Iran, Zaid Hamid, fake photos and Husni Mubarik!

I recently came across an old fake picture released by the semi-official Iranian news agency, FARS News. The jokers were at it once again. The story went that “a hideout in Iran's south-eastern city of Zahedan was conquered, Iranian police discovered several US-made remote controlled detonators there”. Of course the intention of the terrorists was to “sow discord between Shiite and Sunnite Muslims”. The story remained on their newswire for over 24 hours. It later transpired that the photograph used as 'evidence' was a (badly) Photoshopped and wholly fraud, no doubt aimed at discrediting the US.

This reminded me of another fakery that the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Sepah News (yes, Iranian counterpart of ISPR) committed. Apparently, Iran tested some missiles whereas one missile failed to launch. Not to be undone by this technical hitch, the Revolutionary Guards fixed the fault using Photoshop! Easy!

The first picture is the faked one, while the second is the original that the Sepah News later released once the emperor was discovered without his clothes by the whole world.

Top, the image that Agence France-Presse obtained from Sepah News on Wednesday. Below, another image that The Associated Press received from the same source on Thursday, which appeared to be taken from the same vantage point at almost the same time. 

This makes me think that there are still some sane elements in the Revolutionary Guards. If our very own defence and security expert, Sir Zaid Hamid, was in charge of the Iranian ISPR, perhaps this is how he would have fixed the technical glitch in the launch of missiles with the help of his (pirated) Photoshop!

Staying on the topic of pictures faked on behalf of our clowns to fool the public, does anyone remember this joker?

When in his pomp, to impress the boss, the most widely circulated state-run newspaper in Egypt, Al-Ahram, altered the picture below to show Mubarik at the front, rather than the back, of a group of leaders who met at the White House to talk about peace in the Middle East.

Here is what the scene looked like in reality.

 

The editor explained, after caught with his pants down, that he wanted to show that Mubarik was playing a leading role in the talks!

Taking cue from this, a few others had a go at showing Mubarik in a leading role!

 

 

And finally, it seems that the Iranian version of ISPR is rather good with its (pirated) copy of Photoshop. According to this report below, it simply copied and pasted pictures of model aircraft made out of plastic, into the website of Iranian Foreign Ministry to show the strength of the Iranian Air force and its “latest weapons”!

However, real pictures of Iranian military successes are also regularly released by the government-run news agencies. According to Sipah News, the jet on the left came first in a race to get to and destroy a dummy target during a practice run of an attack on Israel.

(Mohammad Jawad)