BBC Persian Issues Correction After Mistranslating 'Regime' as 'People' in Pete Hegseth's Iran Speech
The British Broadcasting Corporation's Persian service made a significant translation error during a live broadcast of U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's recent speech on Iran. Hegseth referred to the Iranian regime being effectively ended through U.S. and Israeli military actions, stating that the regime which once chanted 'death to America and death to Israel' had received 'death from America and death from Israel,' clarifying it was not a traditional regime-change war but the outcome improved global security. However, BBC Persian incorrectly translated 'regime' as 'mardom' (meaning 'people' in Persian), implying the U.S. targeted ordinary Iranians rather than the government. This alteration changed the core message and sparked criticism, including from Persian linguist Thamar Eilam-Gindin, who argued it distorted the intent and fueled perceptions of pro-regime bias at BBC Persian among the Iranian diaspora. The BBC quickly corrected the mistake, attributing it to human error in live simultaneous interpretation, and shared the clarification on air and social media. The story appears amid ongoing controversy surrounding the BBC, including President Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit over alleged misleading edits in a 2024 documentary about Trump's January 6 speech, which he claims aimed to influence the election. The report underscores challenges in accurate cross-language reporting on sensitive geopolitical topics involving U.S. military involvement in Iran.
BBC Persian Issues Correction After Mistranslating 'Regime' as 'People' in Pete Hegseth's Iran Speech
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