On Friday night the 9pm news program of channel 1 TV, the announcer announced with ‎an emotional tone that Mohammad El Baradei, the director general of the International ‎Atomic Energy Agency through a report that Iran’s nuclear program was completely ‎peaceful without any inconsistencies and by declaring it closed had requested that the file ‎be returned from the UN Security Council to the IAEA.‎

One did not to be a genius to conclude that the report could not be accurate. So when a ‎group of my friends who were present asked my opinion about it, I said I did not doubt ‎that Baradei had not given such a report.‎

One of those present said, “They are making a direct quote. Can they fabricate a quote?‎

Fortunately for us, the Internet can help clarify such differences. I went online and ‎checked the news. ‎

Foreign news headlines showed that as usual, Mr. El Baradei had presented a double ‎edged report. But since the Iranian TV announcer and Mr. Vaedi had stressed that the ‎foreign media had boycotted the director general’s report through a coordinated effort, ‎one of those present protested to the headlines. So we resorted to domestic news agencies ‎and particularly Fars news agency which had translated the original report.‎

The report was completely double edged and to the detriment of Iran. But the important ‎point was that no part of the report said that Iran’s nuclear dossier had been closed, that ‎its peaceful nature was finally settled or that the case now needed to be returned from the ‎UN Security Council to the IAEA.‎

One of those present again asked, “How can this be? This means they are attributing ‎completely false statements to El Baradei?”‎

It appears that anything can be done during the ninth Iranian administration, including ‎complete manipulations of quotes to ones ends.‎

Iranian governments had in the past too never cared to provide direct quotes, although ‎they did observe certain rules. The ninth administration however has no qualms and does ‎not seem to observe any rules. And to attain its goals in a day, it is willing to attribute ‎something to El Baradei’s report that does not exist in the original text.‎

This is complete fiasco and shall create a full scale credibility and trustworthiness issue ‎for the Iranian government. Distrust of the news and information published by the Iranian ‎government can include a wide array of subjects. For example, how can one from now on ‎trust government statistics about unemployment, inflation, poverty, corruption and other ‎social ills, or even the claims of the state about its scientific and other achievements?‎

When a government presents a completely distorted and fabricated version of a public ‎and official report, how can you trust it to remain honest about real news and information ‎that cannot be verified by the general public?‎