UK Media Watch prompts correction to Guardian mistranslation of Rouhani speech

Yesterday, we posted about a Guardian editorial praising the Iranian nuclear deal (Guardian view on Iran nuclear deal: a triumph of diplomacy, July 14) which included this curious claim regarding Iran’s President, Hasan Rouhani.

In a small but perhaps encouraging sign, President Rouhani, in his statement welcoming the deal, referred to Israel by its name, rather than as “the Zionist entity”.

We noted that he did not use the word “Israel” and in fact did use “Zionist” in the pejorative.  Specifically, he referred to the Jewish state as “the Zionist usurper regime“, as this clip of a CSPAN translation from the original Farsi demonstrates. (Alternatively, MEMRI translated the words as “oppressive Zionist regime”)

Shortly after contacting Guardian editors, complaining about the mischaracterization of Rouhani’s speech, they completely removed the problematic passage, and added this addendum at the bottom of the editorial:

addendum

We commend Guardian editors on the prompt correction.  

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