POMED Rejects Distortion of Our Online Reporting

Recently, The Fars News Agency misrepresented one of POMED’s notes summarizing a public event at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in which former Austrian Ambassador Michael Postl was misquoted (In Farsi) as saying  that “The Austrian Ambassador Confesses that 22 European Embassies Were Spying…” Another news source, tabnak.com, published an article (In Farsi) on their website with the title “22 Embassies Spying in Tehran,” also referencing our notes.

In reality, POMED’s notes stated the following regarding Ambassador Postl’s remarks:

He then shifted to the role of the EU, which was represented by 22 embassies in Tehran out of 27 member states. In the weeks following the election, the EU had daily crisis meetings and called on Iran to investigate the results, allow unrestricted access to journalists, cease violent crackdowns on peaceful demonstrations, and guarantee the right of assembly. “We got a lot of information from twitter and also foreign embassies who had diplomats out on the street,” he recalled. “But we were also intimidated and asked by the Iranians formally to not go out and report, that this was an internal situation and there should be any interference by foreigners.”

The EU also held four rounds of dialogue, with a particular focus on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child  and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Since 2004, Postl said, the EU has worked for a diplomatic solution

to Iran’s nuclear program. But in order to understand Iranian foreign policy, “one has to understand Iran’s domestic political situation.”

It is clear that the reporting by Fars News Agency and by tabnak.com misrepresents Ambassador Postl’s remarks according to POMED’s summary of the event.  Please click here for the full, original version of POMED’s notes.

POMED rejects and condemns any distortion of the content of POMED’s publications or online materials and urges the Fars News Agency and tabnak.com to engage in honest reporting that adheres to journalistic integrity.