Tehran plans to sue Hollywood production companies over anti-Iranian films, including the Oscar-winning "Argo", a French lawyer hired by the Islamic republic to make the case said yesterday.
Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, who arrived in Tehran at the weekend at the invitation of Iran's culture ministry, told AFP she was seeking "legal ways to stop the production of anti-Iranian movies".
"Our case is one of defamation and attacks against honour and reputation" of Iran and its people, she said, referring to movies such as "Argo," "Not Without My Daughter," "300," "Wrestler" and "Unthinkable" for their anti-Iranian content.
Iran has criticised the drama "Argo" as a pro-CIA propaganda film, while assailing the 85th Academy Awards as "the most political Oscars ever" for awarding its top honour to the movie.
"Argo" recounts the long-classified CIA plot to extract from revolutionary Iran six US hostages who had managed to evade Islamist students storming the US embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979.
The other 52 hostages were held for 444 days in an action that caused the rupture of diplomatic ties between Washington and Tehran.
Coutant-Peyre said Argo should be condemned for what she called its "falsification of history" as "it is supposedly based on a declassified story."