{"id":1249,"date":"2018-03-12T16:06:28","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T16:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2018-03-15T16:06:41","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T16:06:41","slug":"iran-should-stop-persecuting-bbc-journalists-and-threatening-their-families%e2%80%8b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1249","title":{"rendered":"Iran Should Stop Persecuting BBC Journalists and Threatening Their Families\u200b"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ongoing Harassment of BBC Persian Staff Continues Despite Repeated UN Criticism<\/p><\/div>\n

March 12, 2017\u2014The UN should take immediate action on an appeal by the British Broadcasting Service (BBC) urging the Human Rights Council to protect journalists from an escalating campaign of intimidation and harassment by Iranian security forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe UN should act forcefully on this appeal to protect the rights of Iranian journalists and their families who have been targeted by the state\u2019s security establishment,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe UN has repeatedly criticized the Iranian authorities\u2019 campaign of intimidation against BBC Persian, and still it continues,\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThreatening journalists and their families is nothing short of thuggery and the international community should condemn it as such,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement, BBC Director General Tony Hall said the public service broadcaster had taken the unprecedented step because its own attempts to persuade the Iranian government to cease its harassment campaign had been \u201ccompletely ignored.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, during the past nine years, the collective punishment of BBC Persian Service journalists and their families has worsened,\u201d added Hall.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement that did not address the BBC\u2019s complaints, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary of Iran\u2019s High Council for Human Rights, accused BBC Persian of trying to overthrow the Islamic Republic.<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC Persian \u201chas always focused on striking Iran,\u201d he said, citing the 1953 coup d\u2019\u00e9tat of Iran\u2019s democratically elected government.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear whether Larijani is aware of the fact that BBC Persian was launched in 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n

In October 2017, the BBC World Service urged the UN to investigate a court order and injunction by Iran\u2019s judiciary freezing the assets of 152 BBC Persian staff, current and former, for allegedly engaging in \u201cconspiracy against national security\u201d in Iran and abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Iranian judiciary had attempted to create a criminal record for the BBC staff members in absentia, accusing them of \u201ccollaboration and conspiracy to commit crimes against national security.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no news about the result of Iran\u2019s investigation, but the BBC has noted that the state\u2019s persecution campaign has continued unabated since 2009, when the BBC Persian satellite service was officially launched amid widespread protests against the results of Iran\u2019s disputed presidential election that year.<\/span><\/p>\n

The BBC says family members of its Persian-language service have been arbitrarily arrested and some elderly members have been interrogated. Staff members have also been the subjects of smear campaigns and their personal online accounts have been hacked.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0intimidation campaign<\/a>\u00a0has become so severe that staff members of the BBC have been forced to miss the funerals of loved ones in Iran, fearing arrests by security forces should they return to their country of birth.<\/span><\/p>\n

On March 12, BBC Persian journalist Kasra Nouri\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0\u201cmore than 30 staff have lost parents and been unable to say goodbye in the past decade.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

These events were documented in the\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by the former UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Asma Jahangir (now deceased), which was published in March 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

In October 2017, the UN\u2019s Special Procedure mandate holders issued a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0calling on Iran \u201cto cease all legal action against the staff and their families, and to cease the use of repressive legislation against independent journalism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranian authorities appear to regard any affiliation with the BBC as a crime,\u201d said David Kaye, special rapporteur on freedom of expression, and Jahangir.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge the Iranian authorities to cease all legal action against BBC Persian staff and their families, and to cease the use of repressive legislation against independent journalism, whether affiliated to BBC or not,\u201d the Special Rapporteurs said<\/span><\/p>\n

CHRI has called on governments around the world to engage Iranian officials on their country\u2019s deteriorating human rights record.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer the international community is silent on Iran\u2019s human rights abuses, the more emboldened and powerful rights violators inside the country become\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/span><\/p>\n

For interviews, contact:<\/span>
\n Hadi Ghaemi<\/span>
\n +1-917-669-5996<\/span>
\n hadighaemi@iranhumanrights.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Visit our website:\u00a0www.iranhumanrights.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 12, 2017\u2014The UN should take immediate action on an appeal by the British Broadcasting Service (BBC) urging the Human Rights Council to protect journalists from an escalating campaign of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[368],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-bbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1250,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions\/1250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}