NourNews – The remains of Nika Shakarami, a 16-year-old girl, were found in the backyard of a house on Labafinejaz St. in Tehran on Sep. 21, 2022. Since then, approximately four days after the death of the late Mahsa Amini, dual narratives have emerged regarding her death, suggesting either suicide or murder. Now, BBC World has revisited the latter narrative, prompting the question: “What intention does the agency seek by resurrecting an old claim?”
Less than an hour after the release of BBC World’s claimed documents regarding the sexual harassment of Nika Shakarami and her murder, the media added an explanation to its report, stating that the evidence had been recreated and were not original.
Under a report that BBC World itself acknowledged as having been recreated, the media outlet published a letter lacking a date or number. The letter quoted anonymous individuals, whose names and titles could not be revealed according to the report, claiming that their accuracy had been approved.
This is while, in addition to obvious signs including fonts, literature, lack of a confidential seal, and misprinting the “FARAJA”, there were significant errors namely the real place of finding the dead body of late Nika Shakarami and that differed from the place mentioned in the report, as well as several hours difference between the last call of Nika to her mother and the figure that had been mentioned in the BBC’s claimed document, which could soon expose the media.
The mother of Nika Shakarami had repeatedly stated that she spoke with her daughter on the phone at 23:30 on Sep. 20. According to her claims, Nika had informed her that she had participated in protests earlier that day following the death of Mahsa Amini and had managed to evade the police.
The amusing aspect of the so-called document is that it states Nika Shakarami was arrested between 16 to 17 at a gathering, molested in a van a few hours later, and then murdered. The question that arises is, “How could Nika call her mother after being molested and murdered?”
Another thing that very soon questioned the claims of BBC was imprinting the slogan “Year of Production, Knowledge-based and Job-Creating” on the top of the letter, which was the slogan for 2022, but under the same letter instead of “FARAJA”, the name “NAJA” had been used, which is the old version of FARAJA. It is despite the fact that the name NAJA changed to FARAJA in 2021 and since then in all sheets and official communications the name FARAJA had been consistently used, not NAJA!
Another gaffe was the location where the dead body of Nika Shakarami was dumped. According to BBC World, her body, after being molested and murdered, was dumped in a not busy street in Yadegar Imam Highway. This is despite the fact that her body was found near Amir-Akram crossroad. BBC did not provide any explanation for this contradiction.
The BBC reporter claimed that their report was the result of months of investigation and fact-checking. However, it took only an hour for various gaffes and contradictions to arise, casting doubt on its accuracy. Because of this, the media quickly acknowledged that the document had been reconstructed to protect the lives of those who had reached out to the BBC and provided it with this information.
Why would BBC World put forth such a claim at the expense of its credibility?
One proposition is that it was the media’s attempt to divert public opinion from the student movement protesting against the killing of people in Gaza by the Zionist regime in the US and Europe.
According to a number of observers, the propaganda and media machines of the US and Europe aim to shift focus from the primary center of tension in the region, Tel Aviv, through the old traditional cliché of “Iranophobia”.
The other proposition is that a infiltration group attempted to deceive the media by providing it with falsified and scandalous documents.
The third proposition is that they sought to misuse the implementation of the Nour Initiative by FARAJA in order to create an artificial wave in the virtual space, hoping that it would spill over into the streets.
Even if BBC’s intention was not the third proposition, a number of media and political figures welcomed it by writing on X, which was thought-provoking since some of the accounts that retweeted the BBC’s report or expressed emotions regarding it belonged to media figures who knew well that the first principle for publishing news is investigating its accuracy. The ignorance or deliberate alignment of this range of people with the distorted report of BBC World caused “a number of media activists that had published fabricated information regarding Nika Shakarami’s case, relying on the falsified and error-filled report of BBC World in partnership with anti-revolutionary groups, to be submitted to the prosecutor’s office.”
Iran’s Judiciary has announced that the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office, in line with the judicial duty to confront those who disturb the mental security of society, announces the crime and initiates legal proceedings against these individuals.
