BY ALEXANDER MELEAGROU-HITCHENS 

Iran's official English-language propaganda outlet, Press TV, is painting a rather different picture of the protests than the one available in our biased and godless ‘western' media.

Press TV, which has described the protesters as 'terrorists', spends much of its time 'interviewing' luckless, trembling Iranians, clearly under duress, who claim that Britain and MI6 have been encouraging them to cause trouble. One can only imagine the drooling goons standing just off camera. 

It is rather chilling that the Iranian authorities have made it clear that protesters will be treated as collaborators, especially when one considers how Hamas, a beneficiary of Iranian money and support, has been treating ‘collaborators with Israel' in Gaza. A Human Rights Watch report after Operation Cast Lead has provided details of how these collaborators have been knee-capped with AK-47s and thrown off rooftops.

According to the Ayatollah, Britain is the most treacherous of all countries. Ironic, then, that this 'Little Satan' we call home also provides a headquarters for Press TV. A British citizen and Member of Parliament, George Galloway, gives the regime's message some local flavour in his regular spot as a presenter, and he has defended the Iranian election results in the Daily Record.  He was not so forgiving after the famous Florida vote-counting fiasco of the 2000 US Presidential elections — but then again he wasn't being paid by the Bush administration. 

Yvonne Ridley, a member of Galloway's RESPECT party, has also backed the elections and has decried the 'western' media for biased reporting. Funnily enough, her analysis of the protest mirrors that of the Ayatollah, except that in her view it is the CIA, not MI6, behind everything. 

What Galloway and Ridley don't seem to realise is how obvious it is to most people that the only propaganda on this issue is the stuff spewing from their mouths. RESPECT (and of course Press TV) were certainly not so muted during Cast Lead, but of course that time it was ‘them Jews' who were killing Muslims, not the totalitarian theocrats who seem to be incapable of putting a foot wrong.