Perhaps one of the more apparent forms of the information war has been the language used by Western media when it comes to the fixation on Iran’s unrest. As an example, ABC News wrote about Mohsen Shekari as “first protester sentenced to death as regime intensifies crackdown on dissidents” on its headline, and described the charges against him as “holding up traffic and assaulting a guard” [113]. 

Majid Reza Rahnavard, the second man executed in Iran, was also charged with moharebeh for killing two security officials and harming others with the intention of killing them. BBC News wrote on its headline, “Iran carries out second execution over protests” and left out key details, replacing them instead with points such as, “human rights groups have warned that protestors are being sentenced to death after sham trials with no due process” [115]. The method in which articles on the executions were framed lacked context and accuracy, as it was Rahnavard himself who confessed to the killings and for committing “fratricide” for attacking “anyone who came his way” [114].

There have been other instances in which the Iranian judiciary handed down death sentences when the offenders were found guilty of moharebeh through drawing weapons on civilians for robbery, the latest one being this September [116]. Context like this has been carefully left out in mainstream outlets, tying the serious crime of moharebeh to the recent protests alone. In comparison, drawing a weapon on police officers is a crime justifiable by “use of deadly force” in the United States, one which the two Iranian men were not met with, and instead went to trial for their crimes [117].