Why recent BBC reporting from Iran should not surprise

Recent multi-platform reporting produced by the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet while on a regime-approved visit to Tehran has prompted much criticism, in particular on the topic of a state-organised rally which she chose to describe as a “family festival”.

In that report – presented on the BBC News website under the title “BBC in Tehran sees government’s ‘political reply’ to massive protests” – Doucet also told BBC audiences that the Iranian president “apologised to the Iranians for their economic suffering and said the government was listening”.

In an earlier report – “BBC in Tehran for first time since protest crackdown” – Doucet told viewers that “people speak of their hardship in trying to afford even basic foods as the cost of living soars”.

In a written report published on the BBC News website on February 11^th – “Lyse Doucet: In Tehran, rallies for Iran’s revolution overshadowed by discontent and defiance” – readers are told that:

“This year, the days are overshadowed by discontent and defiance over everything from the soaring prices of everyday goods hitting people’s pockets, to calls which sounded on streets last month for an end to clerical rule.”

Doucet then goes on to promote regime messaging:

“Children and adults waved Iranian flags and photographs of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, chanting their signature slogans of “death to America” and “death to Israel”.

“To me and to all Iranians, the revolution means a revival of life; new life was blown into our society and country, and I believe even to the Islamic world, and the whole world,” exclaimed a beaming young woman who, like many women participating in this rally, was clothed in a long black veil.

When I asked her about the protests, she replied: “There were people protesting who were dissatisfied with the economic situation, and their protest was legitimate.” But, she added: “It is clear that those who rioted, and brought about chaos, had intentions which originated from beyond our borders.”

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking from a raised stage in Tehran’s iconic Azadi (Freedom) Square before a massive crowd seething with emotion, reflected that view too.

He blamed “malicious propaganda” perpetuated by Iran’s enemies – usually code words for America and Israel – for inflaming the unrest he referred to as riots.

But this senior official regarded as a reformist, who has tried to strike a conciliatory note since the start of the protests, also apologised for the government’s shortcomings. “We are ready to listen to the voice of the people,” he emphasised.

He said they were making “every possible effort” to fix the problems – for him, that’s a reference to the currency collapse and cost of living crisis that sparked a shopkeepers’ strike on 28 December which spiralled into something much bigger.”

In a report published on January 12^th – a month before her latest visit to Tehran – Doucet had told BBC audiences that:

“It began in a most ordinary way. On 28 December, traders selling imported electronic goods in Tehran were jolted by the sudden currency collapse; they shuttered their shops, went on strike, and urged others in the bazaar to follow suit.

The government’s initial response was quick and conciliatory. President Masoud Pezeshkian promised dialogue and acknowledged “legitimate demands” in a country where inflation soars near 50%, and currency depreciations play havoc with people’s hardscrabble lives.

A new monthly allowance, amounting to about $7 (£5), was soon deposited in everyone’s bank account to help ease the pain.

But prices shot up further; the wave of unrest swelled. […]

Iran is broken by years of crippling international sanctions, mismanagement and corruption, deep seated rage over restrictions on social freedoms, and agony over the cost of this prolonged standoff with the West.”

The following day, her colleague Jeremy Bowen (the BBC’s international editor) also raised the topic of sanctions:

“But more significant for hard-pressed Iranians struggling to feed their families has been the impact of sanctions.

In the latest blow for the Iranian economy, all the UN sanctions lifted under the now dead 2015 nuclear deal were reimposed by the UK, Germany and France in September. In 2025 food price inflation was more than 70%. The currency, the rial, reached a record low in December.”

That was not the first time that BBC audiences have seen Jeremy Bowen explain protests in Iran as being the result of foreign sanctions. On January 2^nd 2018 – two years after sanctions had been lifted in accordance with the JCPOA agreement – he told BBC audiences that:

“When the protests started last Thursday, they were about the current economic crisis but as they spread, pent-up frustrations spilled out and politics became a big part of them.

President Rouhani has been widely criticised. He has disappointed voters who hoped he would do more to turn round an economy that has been damaged by years of sanctions, corruption and mismanagement.”

Notably, two and a half years earlier, in July 2015, both Jeremy Bowen and Lyse Doucet had assured BBC audiences that the vast sums of money freed up by sanctions relief under the terms of the JCPOA would be used by the Iranian regime to improve the country’s economy.

“President Rouhani was elected because people hoped that he would end Iran’s isolation and thus improve the economy. So the windfall that they will be getting eventually, which is made up of frozen revenues – oil revenues especially –around the world, ah…there are people who argue that look; that will go to try to deal with loads and loads of domestic economic problems and they’ll have trouble at home if they don’t do that. If people – the argument goes on – are celebrating in Iran about the agreement, it’s not because they’ll have more money to make trouble elsewhere in the region; it’s because things might get better at home.”  Jeremy Bowen, PM, BBC Radio 4, July 14^th 2015

“In exchange it [Iran] will get a lot. It will get a release of the punishing sanctions. We heard from Hassan Rouhani saying as Iran always says that the sanctions did not succeed but he conceded that they did have an impact on the everyday lives of Iranians. There’s an estimate that some $100 billion will, over time, once Iran carries out its implementation of this agreement, will be released into the Iranian economy.”  Lyse Doucet, Newshour, BBC World Service radio, July 14^th 2015.

In the decade that followed, BBC audiences were never provided with an explanation as to why the lifting of sanctions under the terms of the JCPOA did not in fact improve the lives of ordinary Iranians or bring a halt to the regime’s nuclear weapons programme.

For years BBC correspondents – including senior figures such as Doucet and Bowen – have failed to provide their audiences with realistic coverage of Iran-related topics including ‘hardliners and moderates’, women’s rights, terror financing and the regime’s nuclear programme. The BBC has also regularly platformed regime mouthpieces.

It therefore perhaps does not come as much of a surprise to find that – as was also the case after the war last June – the Iranian regime’s PR efforts included inviting Doucet (on condition that her reporting not be shown on BBC Persian) to validate its narrative. 

However, unlike some of the other ‘influencers’ and ‘activists’ also invited by the regime, Doucet is obliged to provide accurate and impartial reporting. It was therefore all the more notable that she had nothing to tell BBC audiences about the recent executions, the thousands of protesters who are still incarcerated or the regime’s demand that their relatives attend the same event described by Doucet as a “family festival”.

Related Articles:

BBC’S IRAN PROTESTS BACKGROUNDERS FAIL TO AMELIORATE YEARS OF OMISSION

A SOFT VIEW OF IRAN THROUGH THE BBC’S DOUCET FILTER