10 lies Western media is telling you about the unrest in Iran
Faramarz Kouhpayeh
Tehran Times
January marked Iran’s most eventful month since the nation came under direct U.S.-Zionist strikes in June of 2025. What began as harmless, peaceful protests by business owners demanding economic reforms—the fundamental source of the Iranian people’s hardship being years of crippling Western sanctions—devolved into what can essentially be characterized as systemic urban terrorism.
The lived reality in Iranian cities, and the genuine sentiment among the populace, stand in stark contrast to the narrative aggressively pushed by Western media. The horrors that Iranians endured during the early January nights bear absolutely no resemblance to the fabricated accounts being peddled.
In this regard, the media is slavishly echoing the talking points issued by Israeli and Western politicians who suddenly posture as champions of Iranian “rights,” all while conspicuously omitting any call for lifting the sanctions that have utterly decimated their livelihoods.
This sudden, feigned concern for Iranian rights is especially egregious when juxtaposed with the West’s complicity in the Gaza genocide, where Israel has systematically murdered at least 71,000 people over the past two years. The entire enclave has been reduced to rubble, and the remaining population is systematically starved and bombarded daily, even under a so-called ceasefire. The West, however, has done nothing less than actively justify and materially aid these atrocities.