BBC Ignites Backlash With Obituary Calling Late Iranian President’s Legacy ‘Mixed’
People carry coffins during a funeral procession for the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and seven other passengers and crew who were killed in a helicopter crash on a fog-shrouded mountainside in the northwest. (Photo by: Ali Mohammadian Ahrabi/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)
The BBC is being accused of downplaying the violent legacy of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in an obituary published after he died in a helicopter crash on Sunday.
The article mentions Raisi’s rise to prominence for his role in the “death committee” of the 1980s, which sentenced thousands of dissidents to death and earned him the nickname “Butcher of Tehran.”
The obituary then touches on the death of Mahsa Amini, a teenager arrested for not wearing a hijab in public and whose death in custody in 2022 resulted in protests across Iran. The article mentions Raisi’s funnelling of billions into Islamist proxy groups across the Middle East like Hamas but goes on to offer minor political initiatives that reflect what it says is a “mixed” legacy, noting Raisi made unfulfilled promises to build affordable housing and fight inflation.
Critics, however, have protested the portrayal and see the wider article as giving his legacy an undue leniency, despite having been a hardline Islamist who led a brutal regime that repressed the Iranian people for decades. The BBC tweet sharing the article even received a community context note, underlining Raisi’s role in the killing of dissidents and even children.
Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle expressed his dismay:
As did TalkTV host Julia Hartley-Brewer:
Conservative Home editor Tim Montgomerie blasted the article as “disgraceful” and compared the take to rehabilitating Hitler’s image.
He wrote: “Hitler’s legacy was also “MIXED”. Yes, there was the holocaust and WW2 but he built the autobahns and liked dogs.”
Conservative commentators Douglas Murray and Konstantin Kisin also weighed in.
https://x.com/KonstantinKisin/status/1792687888850968766
Writing for The Sun on Wednesday, Murray asked why the BBC “mourned” Raisi and blasted the United Nations office in New York as “morally sick” for flying its flag at half mast for him. He said: “The BBC, Foreign Office and United Nations may not know what a tyrant is. But the Iranian people do.”
Spiked editor Fraser Meyers characterised the article as a “hamfisted attempt at balance” that he sees as part of a wider issue at the BBC.
In an article of his own on the subject, Meyers wrote: “Of course, we all understand the BBC’s duty to be impartial. No one expects or wants the Beeb to produce tub-thumping op-eds denouncing and condemning various world leaders. But this hamfisted attempt at balance ends up severely downplaying Raisi’s brutality. It’s as if a few well-intentioned (and failed) social policies can somehow cancel out decades of violent Islamist repression.”
