Embassy to Complain to Ofcom Over Airtime for Terrorist

Date: 23 September 2018 - 21:36

News ID: ۵۷۶۶۵

LONDON (Dispatches) -- Iran’s ambassador to the UK has announced he would lodge a complaint with the British media regulator, Ofcom, over the conduct of London-based Iran International, which is run by a company owned by a Saudi national, because it gave airtime to the spokesperson of the terrorist group behind Saturday’s terrorist attack in Ahvaz.
"Iran International has shamefully broadcast an interview with the spokesperson of the terrorist group behind today’s terrorist attack in Ahwaz. We condemn this heinous act and will pursue formally with Ofcom to investigate it as an act in supporting terrorism and violence,” Hamid Baeidinejad tweeted.
Iran International claimed its decision was in line with its professional duty to inform audiences. Many in Iran, however, said it was like giving airtime to Daesh official after a terrorist attack in the west.
The spokesperson of the terrorist group Yagoub Hor Altasteri told Iran International that the attack was aimed at the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and the armed forces of the Islamic Republic but the assailants fired indiscriminately at both troops and civilians watching a military parade Saturday.
A number of Arab media close to Saudi Arabia portrayed it as merely a legitimate attack targeting military officials. Al Wesal TV, a Saudi-based Wahhabi educational channel, wrongly referred to the Iranian city as "occupied Ahvaz”.
Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, a postdoctoral research fellow in modern Iranian history at University of Oxford, said Iranians had been furious on social media over a double standard in western media coverage of "what Iranians overwhelmingly see as a terrorist attack, with the sole aim of sowing fear and ethnic divisions”.
"It comes after decades of vilification in which Iranians are often depicted as the agents of terrorism, or are expected to ‘prove’ themselves as ‘good’ Middle Easterners deserving of international sympathy and empathy,” he said.
"The fact that Iranians are under severe economic pressure at home, and regularly demonized by the Trump administration in concert with a longer-standing history of grievances in which the West can be seen as turning a blind eye, are surely key to understanding a lot of the popular anger we’re seeing on social media about alleged double standards.”
Press TV published an article headlined "Reactions to attack: How West sees it differently”, protesting that some Western media were giving scant coverage, dropping the term "terrorist attack” despite civilian casualties, or portraying it as a merely an attack on military personnel.