New York Times publishes opinion pieces by agent of Iranian Islamic regime, fails to disclose his ties

According to the Department of Justice, an Iranian national, Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, is a “lawful U.S. permanent resident” who “authored articles and opinion pieces espousing the Iranian government’s position on various matters of foreign policy” without disclosing his ties to Tehran.”

Shame on the New York Times. Activist journalism is pumped out routinely by the Times, which is rife with propagandist “news” promoting the red-green axis. The New York Times has been the focus of much attention on Jihad Watch for its pro-jihad bias; see HERE.

Even CNN featured Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi as a “political scientist and author” who was “arrested and charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent of the Iranian government,” but they forgot to include the tidbit at the New York Times.

“Alleged Iranian Agent Has Been Writing Opinion For The New York Times On Iran, And They Still Haven’t Fully Disclosed His Ties,” by Andrew Jose, Daily Caller, April 19, 2021:

Despite it being four months since a New York Times opinion contributor was arrested on charges of operating as an Iranian agent, the Times has not immediately appended a note on the articles under the bylines of the accused, warning readers of his alleged unlawful ties.

Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, a political scientist who resides in the United States, was arrested Jan. 18 on charges of “acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of … Iran, in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA),” according to the Department of Justice, as previously reported. FARA mandates that agents of foreign countries engaged in political activity in the U.S. must regularly disclose their relationship.

According to the DOJ, the Iranian national and lawful U.S. permanent resident “authored articles and opinion pieces espousing the Iranian government’s position on various matters of foreign policy” without disclosing his ties to Tehran.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) alleges Afrasiabi received roughly $265,000 in undisclosed payments since 2007 from Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York City. In a written statement to the Algemeiner, the accused said “I received checks from the Mission’s UN account and it never occurred to me that I was doing anything illegal.”

The DOJ believed Afraisibi received his first payment in 2007 and his last until 2021. During this period, the Times published opinion pieces and letters to the editor from the Afraisibi. These include a 2013 letter to the editor asking the United States to be more appreciative of Iran’s Islamic “democracy,” and a more recent opinion piece published in 2018 titled “Trump and Rouhani Need to Talk.”

In some of the pieces, such as the 2018 opinion piece, the publication does append a note mentioning that he was a “former adviser to Iran’s nuclear negotiation team.”

Even though it has been four months since January 2021, when the DOJ unveiled the charges against Afraisib, the publication has not immediately updated ….