Iran : mocking over protest deaths on TV sparks outrage

Mockeries in a programme broadcast on Iranian TV over the protesters killed during the January protests has sparked national outrage in Iran.

The program titled "Khat-Khati" (“Scribbles”), was aired on Sunday on Ofogh TV, a channel close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

With a mocking smile, the TV host said the Islamic Republic kept the bodies in some cold places so that if the US or Israel later attacked Iran, the regime could blame them for these deaths. He then asked about the corpses whereabouts, offering mock multiple-choice answers.

“In what kind of refrigerator does the Islamic Republic keep the corpses?”, Mohammad-Hossein Mohabbati, the TV host, asked. He then offered mock multiple choice answers including a “side-by-side fridge,” an “ice cream machine,” and a “supermarket freezer,” before listing the fourth option “I’m an ice seller—don’t ruin my business".

His remarks were apparently made in reaction to comments by Arjang Amir-Fazli, an Iranian actor living overseas, that sparked widespread controversy on social media over the recent days.

Amir-Fazli said in a video posted on his Instagram account last week that the government was keeping a large number of bodies in cold storage so that “if Trump ever fires a missile, they can say Trump killed these people.”

Tehran Prosecutor has brought charges against the director, the production team, and the host of Ofogh TV, Iran’s official news agency (IRNA) reported, citing the Judiciary’s Media Center.

The director of Ofogh TV, Sadegh Yazdani, has been dismissed for “insulting the martyrs and those killed in the January events", the Public Relations Office of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) announced, and the program was taken off air.