BBC issues correction after mistranslating Pete Hegseth’s Iran speech

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Persian mistranslated part of War Minister Pete Hegseth’s speech about Iran on Monday, giving the impression that the US was targeting the Iranian “people” rather than the Iranian “regime”.

During BBC Persian’s broadcast of the war minister’s speech to viewers in Iran, the channel mistranslated the word “regime” as “mardom”, which means “people” in Persian.

This confusion led viewers to believe that the Iranian people were being targeted by the United States, when in reality Hegseth had said that the Iranian regime was being targeted by American forces.

“It turns out that the regime that chanted ‘Death to America, death to Israel’ has gifted death from America and death from Israel. This is not a war of so-called regime change, but the regime has certainly changed and the world is better off for it,” Hegseth said.

When translated into Persian by the network, the war minister’s speech said: “The people chanting ‘Death to America, death to Israel’ seem to have been gifted death from America, death from Israel.”

The BBC has since issued a fix.

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“This mistranslated word was an error caused by human error during a live simultaneous translation of a speech. We issued a correction to Farsi viewers live on air and on social media,” the network’s statement said.

As reported by TelegramIran expert and Persian linguist Thamar Eilam-Gindin argued that the BBC had “fundamentally changed the meaning” of Hegseth’s speech.

A security guard walks outside BBC headquarters in central London, March 11, 2023. (Reuters/Henry Nicholls)

“BBC’s Persian service fundamentally changed the meaning of the US defense secretary’s speech by mistranslating the English word ‘regime’ into the Persian word ‘mardom’, meaning ‘people’, making it appear as if he was attacking all Iranians rather than the Islamic Republic.”

“Among members of the Iranian diaspora in the West with whom I am in regular contact, this incident reinforces what they perceive to be a long-standing pro-regime editorial line at BBC Persian.”

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When asked for comment on the error, the BBC referred Fox News Digital to its original statement.

BBC Persian X account also released a fix: The English text of the video sharing included the phrase “Correction and Clarification Regarding the Simultaneous Translation of the Statements of the US Secretary of Defense”.

The network’s translation error was revealed amid President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC.

The BBC has come under intense scrutiny for its 2024 Panorama documentary about Trump’s speech before the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Critics called the documentary misleading because it did not include Trump’s call for peaceful protest for his supporters. In December, Trump sued the BBC for $5 billion each for both defamation and violations of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, demanding a total of $10 billion.

President Donald Trump gives a speech at the Coosa Steel Corporation plant in Rome, Georgia, on February 19, 2026. (Saul Loeb/AFP)

Although ABC and CBS settled their lawsuits with Trump last year, the BBC has vowed to fight the case. The two parties will seek a solution, Atty. Agreed that John W. Thornton will serve as pre-trial mediator.

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A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told Fox News Digital: “The BBC defamed President Trump by deliberately and deceptively editing its documentary in an attempt to interfere with the Presidential election. President Trump will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in lies, deception and fake news.”

The BBC did not respond to an earlier request for comment on the case.

Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood contributed to this report.

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