6

In a Reddit video, a person is claiming that an Iranian organization used millions of dollars to promote the Shia branch of Islam in Japan and that only one person converted to it.

Is the claim true?

Improve this question
4
  • 2
    Widely reported on other social media. The Decryption of a suspicious project / Analysis behind the widespread spread of a lie about the Japanese Muslim community. Maybe both reports are propaganda. Commented 2 days ago
  • Also Twitter says "Heshmatullah Falahiph, the former Chairman of Iran's Parliament Foreign Policy Commission, made the remarks during a podcast published by Entekhab last month." Commented 2 days ago
  • 5
    The second comment on the video, by the person who posted it, says "A Meme Don't Take Seriously". Commented 2 days ago
  • This question has too many indefinites in it: "a person", "an organization", "one person". How can this be a notable source if it hides the facts that it claims are true? This might be a good question, but it is badly asked. Commented yesterday

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
23

This is false. This is a claim made by a political commentator and the sources he gives seem to render it nonsense.

Official denial

The Embassy of Iran in Tokyo denies this claim.

Analyzing the claim

The original interview from which also on Gooya News).

The speaker is a former bureaucrat and political commentator who appears to be exaggerating an audit of the Iranian budget. He describes multiple government agencies which he characterizes as Islam propaganda:

This claim is rather loose, and it is not clear what any of this has to do with Japan anyway.

Islam in Japan is basically Sunni

The largest mosque in Japan is the Tokyo Camii which is funded in part by the Turkish government. Iran does not have any noticeable presence at this mosque or any other. In fact there are virtually no Shia mosques in Japan; after Googling, I see there is one in a remote rural village near Shimotsuma city in Ibaraki, and one in Misato city, a small city in Saitama.

It is possible that this commentator saw that the Islamic Development Organization or some other group paid for an event at the Iranian embassy in Japan, and he somehow exaggerated this into a million-dollar conversion campaign in the process of combining it with the budgets of other agencies, but this is just my speculation and the claim still doesn't make sense when stated this way.

Improve this answer
3
  • 12
    It seems pretty unlikely anyway that Iran would be spending a huge budget annually for several years, with zero results. And to put those figures in perspective, 1 billion Iran toman is currently worth about 8000 USD. Commented 2 days ago
  • @WeatherVane online transactions options exist they won't require to produce so much currency? Not a valid point I think Commented yesterday
  • 5
    @Hopelesscitizen as I said, putting those numbers in perspective, not suggesting banknotes. Also, 1 tomar = 10 rials and Iran is planning to remove 4 zeros. Commented yesterday

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.