The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the resistance is challenged by a “media world war” with the West.

Major General Hossein Salami was addressing a ceremony in Tehran on Sunday on the occasion of the Reporters’ Day, which celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom and pays tribute to journalists.

Journalists and reporters are the “creators and writers of facts,” Salami said, adding that enemies in the media war seek to alter values ​​and undermine beliefs.

“We are living in a grand cultural battle; a war of perception. It is now the atmosphere of a major psychological operation worldwide,” the IRGC’s chief said.

“We are involved in a media world war covering a vast territory with global dimensions, one side of which are companions of the Revolution, supporters of resistance and those men and women in favor of the independence of this land and other Islamic countries,” Salami stated.

Pointing to the Western distortion of facts in the media, the IRGC chief said enemies in the media war can portray torture, displacement of nations and destruction of cities as an integral part of the human rights they proclaim to defend.

Salami said support for the oppressed is being distorted as support for terrorism in the media war.

“Through the power of the media, enemies make occupation of lands believed as liberation of nations.”

The chief commander of the IRGC highlighted the West’s machinations in the media war, saying, “CNN often runs the wars, making the ugly atmosphere seem like a dream with pictures and words.”

“The truth about our enemy regarding human rights is manifested in the spread of modern torture tools across the world. It is depicted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; two cities are turned into ashes in the blink of an eye.”

The United States dropped the world's first atomic bomb, dubbed "Little Boy," on Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, devastating the entire Japanese city and massacring more than 140,000 people. It dropped a second nuclear bomb three days later on the city of Nagasaki, mass-murdering another 70,000 residents.