A well-known pro-Iran advocate who serves as a reporter for Al Monitor, as well as a top expert at the Atlantic Council, a D.C.-based think-tank, has been pictured giving the middle finger to anti-Iran dissident protestors.
Barbara Slavin, an Al Monitor columnist and longtime Atlantic Council member viewed as sympathetic to the Iranian regime, appeared to flip off protestors earlier this week outside of a Council for Foreign Relations event featuring Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, a chief architect of the landmark nuclear agreement.
Slavin was reportedly leaving the Zarif event when she came across a delegation of protestors opposed to Iran’s Islamic hardline regime. Slavin can be seen smiling while she raises two middle fingers in the protestors’ direction.
.@barbaraslavin1, why were you supposedly giving the finger to Iranian dissident protestors boycotting the hardline regime? https://t.co/qHIjsGtXcZ
— Adam Kredo (@Kredo0) July 18, 2017
Slavin has long come under criticism by anti-regime activists and hardline opponents of the Iran nuclear deal for her sympathetic coverage of the agreement and efforts to portray the Iranian regime in a sympathetic light. Slavin was one of the top advocates championing the nuclear deal while the Obama administration engaged in diplomatic talks with Iran.
Asked to address the situation on Twitter, Slavin told a Washington Free Beacon reporter the protestors called her "a terrorist."
They called me a terrorist and they represent a terrorist organization
— Barbara Slavin (@barbaraslavin1) July 18, 2017
Slavin claims the protestors were affiliated with the People's Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, an Iranian dissident organization that was until recently designated as a terrorist organization. The MEK is in favor of regime change in Iran and has led efforts to expose the Islamic Republic’s illicit nuclear weapons work.
"They are terrorists," Slavin said on Twitter.
The Atlantic Council did not respond to a request for comment on the incident.
One Twitter user claiming to have been in attendance at the protest wrote: "I was there and can vouch for the jubilation with which she gave us the finger(s). It was quite appauling [sic]."
https://twitter.com/sarahassani/status/887540331927011328