Malala Yousafzai - When Satire Goes Bad

Yesterday Dawn published a very funny piece satirising the conspiracy theories that surround the attack on Malala Yousafzai, the girl shot by the Taliban who has made headlines across the world.  The opening paragraphs sounds like the sort of conspiracy theories that you see every so often, but it gradually becomes increasingly absurd, for example

In June this year, the doctor was visited by a young ISI officer who apologised to him about the police raid and told him that the ISI were well aware of Malala’s real identity. After much coaxing on our part, the doctor eventually gave us the cell phone number of the ISI officer. 

However, the officer kept refusing to talk to us but finally relented on the condition that we refer to him as ‘Master X’. 

Master X met one of our reporters at an abandoned girls’ school in lower Swat. To hide his face, the officer wore a Spiderman mask. 

Talking to the reporter he said: “This had to come out one day. And I just couldn’t let myself continue to keep such a dangerous secret hidden. I am a true patriot.” 

He then added: ‘My father once told me, ‘Peter, with great power comes great responsibility’.’

Judging by the harsh response I had for Tweeting it yesterday, it seems quite few people didn't read past those few paragraphs, and that sort of response has now resulted in Dawn adding a disclaimer to the article

DISCLAIMER: The following article is a work of satire and fiction and in no way attempts to depict events in real life.

Now the Lahore Times has published the article, Truth about Malala: Fraud unearthed!, where the author, Nadeem Iftekhar, either takes the Dawn article seriously, or is writing a very clever piece of satire.  It repeats the claim from the start of the Dawn piece that most people appeared to have stopped reading at

Yes, she simply portrayed Malala whereas the fact of the matter is; a Caucasian (apparently from Poland), she was actually a Hungary-born girl, named Jane who was born to Christian missionaries parents in 1997. According to a DNA contained (and later provided as evidence) by a Pakistani doctor Imtiaz Ali Khanzai, Jane was neither born in Swat Valley nor was she a Pashtoon (Pathan) girl. Anyway, the then 15-year-old Malala was attacked and shot in the face and head in September 2012 in the Swat Valey, allegedly by a Taliban activist.

But it doesn't highlight the more absurd part of the Dawn article, and the obviously silly pictures, so unless you click the link you would believe the author is writing about an article that's not an obvious piece of satire.  The article ends with

However, the best word of advice for them is; they should first read Nadeem F. Paracha’s article ‘very thoroughly’ and only then share their respective opinion about Malala – The Fraud!

And if they did that any reasonable person would think the claims in the Lahore Times article are absurd. So is this a clever attempt by the author to satirise the sort of people who don't read the background of stories they get frothy about? The problem is, this isn't the first time the author has suspected Malala is a fraud, as he writes in his piece Is Malala the last ‘Trump Card’ for Obama?

The October 9 attack on the girls’ school van did outrage the entire world, agreed, but please try to look into the matter deeply for which you do not need ‘sight beyond sight’ and we are sure you will agree that it was a series of fabricated events, very well planned!

So maybe he's genuine about his belief in the Dawn story?  Adding to the confusion, Press TV has now republished the article (minus the links to the original Dawn piece), in their Viewpoint section, and it appears the readers of Press TV are on board with the claims

Well,dear readers,the day so called heroic woman MALALA became famous, a VERY FAMOUS PAKISTANI POLITICIAN (IMRAN KHAN) was about to present the international media with the collateral damage done by DEVIL (NATO )forces in pakistan and afghanistan so as we all know zionist(devil) media especially rupert murdoch(devils assistant) channels did this news as front page ,do remember this person owns most of the print and electronic media and poor europeans and americans fell into his trap .....DEATH TO ZIONISM

Malala is a classic propaganda tool. Western media always use "Malala like" young girls. Anna Frank, I suppose, was the first one.

Nadeem Paracha YOu have point! I agree with you on one VERY IMPORTANT POINT that christain missionaries are BEHIND THIS WHOLE ISSUE !THEY ARE SUBTLEY DEMONISING MUSLIMS Via MALALA. THERE IS SUBSTANCE TO YOUR STORY!

While Rest of the world is making omlettes with eggs, the CIA-M16-Mossad team is making them with none. They fabricate Lies after Lies to serve as bodyguards to protect the precious truth of Genocide. I've just added Malala to my list of "usual suspects" along with Greenwald... Snowden ....

So is this a clever piece of satire by Nadeem Iftekhar that has now satirised the content of Press TV and it's readership? Or is it just a question of people getting frothy about articles they haven't actually read themselves, a lesson in checking your sources?

Update It seems Press TV has realised their error, and deleted their version of the article. A screenshot can be found here.

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com.