BBC Relies on Fake Document to Disseminate Misinformation about Controversial Death of Iranian Girl

The report claimed to be surrounding the cause of death of Nika Shakarami, a 16-year-old girl who according to the official reports, killed herself. 

The BBC claims, citing the purported document, the Iranian teenager was "sexually assaulted and killed by three men working for Iran's security forces," adding "the leaked document was understood to have been written by those forces."

Parts of the document read, "Sometimes, what appear to be official Iranian documents and other materials circulating on the internet are found to have been faked."

"Most of these counterfeit documents, however, are easy to spot because they clearly diverge from official formatting - showing erroneous spacing and letter headings, or containing significant grammatical or spelling errors."

"Another indicator is language that does not match the very specific style that tends to be used by Iranian official bodies."

"The document our investigation centred on contained a few such inconsistencies. For instance, the "Naja" police force quoted in the report was known as "Faraja" at the time."

Going through the letter, one can easily conclude the purported document is undated, is not sealed as highly confidential as it is normally done in such cases, and the writing style of the letter does not at all  resemble that of the security forces.

In another part of the document, it is claimed that Nika's body was left "in a quiet street under Tehran's Yadegar-e-Emam highway". This is while her body was found somewhere in Tehran's Amirakram neighborhood. 

Reaffirming that they cannot confirm the reliability of the document, the BBC added, "Therefore, to further test the document's veracity, we gave it to a former Iranian intelligence officer who has seen hundreds of legitimate ones."

The BBC did not reveal further details about the "intelligence officer", claiming he confirmed the authenticity of the document!

The BBC's alleged intelligence officer did not touch upon the discrepancies appearing in the "leaked document".