On June 15, 2009 the Wall Street Journal used this image on the front page [1]. The image is credited to AFP/Getty Images and purportedly shows a person with “POLICE” in English (are the words on riot gear in Iran in English?) on the rear of their jacket in the midst of swinging a billy club at a standing man while holding onto the man’s wrist. The image is not attributed to a particular photographer.
On June 17, 2009 the Wall Street Journal used this "running to the fire" image on the front page [2]. The image purportedly shows people running on a public street towards a fire. The image is credited to Getty Images without attribution to a particular photographer
On June 16 the Wall Street Journal carried a front page image credited to the AP of a graphically bloodied man "allegedly shot" being supported - one arm being held up by the wrist - in a crowd of men.
Each of the images were connected to "reports" with the byline of Farnaz Fassihi.
I don't recall seeing any Wall Street Journal front pages three days running with images like this of US soldiers in conflict in Iraq.
ARE THE IMAGES HONEST?
Recently President Obama refused to allow the release of photographs showing US torture of Iraqi prisoners. Mr. Obama said that the release of the images would endanger US military personnel because the graphic nature of the images would act to incite retaliation against the US military. And Mr. Obama is probably correct – the images would incite retaliation.
Clearly Mr. Obama, and the US military advisers who counseled the President, understand how powerful images are – especially in a time of active adversity with an opponent.
So it is not realistic to believe that the US (CIA special opps) and/or conservative news organizations would not be using the power of images to attempt to incite situations within the political organizations and territories of nations and states which they may view as adversarial, such as Iran. Keep in mind that the primary purpose of these images, available on the internet, may be to creat civil unrest in Iran to cause the ouster of the present Iranian government and bring in a government more sympathetic to the US and US allies in the mideast.
Even with primitive Photoshop skills, it would not be difficult to create the images which the Wall Street Journal used. Every architecture student today does similar “creations” for their project presentations.
A technical review of the shadows, stances, surface textures in the image, particularly the upper two, suggests to me that these images are mashups.
I challenge the Wall Street Journal and Getty to authenticate them.