In the past, The New York Times has extensively reported on how the Islamic Republic of Iran regime exploits ambulances for nefarious and distinctly non-medical purposes.
For instance, in November 2019, The Times’ Farnaz Fassihi and Rick Gladstone reported (“Iran Declares Protests Are Over, but the Evidence Suggests Otherwise“):
Iran’s student union said plainclothes agents of the pro-government Basij militia, hiding inside ambulances to evade restrictions on entering campuses, had seized more than 50 students at Tehran University after protests there.
The Basij militia is a branch of the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In 2022, The Times upped its game in covering the regime’s exploitation of ambulances, reviewing dozens of video clips, geolocating footage of ambulances entering or leaving police stations in multiple locations across the country, and publishing an in-depth, informative article of some 1,450 words: “How Iran’s Security Forces Use Ambulances to Suppress Protests.”
It revealed:
In an interview over an encrypted messaging app, a 37-year-old restaurant worker described seeing ambulances entering university campuses during protests almost every day, and uniformed security forces emerging from them. He works near three major universities in Tehran where he sees daily protests. He also attended other protests and said he saw security forces using ambulances there too. . . .
The use of ambulances to detain people has outraged Iran’s medical community. A video posted on Twitter on Oct. 4 and verified by The Times shows medical workers demonstrating outside Razi University Hospital in Rasht, holding signs that read, “Basiji are not students,” and “Ambulances should be used for transporting patients.”
Another video posted on Twitter on Oct. 21, deliberately blurred to protect the identity of the subjects, shows a demonstration that appears to be at the Mashhad Medical Society building. At the demonstration, a speaker reads from a statement condemning the use of ambulance and medical symbols by security forces: “We would like it to stop in order to gain social trust.”
The Times verified that the room seen in the blurry footage matches archival footage from the Mashhad Medical Society building’s amphitheater. . . .
Aside from protests in Rasht and Mashhad, other members of the medical community have voiced their concerns about the misuse of ambulances. On Oct. 22, the Medical Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the licensing and regulatory body for health care professionals, raised concerns about the use of ambulances for nonmedical transport. . . .
“We felt most insecure when we saw police. But we have a new level of fear unlocked. Now we feel the worst pains when we see ambulances,” said one Tehran protester. “And every time we’re stuck in traffic, now the dilemma is, what if there’s a real patient in there? Or what if they’re going to kill us?”
The Times’ deep interest in the misuse of ambulances in Iran predates its focus on the regime’s suppression of protests, with an August 2019 story (also more than 1000 words) about wealthy citizens hiring out the medical vehicles as a means of circumventing otherwise impenetrable traffic (“Tehran Orders Crackdown As Wealthy Use Ambulances to Beat Traffic“).
Given The Times’ ongoing interest in Iranian ambulance abuse, the paper’s sudden silence on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ reported use of the medical transports for military purposes in its war against Israel is deafening.
On June 22, Independent Persian posted on X (formerly Twitter):
The report and images sent to Persian Independent indicate that around 7:00 PM Iran time on Sunday, an ambulance carrying four commanders of the Isfahan Province IRGC was targeted by an Israeli army attack on Shariati Street in Najafabad city. According to this report, all four IRGC commanders and their driver were killed in the incident. Islamic Republic military commanders have a long history of misusing ambulances for military missions or for arresting and suppressing protesting citizens. (Translated from Persian).
Not only did The Times go suddenly mum on Iranian regime ambulance abuse; the paper also published a page-one photograph of a bombed out vehicle which it identified as an ambulance damaged by an Israeli strike in Tehran while failing to note the IRCG’s well-documented history of hiding out in ambulances. The incomplete June 24 caption stated: “A burned ambulance on Monday after Israeli attacks. Iranian leaders were struggling to project normalcy.”
CAMERA researchers were unable to determine definitively whether or not the burned vehicle is an ambulance. It very well may be. Regardless, there’s nothing normal about a country’s security forces usurping ambulances to oppress its own people or prosecute a war against another country which it aims to wipe off the earth. The caption’s failure to note IRGC’s routine exploitation of ambulances is journalistic malpractice.
With research by CAMERA Arabic and Thamar Eilam-Gindin.