April Fool’s Day Stories from Iran

Iranians traditionally spend the 13^th day of each new year outdoors, believing this will bring good luck for their households and family members. The 13^th day of Farvardin usually coincides with April Fool’s Day and parts of the nation have taken up the western tradition despite all the criticism attached for such assimilation from the West. And Iranians know no limit when it comes to lying.

Perhaps one of the most talked about media pranks in recent history of Iran was that of Shargh Daily in 2005, claiming the Milad Tower had started to lean. Since then, the media have become more sophisticated and innovative in their so-called “13^th lies”.

Here are some interesting April Fool’s Day episodes from Iran.

• The world’s oldest creature living at the heart of Iran burned down in an accident triggered by Nowruz vacationers. Tabnak Yazd reported that a negligent Nowruz tourist group had accidentally set fire to a four-thousand-year-old tree while trying to prepare hookah coal. The dry tree was reported to burn down in five minutes. An official was quoted to have asked travelers to seriously attend to preserving the country’s historical sights while lamenting that the world had lost its oldest living creature. Written in simple past, the report anticipated a severe response by UNESCO as the Cypress of Abarkuh (located in city of the same name, north of Yazd province), also called the Zoroastrian Sarv, was the second national natural monument inscribed on UNESCO’s world heritage list. The major tourist attraction with a height of 25 meters and circumference of 18 meters. It is estimated to be over four millennia old and is likely the second-oldest living thing after the 4,845-year-old bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) in the Great Basin of California. Officials dismissed the report when it went viral and threatened to litigate. Tabnak Yazd however has called such threats other instances of the ‘13^th lie’, calling environmental issues a long-time concern for the people of Yazd. The site says the Cypress has been subject to inappropriate preservation plans and its health is already endangered and in sheer need of special care.

• Many others have put to good use their once-in-a-year opportunity to simply lie by turning heads toward the environment, too. A popular Iranian group buying website has taken an ironic step. The site has made it an inside custom to promise its visitors unbelievable deals each year on the occasion ranging from a week-long vacation in Paris for prices less than a few hundred dollars to taking them to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. This year however it has taken an ironic turn. The site offered a deal on March 31 to buy tickets to a national botanical garden discounted for 74 percent. In practice, only the first 395 buyers were surprised to receive a discount of 95 percent. The website says over 70 thousand people have bought vouchers to visit the 145-hectare garden over the past four years. The early-bird vouchers cost the buyers some 25 cents.

• Although it could be the other way around, Iran has traditionally seen political chaos as a root cause for environmental crises. On the political sphere, truth and lies are sometimes so intermingled together that one would fear a slight change in the status quo turns by butterfly effect into a real environmental threat, just as was with Ahmadinejad’s presidency. On March 27, Entekhab, a pro-reform news website, reported that Ahmadinejad was considering a strong comeback for the presidential race slated for June 2017. The alleged campaign would reportedly focus on a pledge to raise the bar of the so-called cash subsidies currently at little more than $15. The subsidies that Ahmadinejad is reportedly going to quintuple will be pivotal for many people’s everyday lives in small towns and rural areas, many of them out of job for a variety of reasons including the sanctions and environmental crises that have hit the country’s agriculture. The report has been dismissed but seems not too far-fetched when put in context after a recent thrashing of the principlist camp in the parliamentary elections.

• Back to the 13^th lies, high-ranking officials resigned for elaborated reasons or no reasons at all. A world-known example was ex-foreign minister Ali-Akbar Salehi who resigned as the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. A more surprising prank seems to have come from abroad. Iranian media have published reports disguised as translations from Asharq Al-Awsat claiming that President Hassan Rouhani has submitted his resignation to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei after what is interpreted as the widening of a series of differences at the highest level in Iran’s political scene.

• Celebrities have also been subject to rumors of the fool as well as bitter facts. A reputed miniaturist was reported to have died while a female movie star was said to be arrested in a gathering of animal rights activists in one of Tehran parks. The rumors went so far that people even hesitated to believe true reports that universally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami was fighting serious health conditions after undergoing two surgeries. The shocking reports came after famous traditional singer Mohammadreza Shajarian hinted in a video to congratulate the Nowruz that he has been struggling with cancer for over 15 years. His balding head featured also in follow-up photos established the revelation as it was seen as a clear sign of chemotherapy.

• Iranian Twitter users, who are gaining more and more influence in public opinions as popular Telegram channels have turned into means of higher publicity for them, also took to their accounts to comment on the occasion. Many of the tweets hit harshly on the Iranian state TV, accusing it of lies and thus dismissing any need for fooling people with pranks. The state TV itself has a long history of blunders that fit well into the occasion. In the most recent episode, an Iranian sport news program has broadcast a story made-up by Goal.com that Real Madrid is to sign Argentinian legend Lionel Messi on “a record-breaking five-year deal that will be worth around half a billion euros”.