To date, Gunaz TV, based in Chicago, is the closest any of these operations have come to being a success story. The satellite television station, started in April 2005 by Chicago businessman Ahmad Obali, an ethnic Azeri from Iran, focuses mostly on human rights issues in Iran; start-up capital came from donations by human rights activists and Iranian Azerbaijanis living in the US and Canada.

The operation runs on a shoestring budget of roughly $400,000 per year. Obali himself, a film school graduate, acts as technician, anchor and commentator. Volunteers provide much of the additional work. Obali denies what he claims are Iranian propaganda reports that the station is funded by the United States Department of State.

It is a running theme in our communications that human and national rights of Southern Azerbaijanis are violated by Iranian authorities through arbitrary detentions and sentences. We submit two documents to shed further light to this theme and one of them is particularly directed towards supporting the communication

“There were a few guards who shouted slogans that were inappropriate and that’s now the subject of a government investigation,” an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, Sami al-Askari, told Reuters news agency.

The BBC’s Peter Greste, in Baghdad, says Iraq’s government is desperate to clear the air, having hoped that the execution would signal the start of the reconciliation process between the Sunni and Shia communities.

“There is a great deal of concern about how the money is being spent, what the costs are to the military and to our readiness in the future,” said Peter Fenn, a Democratic strategist. “I think what the Democrats are going to say is that we are not passing this in the dead of night. We want to see where the money is going and how it is going to be spent.”