The BBC has warned of a “sharp and deeply troubling escalation” in the Iranian regime’s campaign against its Persian-language journalists and their families.
BBC News Persian, based in London, is part of the BBC World Service and broadcasts into Iran via satellite, digital platforms and radio. Officially banned in Iran, the channel remains widely viewed, reaching an estimated 18.5 million people weekly inside the country and beyond. Its reporting on Iranian politics, human rights abuses and protest movements has long drawn the ire of the regime, which accuses it of “support for terrorism” and “inciting violence and hate speech”.
In a statement issued on Monday, Director-General Tim Davie said the BBC had recorded a marked rise in cross-border harassment in recent months, describing the situation as “a direct assault on press freedom and human rights”.
The broadcaster says Iranian authorities have intensified efforts to silence its reporters, targeting staff based in the UK and other countries, and exerting pressure through their relatives in Iran. Family members have reportedly faced arbitrary interrogations, travel bans, passport confiscations and threats of asset seizure, as part of what David called “a significant and increasingly alarming” development.
“In addition to enduring personal security threats from Iranian state actors operating beyond Iran’s borders,” he said, “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.”
Davie urged the Iranian government “to immediately cease this campaign of intimidation and to stop targeting journalists with violence, threats, and psychological warfare”.
The pattern reflects a broader strategy increasingly employed by authoritarian regimes, whereby critical journalism abroad is suppressed through surveillance, legal pressure, and reprisals against family members who remain in the country. Iran has faced repeated accusations of engaging in this kind of transnational repression, extending its reach far beyond its borders in an effort to control coverage from exile.
In 2017, Iranian authorities froze the assets of more than 150 BBC Persian staff and launched criminal investigations in absentia. A court order listed current and former contributors by name, barring them from selling property or conducting financial transactions in Iran due to their affiliation with the broadcaster.
The BBC filed a formal complaint with the UN, followed by further submissions in 2018 and 2022. Its most recent complaint warned that journalists continued to face systematic targeting. Legal counsel Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC and Jennifer Robinson wrote: “We know from Iran’s past actions that it is willing to take cross-border and deadly action to silence its critics, and that it perceives independent journalism about Iran as a risk to its power.”
“Our clients from BBC News Persian receive threats of death and violence simply for doing their jobs – simply for being journalists. We call on the UN experts and the Human Rights Council to take swift, robust action to hold Iran to account and ensure that BBC News Persian journalists can report without fear.”
That reporting has included extensive coverage of the anti-government protests that erupted in Iran in 2022. Shortly afterwards, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs formally sanctioned the BBC, naming it among a list of organisations accused of “supporting terrorism” and “inciting unrest”.
In a recent internal survey, half of BBC News Persian staff said they had received online abuse or been harassed because of their work. Nearly 70 per cent said they had been unable to say goodbye to one or both of their parents before they died — a direct consequence of being unable to return to Iran without fear of reprisal.
Staff have also described intensely personal forms of retaliation. Some have seen elderly relatives in Iran interrogated or jailed. Former presenter Negin Shiraghaei said her seriously ill father was questioned by Iranian security services. Rana Rahimpour said her parents were summoned for questioning on multiple occasions.
Other journalists have faced blackmail. One presenter told Arab News she had been threatened with the release of fabricated stories and compromising images designed to damage her reputation. Similar tactics have been used against other staff, both male and female.
In late 2022, MI5 Director-General Ken McCallum revealed that British intelligence had disrupted at least ten Iranian-linked assassination or abduction plots in the UK that year alone. By the end of 2024, the number had risen to more than twenty. According to the UN, at least fifteen credible Iranian plots to kidnap or kill individuals on British soil have been identified since 2022, some involving criminal proxies and surveillance of journalists’ movements.
The BBC is now preparing to lodge a further complaint with the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Procedures, calling on Iran to end its campaign of persecution against the corporation’s staff and their families.
With Iran’s transnational repression intensifying, its efforts to silence dissent beyond its borders is no longer just a human rights concern, but increasingly a geopolitical one. And the UK, home to some of its most effective critics, is now squarely in the crosshairs.
