Sean Penn warms to reporter's role in Iran

Reuters:

Actor Sean Penn, warming to his occasional role as a reporter, has quizzed the top contender in Iran's presidential elections about democracy and had a brush with security agents at an illegal women's protest.

Penn, 44, on assignment for the San Franciso Chronicle ahead of presidential elections Friday, had already caused a stir by turning up to listen to worshippers chant "Death to America" at Friday prayers in Tehran last week.

Sunday he tackled Shi'ite Muslim cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who leads opinion polls, about U.S. criticism of the election after hundreds of hopefuls were barred from running by a panel of religious hard-liners.

Rafsanjani, 70, a wily pragmatist who favors better ties with the United States, pointed out that Iran was fielding eight candidates for president -- a larger choice than American voters had at their polls in November.

"If the number of candidates is a proof of democracy, we are ... better than the Americans in this regard," newspapers quoted Rafsanjani as telling Penn.

Later Sunday, security men briefly confiscated the small video camera Penn is using to record his travels at a protest rally about gender inequalities by some 300 women.

Authorities had sought to ban the protest and scores of police formed a tight ring around the demonstrators.

The actor, who visited Iraq before and after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and wrote an account of his second trip for the Chronicle, has largely declined to talk to the media since arriving in Iran.

But he told a film student during a visit to Iran's Film Museum in Tehran Monday that the "Death to America" slogan chanted each week at Friday Prayers hurt Iran-U.S. relations.

"I understand the nature of where it comes from and what its intention is," he said. "But I don't think it's productive because I think the message goes to the American people and it is interpreted very literally."

Asked whether his idea about Iran had changed since arriving in the country, he said: "I hope my ideas are ever changing." READ MORE

Sean finally speaks!