Hundreds of headlines proceeding and following the parliamentary elections in iran were portrayed on major western news outlets, but irony rusted and relying on the opinion of just one or two citizens to adopt broad front page headlines, talking about the absence of democracy in iran, let us hear from fuad itayim, our broadcast expert and writer at the cradle, more about it in fake news expose. The electoral battle for the new parliament and the assembly of experts in iran which took place at the beginning of march, revolved around the Younger Generation of conservatives who succeeded in tipping the scales in many electoral districts, fact that did not go. Down well with western media, here is more about this with our broadcast expert fuad itayim, thanks very much for being with us to talk about this, what do you have for us about this . So western broadcast media has addressed the 2024 parliamentary elections in iran and uh the main message that was propagated by most of these outlets was that somehow the iranian people stayed away from the ballot in protest against the government. Okay so lets start with the british media outlet channel 4 who sent its lead presenter uh krishnan guru merthy to cover the news of the 2024 elections in iran, and he decided to basically not focus at all on the issue of the election and resort back to the same old western media narrative that rights are crushed in iran, so lets take a look. Lets see what krishnan had to say. Welcome to terran. In two days time, iranians will vote to renew their parliament in a key test for the countrys regime. The test being how many people will show up to the polls and not. Necessarily who will win. They are the first election since mass protest broke out two years ago following the death of young woman masamini under suspicious circumstances after she was arrested for not wearing a hijab. So krishna decides to open with the story of the late young uh masa amini who died in september 2022 and according to uh coronary examinations after her death uh masa amini died from cerebral hypoxia basically. Disproving the claims that she was killed by security forces, despite this fact, he maintains that she died under suspicious circumstances, typical western propaganda, and he opens with it about feature report about iranian elections, so this has nothing even to do with the protest that happened years ago, exactly, so making it worse, krishnan then finds a young nonhijabi woman on the streets of tehran hoping that shes going to tell him that the police have been harassing her, beating her, threatening her, and uh, the answer he gets is disappointing, so lets take a look, me asking you when you youre not covering your head . Do you feel worried about being out when youre not covered . No, no, nobodys ever given me any trouble, no one has. Is that normal in terron, everywhere in teran or is it just here . No, no, havent had trouble anywhere. I dont think he liked what she said, did he . Uh, not so much. He seems quite unsatisfied with the answer. So what he does now is he moves to a group of other ladies who the who they say oppose the policies of the iranian government, mhm. Instead of taking advantage of the situation and asking them in more detail why theyre opposed to the government, why theyd like to sit out the current election, uh, he decides to ask them about the genocide in gaza, so lets take a look at what they have to say, lets see that, the other thing were asking people about is is the situation in gaza, so do you think the people feel the same way as the government when it comes to traditional politics . No, are you kidding with me . Iranian people like peace, they want to live in peace, if you look at the our history, all of the time they wanted to be in peace, but the government is the opposite of that. Uh, i dont how this relates to the iranian election, which were of by the way, one in majority by the. Conservative side, but it seems that krishnan failed to find what he was looking for on the streets of tehran, which was widespread antigovernment sentiment, that seems to be what he thinks hes going to find, so he decides to ask about the situation in gaza, and resorts to the idea that iranians dont care about the palestinian struggle and only want peace, so his question is about gaza, so what peace exactly is he referring to, peace with israel, the illegal occupying state whose flag is painted on the streets of streets of tehran, basically people just. Stomp on while i walking and and this were talking about the same state that has openly supported resistance against scientis israel for the past at least four decades, so i think that question was some sort of a um a question that he wanted to get out of the peoples minds where they do not support uh any resistance in the region, but i mean 100 and hes look hes asking few people on the street instead of carrying out a white spread survey, its while talking about an election that the opposition lost exactly. 100 um so another mainstream outlet that propagated fake news and lies uh was cbs news, no surprise there whatsoever, definitely not, so cbs news got a hold of karim sajadpur, a senior fellow at the carnegy endownment for international peace, now kariem, an americanborn iranian who studied at Johns Hopkins and resides in the United States here makes sure to spew as much hatred as possible against the Islamic Republic without any fact. To back up his claims. Lets hear what what he had to say. Its good to see you again. This was the first parliamentary election in iran since the sustained mass protest over the death of massa amini. Does the turnout tell you anything . Its another reminder john that iranians know their living the religious dictatorship that cant be reformed via the valid box. I think whats particularly insulting for iranians is that all politicians. Lie everywhere, but when youre being ruled by a religious government that rules from moral pedestal and engages and this level of corruption and