Iran International on Tuesday filed an urgent appeal with United Nations experts urging them to take action against Iran over serious risks to the lives and safety of their journalists worldwide and relatives inside Iran.
Over the past six weeks, the Iranian authorities have intimidated and threatened 45 journalists and 315 of their family members with death unless they stop working for Iran International by specific deadlines, Iran International said in a statement.
All of those deadlines given by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security have now passed, it added.
Iran International is a London-based Persian-language broadcaster and multilingual digital news operation that is a key source of news in Iran amid a closely policed media environment inside the country.
Iran International’s legal team has filed an urgent appeal over what it called an “alarming and unprecedented escalation” in risk to Iran International journalists and their families with five UN Special Rapporteurs.
These include experts Irene Khan responsible for freedom of expression; Morris Tidball-Binz for extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Professor Ben Saul for counter-terrorism; Dr. Alice Edwards for torture and Mai Sato for Iran.
Call for urgent action
"Iran International journalists, their families in Iran and their families outside Iran are being threatened and harassed as never before in an unprecedented and concerted campaign to force them off air," Iran International’s General Manager Mahmoud Enayat said in the statement.
"I ask the UN experts to urgently investigate and take action. Iran International will continue to stand by our journalists, targeted for their important work reporting on Iran - which is needed now more than ever."
Since its formation in 2017, Iran International journalists have been targeted by the Iranian authorities for their reporting. This has included threats of assassination, assault and abduction against staff based in Britain, the United States and Europe.
The journalists have also long faced online abuse, harassment and hacking as well as asset sequestration and attacks via Iranian State media amid Tehran's designation of Iran International as a terrorist organization.
Postwar escalation
But since the start of a 12-day war between Iran and Israel in mid-June, Iran International says the situation has deteriorated rapidly and there is now a real risk to the lives of multiple Iran International staff and to their family members.
The network added its urgent appeal comes as it faces “an alarming and unprecedented escalation” in which Iranian authorities systematically began to falsely accuse Iran International journalists of being spies for Israel responsible for providing information about Iranian infrastructure to Israeli intelligence.
Iran International journalists in seven countries - the UK, the USA, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Turkey and Belgium - have been subject to threats, the network said.
Iran International is an independent Persian-language satellite TV news channel broadcasting live 24/7 from London and Washington DC.
It started in 2017 and has become the most watched Persian-language TV channel within and outside Iran on both satellite and online platforms. With bureaux in 14 countries, its journalists are drawn from a wide background in TV, radio, news agencies and newspapers within Iran and in other countries.
