Iran Video Special: How Regime Used "Ninjas" to Shut Down Press in Tehran

All the Regime Needed: Britain's ITN uses footage to portray Iran's "women ninja assassins"

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Twenty-four hours ago, when we posted "Iran Breaking: Female Ninjas to Sue Reuters for Defamation", we did not as a serious investigation but as a follow-up poking fun at Iranian media using an over-blown story for propaganda against "Western" media.

Little did we know that, by the end of the day, the light-hearted would have turned so serious. Far from being just another episode in the "female ninja" PR saga --- which began with a Press TV profile at the start of February on women pursuing martial arts --- yesterday's presentation by State media was the set-up to shut down most of the non-Iranian journalists still working in Tehran.

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Iran Propaganda Special: Creating "3000 Female Ninja Assassins"

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On Sunday, we featured this video from Press TV, accompanied by an article by Max Fisher, "Why Do Thousands of Women Want to Be Ninjas?". Fisher evaluated:

Watching the video above, if you look past the tiger-striped costumes and over-the-top production, you can glimpse the self-empowerment of these women in a society that seeks to rob them of power, and perhaps begin to understand why ninjutsu, and athletics in general, have become so popular with Iranian women.

Women's self-empowerment? That's so politically correct and mundane. Where is the threat, the ninja menace?

Over to Britain's Daily Mail which, without the necessity of any investigation or indeed knowledge, yells, "Meet Iran's Female Ninja Assassins: 3,000 Women Training to Defend the Muslim state".

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