repression, i think its even more insulting than just being ruled by your run of the milk corrupt dictatorship. We have enough trouble uh believing polls here in the United States, so i hesitate to put so much or read too much into those opinions expressed in that poll, but do the findings square with your understanding about public. Sentiment in the greater population of iran . Definitely, i think everyone who um has been following iran for a while or is visited the country has has noted these popular sentiments for many years now, that after four and a half decades of living under religious government, people want to separate moskin state. So its quite audacious claiming that people live in a religious dictatorship in iran and. That the people somehow want to separate mosk and state, even though the entire country revolted against an actual dictatorship in 1979, a dictatorship that was secular and backed by america and israel and suppressed the rights of the entire population, also none of the figures that hes using are based any of the recent election results, and i dont i dont where hes getting the facts from, i mean these analysts that go on western media, especially broadcast media who are supposedly americanborn uh iranians but either have never visited iran or they visit iran to see family and then return, they dont even uh conduct any kind of surveys or try to get data from the people uh the from the public uh the least that they could do ask the communities that they uh visit and then go on tv and say things like this claiming that if you are religious state then you are dictatorship, mean that literally applies to 70 of the states around the world and uh that still is not the fact, not the real story about iran, but anyways, i want to thank you very much for explaining to us how the broadcast media was uh basically spewing all these lies about the elections in iran. Now ladies and gents, we move to digital Mainstream Media. It wasnt easy for western major media to accept a contrasting scene to what they had been promoting and the days leading up to the parliamentary elections in the Islamic Republic of iran. Most of the Opinion Pieces published by major western news outlets were struck by the public choice in iran that they practically recycled the same old stories and repeated the same old narrative when it comes to their regimes disapproval of democracy in iran. Julia qasim, our Mainstream Media expert joins us to tell us more about it. The floor is all yours, julia. Thanks marwa, so despite the massive western campaign to against iran. Basically boycott the elections uh for the islamic uh consultive assembly in the assembly of experts. Citizens participated enthusiastically with noticeable lines at the polling stations continuing on until the very last moments of the. First of march, so however the New York Times continued to spread lies by claiming that many ordinary iranians were fed up with the faltering economy and the socalled governments oppressive rules and violent crackdowns on peaceful protests instead of reporting the reality on the real reasons behind the economic hardships inside iran represented by the aggressive us and eu sanctions, illegally imposed on the iranian people. So in a piece published on march 1st, 2024, written by faranas fasihi and lieli noinokazar entitled many iranians boycott vote despite officials please and roses at polls. The New York Times claimed that the residence across the range of locations, big cities like tehran, isfahan and shiraz, and smaller ones like saudi and lahijan said in interviews that polling stations in their neighborhoods were mostly empty and only the most loyal supporters of the government had shown up to vote, which many other iranians choosing not even leave their homes, but in reality marwa. Small search on the same cities mentioned in this article and you can see that they lied about the turnout, especially in the capital tahran in shiraz and asfaham. So the New York Times piece was less chaotic than the Foreign Policy one published on february 29th, 2024, just one day before election day. The first suspicious part of this piece, writers themselves, where we have no evidence whatsoever if they were even iranian or not. Wow, as the Foreign Policy claims they were, saki nasiri, pseudonym of a journalist in iraq. Iran and tuba mosiri, another pseudonym of a journalist in iran who wrote an article titled irans new even worse hijab era has begome. Wow so the Foreign Policy here falsely claims that freedoms are increasingly under threat for irans female citizens according to womens rights advocates and United Nations experts who say that the hijab crackdown is creating a Chilling Effect on womens rights activism and legitimizing broader gender discrimination. Mind you, these womens rights advocates and un experts have known. Names and no positions which put such claims at the level of heresy. This piece by Foreign Policy continues to spread lines claiming that iranian women now cannot drive, cannot do their jobs and cant even have coffee without worrying about have their cars impounded, being fired or getting hit with fines if the hijab is not worn or worn to loosely. Yet, in reality, if you go on youtube and research these claims, look at the malls in tehran, look at the streets of tehran, you can instantly see that. These uh statements are completely false and that theyre nothing but fake news. Ive been there, ive seen it first hand, it is completely fake news, and as you said, people can just serve the internet and see what tehran and other cities in iran look like. Yeah, ive been there twice too, and in the north of tehran, women are wearing hats instead of and nobodys you know impounding them. Police is right there, nothings going on, so you dont even need to really ask people, just do a little bit of research uh on your own outside of these obviously biased uh sources, definitely. So lastly, the Foreign Policy peace claims that iran is regularly ranked as one of the