The Likelihood of the Photo of Khomeini Being Torn in the 2009 Protests Being Fabricated

Nearly five years after the Islamic Republic's state media accused the protesters of the 2009 election, Ahmad Pournejati, the former deputy of this organization, claims that the tearing of Ayatollah Khomeini's photo on December 7 of that year likely occurred in 'the state media studio.' During the student protest on December 7, 2009, Iranian state television broadcast images of an unknown individual tearing a photo of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, and subsequently accused opposing students of this act. In response to this claim, the leaders of the protesters against the 2009 presidential election results accused the Islamic Republic's state media of 'creating tension and paving the way for the suppression of protesters' and described the broadcast of these images as 'suspicious.' In this context, Ahmad Pournejati, who previously served as the deputy of state media, rejected the news agency's claim about the 'violent behavior of the reformist movement in 2009' in an interview with Fars News Agency on Friday, November 30, stating, 'I cannot accept violent behavior; violent means accepting your words. Which reformist has gone and thrown stones at windows?' He emphasized, 'If you bring one reformist who has been said to have even confessed, with the same confession mechanisms that occurred during Ahmadinejad's era, which we do not accept, fine, but many of them were not even present.' The deputy of the state media organization during Ali Larijani's management stated, 'There was violence, but this violence was an incident by a movement, and as someone who has worked in state media, I suspect that the tearing of the Imam's photo happened in the studio.' Previously, Reza Akrami, head of the Cultural Council of the Presidency, wrote in a letter to Mohammad Reza Naqdi, head of the Basij Organization, on August 19, 'Five years have passed since 2009 to 2014; have you really identified... who the photo tearers were and why they were not prosecuted and introduced to the people?' On Friday, Pournejati also deemed the 'mechanisms' of executing and counting the votes in the 2009 election as 'contradictory' to the law. He added, 'If a society that participated in the elections... raises its questions socially and spontaneously in the media and streets; that millions-strong gathering did not come to the streets on command from anyone, as is now claimed that the leaders of the sedition have been invited.' This sixth-term parliament member stated, 'If today you call for a gathering to defend the Islamic Republic or if you have a program for the funeral of an artist, it is not unlikely that four people from this side and that side may misuse it, but attributing those few to the entirety of a movement as counter-revolutionaries and foreign agents is an insult to the majority of society.' Iranian judicial officials and media close to the Revolutionary Guards attribute the violence that occurred in the protests following the 2009 presidential election to the protesters, accusing them of attacking certain government centers such as Basij bases. Meanwhile, the leaders of the protesters against the presidential election results and media close to them accuse the security and law enforcement forces of the Islamic Republic of directly shooting at protesters and suppressing peaceful gatherings.