MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/. Reports about Iranian academics allegedly challenging the country’s Constitution are underpinned by information that is impossible to verify, while the majority of the people mentioned in the petition have long lived in the West, the latest analysis from the Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN) shows.

GFCN experts referred to a viral post on social media regarding "hundreds of Iranian university professors and technical experts" who have signed a petition to reject the Constitution of the Islamic Republic as they support a democratic transition plan put forward by Prince Reza Pahlavi. "However, an analysis of the petition’s origins, its technical infrastructure, and the biographies of the signatories reveals significant discrepancies between how the campaign is marketed and its actual, verifiable composition," they said.

Thus, the analysts revealed that signatures had been gathered using a basic Google form that allows any internet user to enter their name and list an affiliation with any organization. "The platform requires neither identity verification nor authentication via corporate email. Consequently, neither the public nor independent auditors can confirm the authenticity of the signatures added to the list," the experts noted.

The authors of the analysis highlighted that "only 56 out of 443 entries in the list feature any link to Iran in the form of a university or workplace," while many of those who signed the petition mentioned only Iranian universities. "However, in all likelihood, these merely represent where they received their education, while the signatories themselves have long lived and worked in Western nations," the analysts said.

Among other factors, they recalled that Iran restricted internet access for security reasons on February 28. "Unfettered use of Google cloud services (on which the petition is hosted) is currently difficult, and often impossible, for ordinary Iranians. The very fact that the form was filled out rapidly and unimpeded by numerous users serves as further confirmation that the signatories are physically located in zones with stable internet connections—that is, outside of Iran," the GFCN argued.

Therefore, it continued, "the viral claim that hundreds of Iranian professors and technical specialists inside the country are uniting to support Reza Pahlavi is unsubstantiated." "The petition relies on an unauthenticated Google Form, making it impossible to establish the actual number of genuine signatures from Iran. Furthermore, the use of misleading data regarding the signatories' institutional affiliations indicates a manipulation of facts. The majority of identified individuals who signed the document do not represent the civilian population inside Iran," the analysts concluded.