The screens have gone blank. The voices have been silenced. One by one, the foreign journalists invited to Iran to cover its election have been expelled. The Government has accused the foreign press of being the “mouthpiece of rioters”, distorting the country's image, and has decided to expel the messengers in the hope of changing the message. It is a foolish, cowardly step, unbecoming of a country wanting to show a new face to the world, and a violation of the hospitality offered to the hundreds of media organisations eager to show Iranian democracy in action.

Censorship is never the best way of winning hearts and minds. Any country that tries to hide its own affairs arouses the justified suspicion that it has something to hide. It was clear from the moment that Iran tried to rig the election and falsify the results that there would be trouble. The Iranians are sophisticated people, and the attempt to leave them in the dark is both insulting and counter-productive. They know that their own media are forbidden to reflect the lively debate about the political, social and economic future of their country. They know that the propaganda is distorted, the television images manipulated and the official announcements mendacious. They have turned therefore, in their millions, to alternative sources, where they hope the truth can be revealed: websites, social networks, mobile phones and foreign media.

What these sources have revealed is a massive attempt at deceiving a nation. The beatings, the shootings, the vast protest rallies and the chants of crowds incensed at the authoritarian attempt to deny them a voice have all been captured by cameras, phones and reporters sending out accounts of what is going on. This presents a very different picture to the Foreign Ministry's vaunted claim that the “existing realities” would be a symbol of the “utter transparency in the election process”. To claim, however, that the foreign media have instigated the protests and have indulged in an “uncalculated, hasty and rude reaction towards the illegal gatherings” is to engage in Orwellian Newspeak at its most absurd. It it the “existing realities” that are uncalculated and rude, not the reporting of what is happening.

Iran cannot have it both ways. It cannot demand that the world respect its civilisation and present an objective picture of its politics, while at the same time denouncing any unfavourable comment as a conspiracy. Either Iranian society is mature enough to hear the views of others, or it is on a par with those totalitarian states that see all information as subversive.

It would be easier for the clerical establishment if there were no pictures, no protests and no opposition. As hundreds of thousands of Iranians heed Mir Hossein Mousavi's call and take to the streets of Tehran, the danger is that the security forces will use the apparent absence of journalists, photographers and cameramen to wreak havoc. The absence of the foreign press will ferment the situation, rather than calm it, as the clerics believe.

Other countries have tried to ban all reporting of wrongdoing. It never works. It demeans the Government and gives a free hand to those violating the norms of civilised behaviour. With its strong religious principles and centuries of learning, Iran should know better. Both at home and abroad the new silence will be taken only as a cover for evil.