Iranian female ninjas suing Reuters over report: state TV

The Iranian government today revoked press credentials for Reuters staff in Tehran after a group of Iranian female martial artists protested a Reuters report that described them as "assassins."

The Iranian women vowed to sue Reuters for defamation over the incident, Iran's state television reported on Wednesday. 

Reuters today said it had corrected the story's original headline, which said, "Thousands of female Ninjas train as Iran's assassins" to read "Three thousand women Ninjas train in Iran."

That was not sufficient for Iranian authorities, however, who today demanded that Reuters' 11-person staff return their press cards. The only Reuters report currently available seems to be a slideshow. It was not clear whether any other report accompanied the photos.

A Reuters representative told The Atlantic's Max Fisher in an email today that "there was indeed an error" in the original Reuters report, citing a mistake in a "video script that was promptly corrected." However, Fisher and others have been unable to locate the video. Press TV's selection of the claimed Reuters video, meanwhile, features a British narrator describing the Iranian female athletes as possibly "the West's worst enemy" and "ninja assassins," according to The Atlantic.

Women are barred from many sports activities in the Islamic Republic due to the country's restrictive moral codes, a point of ongoing contention between the country's restless young female population and the authorities.

More from GlobalPost: Prince Nayef gives Saudi sportswomen go-ahead on Olympic games

It may be why the government has invested so much in areas like martial arts in recent years, with Ninjutsu clubs throughout Iran supervised directly by the Ministry of Sports' Martial Arts Federation. 

It's proven hugely popular. A traditional Japanese martial art that often focuses on guerrilla techniques like espionage and camouflage, Ninjutsu is practiced by some three thousand women throughout Iran, according to the UPI news agency.

As The Guardian put it, for women in Iran, it "turns out that when you're denied basic human rights, restricted in your ability to dress how you want and mix with the people you choose, and when your legal testimony is officially recognised as being worth exactly half that of a man's, you develop — if these [Reuters] images are anything to go by — a lot of rage."

So it would seem. These women are not through with Reuters. They say damage has already been done and demand reparation. 

Martial artist Raheleh Davoudzadeh told Press TV that the report “can harm our chances to travel to other countries to take part in global tournaments and international championships," concerns possibly heightened by Saudi Arabia's recent announcement that it will allow female athletes to represent them at the upcoming Olympics — an all-time first for the conservative Muslim nation.

It also comes after world football officials denied Iranian women's soccer team entry into an Olympic qualifying round in Jordan over Iran's insistence that its female players wear headscarves, a move that lead Iran to forfeit the game, according to CNN. 

Such events have not helped Iran's sports standing internationally, making the Reuters report all the more unfortunate, martial arts trainer Akbar Faraji told Press TV, calling the defamation lawsuit "a matter of reputation."

One female ninja, Khatereh Jalilzadeh, said the group is "taking legal action because the ladies that train in Ninjutsu first and foremost enjoy it as a sport," explaining that it's not political, it's just "about working out and staying fit." 

The fact that Reuters is a British news organization and the ninja report was allegedly picked up by several other British media outlets, also plays into deep-seated Iranian animosity towards the country, where prejudices have been reinforced by years of political rhetoric denouncing "Britain’s imperialistic actions."

But these women are angered by more recent history. Reuters "blatantly lied about us," Jalilzadeh told Press TV.

The reporter responsible for all the brouhaha, meanwhile, "left Iran shortly before a court case was opened," noted Press TV. 

Probably a smart move.