Some of the most incendiary accusations made against Iran’s government by corporate media, celebrity influencers and Western leaders in the past months are little more than fabrications. And most remain uncorrected.
by Setareh Sadeqi and Christopher Weaver
Part 4 - 15,000 protesters sentenced to death? Trudeau, Hollywood celebs denounce Iran on the basis of a phony story
Joined by noted Iran scholars Viola Davis, Elijah Wood, and Sophie Turner, as well as boomer guitar talk box pioneer Peter Frampton, the Canadian Prime Minister and World Economic Forum’s representative in Ottawa, Justin Trudeau, posted a graphic on social media claiming that Iran “sentences 15,000 protestors to death – as a ‘hard lesson’ for all rebels.”
A Newsweek story pushing the extraordinary claim that Iran had sentenced 15,000 people to death for protesting immediately went viral on social media. Yet the claim has been debunked by even official “fact-checkers” normally hostile to Iran’s government. These include the BBC, The Guardian, Time Magazine. While other celebrities suddenly weighing in on Iranian affairs have deleted their posts, Elijah Wood’s tweet expressing horror at the totally fabricated statistic of 15,000 condemned protesters remains active, with over 6000 likes.
The basis for this pile of disinformation was an official request by the Iranian parliament calling for stronger measures exclusively against violent rioters. It read as follows: “227 [of 290] MPs asked the judiciary to firmly respond to the provocateurs in recent riots… We the representatives of this nation ask all officials of the country, including the Judiciary Branch, to deal as soon as possible with the ‘muharibs,’ which like ISIS used all sorts of weapons to attack people and their property, in a way that teaches others a lesson in accordance to the law […] so that it is proved to everyone that the lives, properties, security and honor of our dear people are the redlines of this establishment and it will not compromise with anyone in these matters.”
Muharib, a term specifically used to define a criminal offense roughly translated as “armed thuggery,” is distinct from a reference to protestors; it refers specifically to people carrying weapons and engaging in violent activity. According to legal statutes, muharibs are to be executed or exiled.
The mostly symbolic request from Iran’s parliament to the judiciary did not refer to protestors, nor did the actual law for punishing “armed thuggery” necessitate execution. In response to the request, a member of Iran’s judiciary responded with irritation, stating, “You should ask me to implement the law, not dictate the nuances to me of what to do or what not to do.”
So where did the utterly bogus claim of 15,000 Iranians sentenced to death for merely protesting their government originate from?
Omid Memarian, an Iranian emigre employed by the Dawn MENA organization founded in the name of the late CIA asset Jamal Khashoggi, was the first to tweet about the non-existent 15,000.
The mostly symbolic request from Iran’s parliament to the judiciary did not refer to protestors, nor did the actual law for punishing “armed thuggery” necessitate execution. In response to the request, a member of Iran’s judiciary responded with irritation, stating, “You should ask me to implement the law, not dictate the nuances to me of what to do or what not to do.”
So where did the utterly bogus claim of 15,000 Iranians sentenced to death for merely protesting their government originate from?
Omid Memarian, an Iranian emigre employed by the Dawn MENA organization founded in the name of the late CIA asset Jamal Khashoggi, was the first to tweet about the non-existent 15,000.
His tweet was quickly followed with one by Karim Sadjadpour, who claimed without a shred evidence that Iran had jailed 15,000 protesters. Sadjadpour is a Beltway-based Iranian anti-government activist employed by the NATO state-funded Carnegie Endowment.
Despite the fact that Memarian and Sadjadpour reside well outside Iran, dependent entirely on elite US imperial institutions for their livelihoods, Reader Supported News claimed they were “prominent figures in Iran…calling for a response from foreign governments.”
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