UK Riots: Iranian Photo Fraud Exposed
August 16, 2011 15:39 by Simon Plosker
The laughable propaganda coming out of the Iranian regime aimed at the British authorities’ handling of recent riots has descended to even more embarrassing levels.
Not content with publicly criticizing UK police “brutality” and “human rights abuses”, Iran has published photos of the riots to illustrate their point.
Or have they?
The Guardian reports:
Iranian media affiliated to the Islamic regime have been accused of using library images from different times and locations in Britain and other parts of the world to portray the UK riots as “the uprising of the oppressed against the British monarchy“.
Soon after the rioting broke out, the Iranian regime seized on the unrest to get back at the British government by condemning what it described as “the violent suppression of the political opposition and the oppressed”.
But in recent days Iran‘s online community and blogosphere have shown that pictures published in the regime’s news agencies and daily newspapers were taken at different times and places.
Most were published by the semi-official Fars news agency, whose paymasters are the elite revolutionary guards, and Keyhan newspaper, which is under the direct control of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Pictures provided by Fars are widely used in other media groups across Iran.
An Iranian who blogs under the name Gomnamian has devoted significant time to demonstrating where some of the pictures used by Fars were published beforehand. Fars deleted some pictures once word spread across the web.
Among the pictures is a one of a man whose face is covered in blood, which the Daily Mail had published in September 2010 alongside a story about security plans ahead of a football match between Manchester United and Rangers.
Another photo used by Fars was taken from a 2009 London protest in support of the Palestinians.
One appeared to be from Chile, and featured a road sign in Spanish.
One image showed a street full of police but was actually taken at the Notting Hill carnival in 2008.
A picture showing police on horseback was from the miners’ strike in 1984.
Perhaps we could laugh off these rather pathetic efforts by the Iranian regime and its media at anti-British propaganda. Except that Iran is a brutal, terror-sponsoring state seeking nuclear weapons capability and represents a threat not only to Israel but the entire civilized world.
Isn’t it time that the UK finally shut downs Press TV and prevents Iranian propaganda reaching British television screens?
Noel
6:50 pm
Aug 17, 2011
Great example of “you asked for it…you got it”. Great Britain has been coddling, supporting, feeding and giving special status to terrorists for 4 decades…an now you gripe?
Get real.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
22 
1
Neil Willens
6:52 pm
Aug 17, 2011
I think Gerry raised an excellent point, but it is lost on those deaf to Western concepts of ethics, morality, humanity, in short most of western civilization. The tit for tat remark by the FARCE (some call it FARS) is as valid at press releases from Hamas and Hezbollah, as they all come from the same place where history is rewritten to suit the daily propaganda needs of their own people to fuel hatred. The West is primarily glued together with brotherhood while the Islamist world is bound by hatred of the world of humanity that surrounds them.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
16 
1
Link
6:02 am
Aug 31, 2011
This whole thing with the riots seems rotten. As someone from the USA i’m not as affected by the violence I guess but I still don’t see how it came to this…..
I think it’s to be expected that there will be bias. practically everyone who knows alot about something has an opinion….even if it’s wrong. (-cough- fox news -cough-) but someone has to regulate these images! free media only goes so far……
out of curiosity, are blogs taken seriously in the UK?
Agree or Disagree:
1 
3
Brian Freed
5:11 pm
Aug 31, 2011
As yea sow so shall you reap. Ah. my British friends, a bitter pill to swallow. How about blaming Israel.
Brian.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
6 
2
Tejano
10:33 pm
Aug 31, 2011
How about blaming Israel? Nah, Israel is to blame for the weather, and the little jew under your bed will take the rap for that
Agree or Disagree:
2 
1