BBC World Service files urgent appeal to UN over alarming escalation of targeting and harassment of BBC News Persian journalists in the UK and their families in Iran
The BBC World Service submitted a new urgent communication to UN experts over the alarming and unprecedented surge in Iran’s targeting and harassment of BBC News Persian staff (based outside Iran) and their families (based inside Iran) over the past few months. The urgent communication was filed earlier this month, before the conflict between Israel and Iran.
This surge in harassment before the conflict is deeply concerning because it extended beyond the immediate families of BBC News Persian staff in Iran to include their partners’ families, former employees, and even the families of freelancers and people working outside BBC News Persian. It also involves serious threats to the security of BBC News Persian staff in the United Kingdom. This included:
- Family members in Iran being stopped on re-entry to Iran after their holidays, detained, subjected to interrogation, threatened with travel bans and pressured to give information about their relative working at BBC News Persian, and asked to call them to tell them to stop working for the BBC.
- Serious security threats towards BBC News Persian journalists in London. These threats come in the wake of the arrest of three alleged Iranian spies over the targeting of UK-based Iranian journalists so that "serious violence" could be inflicted on them.
The action follows the statement by the BBC Director-General, Tim Davie, on 2 June:
“In addition to enduring personal security threats from Iranian state actors operating beyond Iran’s borders, BBC News Persian journalists are now witnessing a disturbing rise in the persecution of their family members inside Iran. These acts are clearly designed to exploit family ties as a means of coercion – pressuring our journalists to abandon their work or return to Iran under false pretences.
We call on the Iranian authorities to immediately cease this campaign of intimidation and to stop targeting journalists with violence, threats, and psychological warfare. This persecution is a direct assault on press freedom and human rights. It must end now.”
The urgent communication was filed with five Special Procedures mandate-holders: the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression; the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran; the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions; the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences; and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. These UN experts made a communication to Iran in 2024 and made a public statement of concern about the threats towards BBC News Persian journalists.
In the appeal, the UN experts are requested to issue:
- A new communication to Iran, raising both Iran’s inadequate response to their previous communications and the recent developments; and
- A public joint statement from UN experts condemning the ongoing targeting and harassment of BBC News Persian journalists.
Laura Davison, NUJ general secretary, said: “We need an end to the shameful and intimidatory tactics deployed by Iran in its targeting of BBC News Persian journalists. The NUJ repeats its call for international condemnation of efforts to stymie the trusted and essential journalism to audiences. The harassment and interrogations of family members must not be allowed to continue.”
Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC and Jennifer Robinson, said:
“Iran’s targeting of BBC News Persian journalists in the UK and their families in Iran is unlawful and is designed to censor and sanction the BBC’s important independent reporting on events in Iran. It must stop. We call on the UN to denounce these unlawful actions in the strongest possible terms.”
BBC News Persian is part of the BBC World Service.
