Officials initially claimed that their ceremonies were warmly welcomed by the people. However, a little later, reports, videos, and photos obtained from different cities proved that the huge participation was a false claim.

Regardless that more evidence will be obtained in future days, even the state-run media and TV couldn’t provide an appropriate film to show the “public presence.” In this context, Fars news agency, run by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), has published a report under the name of “Reflection of the people’s participation at marches of February 11 in the foreign media,” which revealed the regime’s weakness.

Fabricating Foreign Coverage

A glance at the mentioned media in the Fars report, which it calls “foreign media,” reveals its credibility and accuracy.

“Lebanese Alahad website, [Lebanese] Al Mayadeen, The Qatari website New Arab, Iraqi Shafaaq News, al-Iraq website, Egyptian Sada Online website, Egyptian Youm7 newspaper, Libyan Akhbar website, Libyan Ivan website, Kurdish Rudaw Media Network, and Emirati Abudhabi News website have covered the February-11 procession,” Fars news agency wrote on February 11.

Despite Fars’ effort to insinuate its readers about the importance of the mentioned media, some of them don’t even have a Wikipedia page. Also, the Lebanese Alahad website is an Arabic version of Fars.

On February 11, this “website” published a large portrait of the slain commander of Revolutionary Guards’ (IRGC) Quds Force Qassem Soleimani and his successor Esmail Ghaani on its homepage. It specified the second news to remarks and photo of Saeed Jalili, a well-known agent of the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Notably, this so-called Lebanese website called Qassem Soleimani “martyr,” as well as reported, “Despite the cold and snowfall in several provinces, [on the occasion of 41st anniversary of the regime’s establishment] Millions of Iranians came to the squares and streets.”

“This morning, tens of thousands of the Iranian people commemorate the 41st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution,” published the Egyptian Sada Online website, the sole source of reliable news cited by Fars.

The Lack of Mention to the Number of Participants

With the exception of Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reuters, no English-language media mentioned the number of participants. AFP reported thousands and Reuters reported tens of thousands have participated in the pro-mullahs ceremony. Israeli i24 News, Russia Today, the state-run Xinhua News Agency of China didn’t mention the number of participants.

Notably, the participation of tens of thousands of the people given all the oppressive and deceitful measures adopted by mullahs for dragging more citizens to the rallies shows the regime’s lack of public acceptance. Even so, tens of thousands represent 0.1 percent of Iran’s 81-million strong population.

Earlier, authorities resorted to the commemoration of slain Soleimani and announced that the February-11 ceremony is concurrent with the 40-day commemoration of Soleimani, however, the people demonstrated that they pay attention to neither the regime nor its icons and symbols. In truth, they loudly and clearly declared that they want the religious fascism no more.