Iran Acknowledges Translation Error In Morsi Speech

Iran acknowledged there was a translation error in Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s speech at the opening of the 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran last week, the state-run Mehr news agency said.

“The shortcoming was only in one case of translating the word ‘Syria’ into ‘Bahrain’ by one of the television channels,” Mehr reported, citing Ezzatollah Zarghami, the head of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. “A technical mistake occurred during Channel One’s live broadcast and a translator made the mistake by saying ‘Bahrain’ instead of ‘Syria.’”

Several Iranian state-owned channels including the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network and Channel One translated Morsi’s live speech into Farsi.

Morsi, in the first visit to Iran by an Egyptian head of state since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, said in his speech that the revolution in Egypt was the cornerstone for the Arab Spring, and it was followed by Libya and Yemen and then in Syria against its oppressive government, according to the Bahrain Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Bahrain on Sept. 2 asked Iran to apologize for the translation error. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying he hadn’t named Bahrain, Mehr said.

Iranfocus