How Iranian media saved Ahmadinejad from embarrassment

If you ever needed an indication of how the media spouts the propaganda of authoritarian regimes like loyalist apparatchiks faithfully repeating the party line then look no further than Iran.

Coffee Housers will remember that last week I highlighted the damning speech given by Mohammed Mursi in Iran during the Non-Aligned Movement conference where he took the opportunity to slam the Syrian regime, describing it as having lost its legitimacy.

Mursi’s grandstanding caused some embarrassment to Ahmadinejad given Iran’s unconditional support for Bashar al-Assad – but that’s where the embarrassment seems to have stopped.

Keen to shield ordinary Iranians from any criticism of Tehran’s policy in Syria, Iranian state broadcasters simply mistranslated Mursi’s speech by replacing the word ‘Syria’ with ‘Bahrain’. This chimes perfectly with Iranian interests as the government wants regime change in the latter while hoping to preserve the former.

Small wonder, then, that Ofcom was finally persuaded to revoke the UK broadcasting licence for Press TV, Iran’s state sponsored English news channel, earlier this year.