TEHRAN – Iran’s embassy in London, in an official tweet on Monday, said Tehran’s ambassador to Britain has never threatened anybody.

“The allegations against the ambassador of Iran to the UK issued by the Reporters Sans Frontiere (RSF) and carried by some Western media are categorically false and rejected. Ambassador Baeidinejad has never threatened anyone, let alone any journalist,” the embassy said on its official Twitter account.

Following recent unrests in Iran and propagandistic supports provided by the BBC Persian, VOA, Manoto TV and Iran International Television for the rioters, Baeidinejad announced that he will file a complaint before the official institution for monitoring broadcasting networks in Britain against those media outlets that embarked on biased distortion of recent developments in Iran and inviting the people to resort to widespread violence against the country’s civil institutions. 

"They have put Iran in danger by trying to portray the rioters, who are murderers and arsonists, as political dissidents," the Iranian ambassador's tweet said at the time, according to RSF’s statement.

In a statement released on November 26 on its official website the Reporters Without Borders (the Reporters Sans Frontiere) claimed, “Ever since Hamid Baeidinejad, the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s former director of political affairs and international security, took over as the Islamic Republic’s ambassador in London, he has been threatening these media and journalists on Twitter.”

However the embassy stressed, “Merely stating that some self-exiled Iranians, who may or may not be employed as journalists by foreign-backed networks, are activists working to undermine the system of government in their homeland, is not a threat: it is a fact.”

On November 15, the government increased the gasoline price. However, the legitimate public protests against the price increase were directed at sowing chaos through targeted attacks on public and private properties, forcing law enforcement forces to step in to stop saboteurs.

Early estimates of an intelligence body showed that a sum of nearly 87,000 protesters and rioters had taken part in protest rallies and gatherings since November 15, when the increase in gas price went into effect. 

A large number of protesters, who over 93% of them were men, had only been present in the gathering centers and avoided joining the rioters in sabotage attacks, the intelligence report said.

"The identical methods of the main core of violent rioters discloses that they are fully trained individuals who have been prepared and looking forward to the situation to riot, unlike most people who have been taken off guard by the sudden hike in gas price," the report said.

The report showed that gatherings had been comprised of 50 to 1,500 people in 100 places in the country out of a number of 1,080 major towns and cities. 

It added violent raids and damage inflicted on properties are larger than what happened in the February 2018 unrest.

It also said most cases of damage to properties had happened in Khuzestan, Tehran, Fars and Kerman provinces. 

The report said most casualties had resulted from armed attacks on gas stations and military centers, adding that a number of police and Basiji forces were martyred in the attacks.

On November 25, people poured into Tehran’s main streets in very large numbers to deplore rioters who misused the peaceful protests against increase in gas price to commit acts of violence.

Prior to Tehraners’ rallies against rioters and hooligans, hundreds of thousands of people in other cities across the country took to the streets condemning violent acts.

 
MJ/PA