diplomat to the hilt and accusing Germany of being disreputable.
But the Iranian media aren’t telling the Iranian public anything about the fondling allegation.
Instead, Tehran is saying an Iranian diplomat was attacked July 2 on a Frankfurt street by an African woman, and that the police arrested the diplomat, thereby punishing the victim rather than the criminal.
Iran summoned the German ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to complain about what it called police mistreatment of the diplomat.
The German media, however, tell an entirely different story—a story that rings like that of the tale of the German diplomat caught fondling children in a swimming pool in Brazil in April.
According to the daily Bild, a staffer at the Iranian consulate in Frankfurt fondled a 10-year-old girl playing on the street June 25. The child moved away, but the Iranian then tried to kiss her, Bild said. She then ran towards her home with the Iranian following her.
The girl told her mother what had happened and the mother telephoned police. But the man was gone and the police could do nothing. A week later, the girl told her mother the man was on the street near their home. The mother called police, who arrived and arrested the man pointed out by the girl.
The man produced his diplomatic passport and was freed immediately, Bild reported.
None of those details have been reported in the public media in Iran, however.
Instead, the Iranian public is reading that Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi has accused the Mojahedin-e Khalq and Bild of conspiring together in an effort to embarrass Iran. Qashqavi said that Bild has very strong Zionist tendencies. He also noted that it was a reporter and photographer from Bild who were arrested in Tabriz in 2010 while interviewing the son and lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, the woman sentenced to die by stoning for adultery.
Qashqavi charged Bild with adopting a very hostile stand against Iran.
Qashqavi told the story of the African woman attacking the Iranian diplomat.
The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said Qashqavi rejected allegations leveled against the diplomat by the Frankfurt prosecutor—but IRNA never bothered to report what those charges were. (Actually, the Frankfurt prosecutor has not leveled any charges. The prosecutor’s ofice only announced Monday that it is investigating.)
Majlis Deputy Esmail Kowsari called the “mistreatment” of the diplomat part of a “new smear campaign” against Iran, intended to tarnish the image of Iran around the world.
Unable to attack Iran militarily or diplomatically, the arrogant powers are now trying to damage the nation’s reputation, Kowsari said.
He said the plot was orchestrated by Israel and the United States, not Bild and the Mojahedin-e Khalq, as charged by Qashqavi.
Majlis Deputy Hossain Naqavi-Hossaini laid the blame exclusively on the Mojahedin. He said the African woman who attacked the Iranian “was bought” by the Mojahedin. He said it was not unlike the Moja-hedin paying retired American officials to speak out on behalf of the Mojahedin.
Back in April, when an Iranian diplomat in Brasilia was caught fondling children, Iran loudly defended him. In that case, there was no charge that the incident had been manufactured to embarrass Iran. Instead, the embassy in Brasilia said the incident was all a matter of a “cultural misunderstanding,” implying that what the Iranian diplomat did was perfectly acceptable in Iranian society.
More than a week passed before the diplomat was removed from Brasilia and brought home. Several weeks later, the Foreign Ministry announced that he had been discharged. But by that point, Iran’s reputation was badly damaged in Brazil.
The surprise for many analysts now is that Iran seems not to have learned from that incident and to be repeating the same error it made in April by defending the diplomat and, what’s more, attacking German institutions like Bild and the Frankfurt prosecutor.