Reuters’ Wheelchair Journalism Has It All Fabricated

Date: 25 December 2019 - 22:18

News ID: ۷۴۳۷۹

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Iranian Ambassador to London Hamid Baeidinejad has vehemently dismissed a report by the Reuters news agency on the death toll of the recent unrest in Iran, describing it as "fake news”.
"Based on an old-fashioned policy, some media outlets make a lie colossal to make it believable,” Baeidinejad said on his Twitter account on Tuesday night.
"The Reuters report that claims 1,500 people were killed in recent events and attributes the violence to the leadership of the Establishment is an example of such reports,” he added.
"Even Amnesty International, which has sought to exaggerate the unconfirmed death toll, said about 300 people were killed,” the envoy wrote.
"In its fake news,” Baeidinjad said, "Reuters points to the killing of hundreds of women in the recent incidents while the presence of women in the demonstrations was low.”
"It is very questionable when a foreign media outlet with no correspondents or office in Iran claims to know the exact number of people killed in recent protests in the country,” the envoy added.
Reuters claimed in a Monday report that about 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest that started on November 15, including at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police.
Reuters claimed that the figures had been provided "by three Iranian interior ministry officials,” without further elaboration or naming any of them.
The Islamic Republic shut down Reuters’ bureau in Tehran in 2012 after the news agency published a video story with the headline, "Thousands of female Ninjas train as Iran’s assassins.”
Since then, Reuters has been filing a number of what it usually calls exclusive reports which often cited unnamed sources, making bizarre claims against Iran.
Baeidinejad said Reuters’ permit was cancelled over the news agency’s "policy of manufacturing reports and generating lies”.
He cited an earlier report, which alleged that a high-level security meeting had been convened in Iran to decide on a potential attack on Saudi oil facilities. He said a United Nations report proved those allegations were wrong.
Baeidinejad said the agency’s approach well reflected remarks made by "the owner of the Zionist media empire Rupert Murdock, who declared years ago that Jewish-owned media outlets across the world had a duty to support Israel.”
Last year, Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif said Reuters was churning out 50 fake news pieces a day about Iran’s economy.
In its report about the unrest death toll, the news agency has cited unnamed Iranian interior ministry officials as its sources, but the claim of more than 1,500 people killed had in fact first been made by the terrorist MKO group.
On Wednesday, Reuters said Iran’s authorities had restricted mobile internet access in several provinces, a day before new protests were expected to kick off.
It quoted an "informed source” at the

Communications and Information Technology Ministry as saying mobile internet access to overseas sites was blocked by "security authorities” in Alborz, Kurdestan and Zanjan provinces in central and western Iran and Fars in the south.
"According to this source, it is possible that more provinces will be affected by the shutdown of mobile international connectivity,” the news agency said.
But a communications ministry spokesman denied there was an order to shut down the internet. "No such order has been issued by the judiciary or other relevant authorities. The Fake News are at work,” Jamal Hadian said in a Twitter post.