BBC Slips In ‘Mistranslated’ Propaganda To Radically Alter Hegseth Speech On Iran

The BBC has been caught yet again manipulating comments from the Trump administration to radically alter their meaning. 

During a March 2 press conference about the war in Iran, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the United States is bringing death to the same regime that chanted “death to America.”

BBC Persia, however, substituted the word ‘people’ for ‘regime’ – fundamentally changing Hegseth’s meaning to sound like America was targeting all Iranians vs. the regime. 

“It turns out the regime who chanted ‘death to America and death to Israel was gifted death from America and death from Israel,” is what Hegseth actually said. 

The BBC translated the word “regime” as “mardom,” the Persian word for “people.” It later issued a correction. 

The BBC “mistakenly” altered a speech by Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth on the war in Iran, making him appear to say the United States was targeting the Iranian “people”.

This comes only a handful of months since they did the same to President Trump.

Defund the BBC! pic.twitter.com/iezrIh5vFX

— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) March 7, 2026

While we’re sure Israel and America will kill plenty of non-regime Iranians by the time this is done, mainstream media like the BBC isn’t doing anything for its reputation by shaping narratives. 

The Trump administration has argued that that Tehran’s leadership, not regular Iranians, pose a direct threat to American national security because they’ve been chanting “death to America” (for the past 50 years), which justified Trump reneging on his repeated campaign promises not to start new wars. 

The error drew condemnation from Iranians online, who accused the BBC of conflating ordinary civilians with the brutality of the regime and altering the meaning of Mr Hegseth’s speech. Others disagreed, saying the translation was acceptable.

The US president has called on the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the leadership. On Monday, Mr Hegseth repeated that call, urging civilians to “take advantage of this incredible opportunity”. -Telegraph

According to Iran expert Thamar Eilam-Gindin of Haifa University, the BBC had “fundamentally altered the meaning” of Hegseth’s words. 

“By mistranslating the English word ‘regime’ into the Persian word ‘mardom’ —meaning ‘people’—the BBC’s Persian service fundamentally altered the meaning of the US secretary of defence’s speech, making it appear as though he were attacking all Iranians rather than the Islamic Republic,” Eilam-Gindin told the Telegraph.

“Among members of the Iranian diaspora in the West, with whom I am in regular contact, this incident reinforces what they perceive as a long-standing pro-regime editorial line at BBC Persian.” 

Explaining their actions, the BBC said “This mistranslated word was a mistake, as a result of human error, during the live simultaneous translation of a speech. We issued a correction to Persian audiences on air and on social media.”

Mistranslation is a very generous way to describe something that looks deliberate.

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) March 6, 2026

That said, perhaps Hegseth should choose his words a tad more carefully (the last 20 seconds or so):

As requested 😉 pic.twitter.com/ngk1DX2SaB

— Mr. Gerald Wayne (@geraldwayne) March 7, 2026

The ‘mistranslation’ echoes the BBC’s deceptive editing of Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech to falsely portray him as inciting violence at the Capitol, which earned them a $10 billion lawsuit.