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Iranwire – Over the past few days, Iranian government supporters have falsely attributed a Twitter account critical to the clerical regime to Taraneh Alidoosti, a prominent actress arrested last week after she expressed support for the nationwide protest movement.
Pro-regime media outlets have used the fake Twitter account to support the case against Alidoosti, alleging that the messages posted there show the 38-year-old actress has backed the “rioters.”
Serat News, the media front of the hard-line Stability Front political party, was among the media that claimed Alidoosti was behind the fake account and threatened her with severe punishment.
Pro-government accounts on social media have a long history of attributing fake social media accounts to jailed critics of the Islamic Republic.
A growing number of Iranian celebrities have voiced support for the ongoing protests, with Islamic Republic officials accusing them of “fanning the flames of the riots.” Some of them have been thrown behind bars.
Accused of “Inciting Chaos”
Alidoosti was arrested on December 17 for “publishing false and distorted content and inciting chaos,” according to local media.
Her arrest came after she posted on November 10 a picture of herself on Instagram without a headscarf and holding a Kurdish-language slogan of the protest movement reading “Jin. Jiyan. Azadi.” (Woman. Life. Freedom.)
The actress, best known for her role in the Oscar-winning 2016 film The Salesman, had previously shared social media posts that were critical of the regime.
Her official account disappeared hours after her arrest, with state-run Iran newspaper saying in a tweet that it had been deleted by Instagram. The post was later removed.
The “Famous Subversive Account”
Meanwhile, a message on a Twitter account called Revolutionary Filmmaker said on December 20, “Let me put it in the form of a question before it becomes official news: In your opinion, which one of the famous subversive accounts could be a fake account of Taraneh Alidoosti? May God help you, girl.”
Supporters of the Iranian regime replied by tweeting that the allegedly “famous subversive account” was Pamkin, which has published fake news since the beginning of the protest movement in mid-September.
They claimed the account had been inactive since Alidoosti’s arrest on December 17, but the last message was posted there four days before that date.
Pamkin had previously participated in discussions on Twitter Spaces, and it has been determined that the user was a man who claimed to be a resident of the Iranian city of Qom who later moved to a European country.
