Hezbollah denies interview

Workers World newspaper's editors learned on Sept. 1 that Hussain Rahhal, Hezbollah's press liaison, while answering a question from a correspondent of the Anatolian Press Agency regarding an interview purported to be with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and published Aug. 12 in the Turkish socialist newspaper Evrensel, said: "Our secretary general Nasrallah has not given any interviews to any Turkish or other non-Lebanese journalist during the month of August."

Soon after it had been published in Turkish, an English translation of the original purported interview was made available on the Internet. On Aug. 23, Workers World published excerpts from this text. It was also published in English by Counterpunch as well as other publications, and translated and published in other languages.

At the time of publication, some had questioned the authenticity of the interview. Counterpunch's Alexander Cockburn wrote a reply defending the publication of the purported interview, citing, in part, the lack of any denial of the interview from Nasrallah or Hezbollah. When excerpts were published in Workers World on Aug. 23, some 11 days after the original Turkish publication, there still had been no public denial of the interview.

What Workers World knows of the story behind the interview comes mostly from the newspaper Evrensel, which has been publishing for 12 years and is a respected newspaper of the Turkish left. Two Turkish filmmakers associated with the "Sheikh Bedreddin Film Collective," Roza Cigdem Erdogan and Mutlu Sahin, were in Beirut making documentary films. The two had written other newspaper reports for Evrensel before they turned in the purported interview with Nasrallah.

Evrensel apologized to its readers and to those who republished the text for publishing the alleged interview and demanded an explanation from the film collective. The film collective has replied with a statement saying they are investigating the events. There was no immediate response from the two filmmakers who had claimed to have done the interview.

—WW editorial board, Sept. 2