisis is the devastating flood that has taken the lives of tens of people in Iran in recent days.And as Mohammad Nourizad has said in his eyewitness report on the floods in Iran, even Rouhani has publicly confessed that a major factor in the creation of the current disaster is the business involvement of the Revolutionary Guards in building dams, roads and motor ways by destroying all those natural barriers that could have stopped the flow of the flood water.