worst countries to be woman in terms of gender parity for economic opportunities, education, health, concerns and political leadership. Guess according to whom marwa, according to research by the world bank and the World Economic forum wef . That was coming from an American News publication, the same america that does not only suppress women, but now has given the right for men to identify as women while knowing fully well that education and healthcare. Are completely free for all iranian citizens, unlike the usa, where they wrote these dishonest lines about iranian women. Wow, mean the audacity, especially of these organizations who continue to control many sovereign states, but have never been able to control the iranian state, for that matter claim that all these fake news about iran just to uh play with words and brainwash the public, i mean thats ridiculous, yeah, and they want to begin with their control of iran by controlling women. Which they havent been able to do, despite the fact that women in iran have uh their rights met uh years ago uh some rights that are not even found in the west, but i want to thank you very much our Mainstream Media expert uh in this segment, miss uh julia qasim for joining us to talk about this uh pressing matter that we always see whenever theres something happening in iran, especially if its elections. Thank you for your contribution dear uh julia, and now ladies and gents, we move to social media expose. Another topic that was center stage last week, especially on social media platforms was the airdrop shourade of aid and expired food on gaza residents and the famon caused by the ongoing zinus israeli genocide. Here is sima ietem, our social media expert and editor at the cradle with more. Thank you, mar. So air dropping aid, much like a placebo, it might make people feel better if theyre watching people who are watching from a far, but at the end of the day, its a showy. Our exercise and its inadequate, its pathetically inadequate, i hear you, its useless to the point where it becomes metaphor and not more, for the abject failure the International Community to muster up any kind of. Meaningful response to such a immense, unprecedented humanitarian tragedy. My second bad, definitely. So for the first post, we have a post by big brother seven who criticizes these airdrops, saying, reports from gaza say the airdrops of today werent enough for 100 people. For reference, there are hundreds of thousands of starving people in northern gaza with many children already dying due to hunger. The airdrops are just a cruel charade at this point. I said his opinion, i mean people who see my twitter can see that i was very vocal about this, so im not going to stop you anymore, right . We knew, i mean we could tell from the beginning, and then the aid killed some civilians, yes exactly, it got even worse than what we had expected, for the second post we have by qutz news network that quotes the Gaza Government Media Office reporting that the situation of famine is deteriorating with 2. 4 Million People experiencing severe Food Shortages and air drops which have proven to be futile, no my god so. So along with this post, qutz news network attaches a photo with a quotation from the Gaza Government Media Office saying that dropping aid from the air and avoiding its entry through the crossings circumvents the Root Solutions to the problem, definitely, i mean the border is there open the border for the love of god where there are thousands of trucks, not just hundreds waiting to be let through, we have another post by assaf md on x saying that not only is the amount of aid being airdropped completely insufficient, the most vulnerable of gazas civilian population will be unable to access the aid, so he attached a video where a care representative in ramala tells sky news that these airdrops make it impossible for people with disabilities to remain alive. Lets see what she said, lets take a look. First of all, they are, there is the issue of accuracy, there is the issue of being so expensive, the limited number that they will have and the limited content, so its only meals while the needs are massive, and most importantly you on. Those who can reach physically strong to reach to these aid will be getting them, so women, elderly, womanheaded household, people with unfortunately disabilities will not be among those that are going to access the aid, so even people with disabilities are finding it hard to get the least amount of aid in gaza, yeah, the minimum. We have another post on x uh, from a gaza resident who is currently displaced to Southern Gaza with his family, mysara at whatever 2067. Laying it out as it is uh jordan complicity turns gaza into a hunger game where people have to fight and even get killed to get food. Israel wanted this and jordan airdrops did the job. Sadly said by gazin who is a resident of gaza displaced to rafah and i think the the people that we should hear the most are the palestining people in gaza and no one else outside that besieged area so now in response. To the World Health Organizations report entitled gaza worst famon fears realized as 10th child reportedly starves to death. Michael fakhri who is the un special reporter on the right to food posted israel has been intentionally starving the Palestinian People in gaza since october 8th. Now famon may very well be already occurring. The only way to end prevent this famin is immediate cease fire and the only way to get a cease fire is to sanction israel. No, so that was a first, i think madwa, we see a Un Rapporteur calling for sanctioning the israeli entity, i dont think ive seen that before, in order to reach seasf, this is kind of coming to terms with reality, finally realizing that there is other way around this, definitely even we are we were listening a bit uh from the byan administration certain officials saying that they dont condone whats happening yet they dont have the power to change it, which we really dont believe, but uh l