Fact Sheet: Iranian Regime's Reaction to Charlie Hebdo

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January 16, 2015
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Fact Sheet: Iranian Regime's Reaction to Charlie Hebdo

Condemnation, Conspiracies, and Repression

New York, NY - Today, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is releasing a fact sheet on the Iranian regime's reactions to the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the regime's long-standing repression of expression and the press.

While Iran initially condemned the January 7 shooting at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Tehran then blocked Iranian journalists from demonstrating in solidarity with the Charlie Hebdo victims. Iranian officials and media also spread false conspiracy theories about the attack and condemned the magazine for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Setting the Precedent: The 1989 Salman Rushdie Fatwa

A key precedent for present Islamist hostility and violence towards satirists, critics, and commentators is Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa against writer Salman Rushdie for authoring The Satanic Verses. Khomeini's edict ordered the deaths of Rushdie and his publishers. While Rushdie has so far escaped direct physical harm due to extensive police protection, his Japanese translator was brutally stabbed to death in 1991 at his university offices in Japan.

Tehran's Condemnation of Charlie Hebdo

Although members of the Iranian regime criticized the attack, the regime also condemned Charlie Hebdo for previously publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. In fact, security forces in Tehran prevented Iranian journalists from even staging a demonstration to show solidarity with the victims of the massacre.

Moreover, senior Iranian officials have openly described the Charlie Hebdo shooting as a false flag operation. For example, on January 14, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said the French intelligence services perpetrated the attack to tarnish the image of Muslims. The same week, Mohammad-Reza Naqdi, head of Iran's Basij militia, said Europe carried out the shooting in order to incite Islamophobia and that it was staged--just like the death of pro-democracy activist Neda Agha-Soltan during the rigged presidential reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009.

Iran's state-owned English-language news outlet Press TV has also propagated false flag conspiracy theories, publishing "analyses" variously blaming the CIA, U.S. Special Forces, the Mossad, and "Zionist forces in the French government."

In contrast, a publication linked with the semi-official Iranian paramilitary organization Ansar-e Hizbullah congratulated Muslims for holding Charlie Hebdo accountable for the offense of insulting the Prophet.

When the first post-attack edition of Charlie Hebdo was published on January 14 with a cartoon of Muhammad on the cover, Tehran denounced the magazine for being "insulting" and "provocative," and leading cleric Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Sharezi said it "amounts to declaring war on all Muslims."

Iran: An Enemy of Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Expression

The Iranian regime is a leading enemy of freedom of the press and of expression. Iran is among the world's leading jailers of journalists, and on January 9, the Committee to Protect Journalists announced that "a new wave of arrests and prosecutions has been carried out by Iranian authorities in the past month." It also criticized President Rouhani for not "liv[ing] up to expectations that he would usher in a new era for the Iranian press."

Tehran shares with the Charlie Hebdo killers the belief that blasphemers should be put to death. In September 2014, Iran executed a man for "heresy and insulting prophet Jonah." Currently, an Iranian man is awaiting execution on charges of insulting the Prophet Mohammad in his postings on Facebook.

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