Hovyiat (correct English transliteration: "hoviyyat" Persian: برنامه هويت, "Identity") is a biweekly TV program that was produced and aired on Iran's IRIB TV1 in 1996.
"[citation needed] The series targeted a broad range of Iranian intellectuals (secular as well as religious modernists), archeologists, artists, scientists and national leaders as Mohammad Mosaddeq.
[1][2] The show is said to have "specialized in naming intellectuals as `hired agents` of the Baháʼís, Zionists, Freemasons," and foreign powers.
"[1] One Iranian dissident, Faraj Sarkohi, was kidnapped by security officials after (amongst other things) publishing an article "critical" of Hoviyyat.
He was "tortured to 'make and remake' videotapes confessing to being a 'foreign spy' and giving outrageous lies about his own and his colleagues' sex lives," before being released.