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?
