TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A top judicial official says Iran is in the process of officially designating two London-based Persian-language TV channels as “terrorists” out of concern over ongoing unrest in the country.
Kazem Gharibabadi, deputy judiciary for foreign affairs, said cases opposed to BBC Persian and Iran International were being documented with the aim of blacklisting them in their entirety for “guiding and inciting riots, destruction of public property and equipment and terrorist acts”. “
“These two channels and their agents will have to be added to the list of terrorist teams and individuals,” he said in a statement.
The BBC issued a message late Sunday calling the allegations “completely fabricated”.
“The threats of action against the BBC’s Persian staff for the works they do as news hounds are absolutely unacceptable, and the BBC will continue to do so. Such false comments verify the importance of our reliable reports, on which millions of others in Iran depend. ” the channel said.
Both channels have been denounced for years through Iranian authorities, but this is the first time Tehran has prosecuted them.
The country’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday imposed sanctions on several Britons and individuals, adding the two chains and their parent companies.
The sanctions come with banning Americans from issuing visas, confiscating their assets on Iranian soil and blocking any bank accounts they may have in the country.
The Iranian moves emerged shortly after the European Union and the United Kingdom announced separate sanctions against several Iranian institutions and governments, either for their role in what European officials have called a “brutal crackdown on protests” and for their alleged role in supplying drones to Russia. He opposed Ukraine in the war.
Protests that have spread across Iran erupted more than a month ago after a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was killed in the custody of Iran’s police after being arrested for allegedly violating the country’s dress code.
The Iranian government has accused the United States, Israel and others of “inciting unrest” across the country and has also pounded positions in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region to punish “terrorist” secessionist groups.
In his denunciation of London-based TV channels, Gharibabadi, the judicial official, also promised that “the role of the countries hosting those channels, namely Britain and Saudi Arabia, will not go unnoticed either. “
This came days after Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), issued a direct warning to Saudi Arabia, which Tehran has to invest in Iran International, among others.
“I warn you to be careful with your habit and those means,” he said in a televised address. “You have interfered in our internal affairs through those means, but you want to know that you are vulnerable. “
The growing attention to the media’s role in the ongoing protests comes as Iran’s state-affiliated media and foreign-based media have presented other narratives about the country’s unrest. This has been true for Iran’s internal and external protests.
On Saturday, giant crowds gathered in several European and American cities in solidarity with Iranian women. In the German capital, Berlin, which saw the largest crowd, police said about 80,000 more people had gathered over the past afternoon, making it the largest gathering ever organized. through the Iranian diaspora.
Foreign media widely covered the event, reporting that Iranians arrived from other cities and countries, chanting slogans that were widely used inside the country during the protests, adding “Woman, life, freedom. “
But in an article published Sunday, state news outlet IRNA said the Berlin demonstration marked a “scandalous defeat for the enemies of Islamic Iran” because, according to him, some of the protesters were not Iranians and were paid to be there. while others were “secessionists” or connected to the People’s Mujahideen (MEK). that Tehran has blacklisted as a “terrorist” organization.
Within the country, videos of sporadic protests continue to circulate on social media, as web restrictions remain in place, making it incredibly complicated for social media platforms.