Reluctantly, Pouria Zeraati has just left London with his wife. On March 29, this Iranian journalist was stabbed in front of his homein Wimbledon, a district in the south of the British capital, by three men suspected of acting for the Tehran regime. Seriously wounded in the leg, the presenter of the show “The Last Word” on the London channel in Persian Iran International had returned to the air only a week after the attack.
But no longer feeling safe in the UK, Pouria Zeraati moved abroad to an undisclosed country, as reported by the Guardian newspaperThe 36-year-old presenter believes that the British approach to the threat posed by Iran cannot guarantee its integrity: it would allow the Iranian regime to strike without too many repercussions.
Before the attack on its presenter, the London channel had received repeated threats from Iran: British intelligence services foiled at least fifteen attacks aimed at kidnapping or killing employees of Iran International.
“Where I live now is a little safer”is keen to reassure Pouria Zeraati. Officers from SO15, the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism command, have informed their counterparts in the secret country of the risk posed to Zeraati by the Iranian regime. “They are aware of my situation and have taken extra steps to ensure I remain safe.”explains the television journalist.
— Pouria Zeraati (@pouriazeraati) March 30, 2024
Threat level ‘unprecedented’
The move raises fresh questions about how safe the UK is for dissidents targeted by authoritarian states. One of the leads that counter-terrorism police have is that the group that attacked Zeraati belongs to an Eastern European criminal gang. The Iranian regime has a history of using proxies to target opponents on Western soil. Hiring individuals with no apparent connection to Iran makes it harder for police to counter a potential attack.
Less than four hours after stabbing Zeraati in the leg, three suspects had left Heathrow Airport. The Iranian journalist points out that a further attack could have been fatal: “When criminal gangs warn someone before killing them, they stab them in the back of the leg. It was a very clear message: we will kill you next time.” Today, the presenter admits to having recovered physically, but not mentally.
A recent report A report by the press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), based on the testimonies of dozens of Iranian journalists exiled in the United Kingdom, reveals that the level of transnational threat these professionals face is “unprecedented”. Nearly 90% of Iranian journalists interviewed by RSF said they had been threatened or harassed online in the past five years. Last year, employees of the BBC’s Persian-language news service in London told the Guardian that they were terrified of walking alone because of the relentless harassment by the Iranian authorities.
Following the revelation in December 2023 that Tehran was planning to assassinate two more Iran International journalists, the British Foreign Office announced sanctions against members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). However, Pouria Zeraati protests: “These were absurd sanctions. The attack on me happened about three and a half months later. This shows that these policies do not work.” The Iranian believes that the UK should instead harm the Tehran regime by targeting its assets and showing that committing such criminal acts is not without consequences. “financial consequence”.
Iran International, which aims to provide independent coverage of the Middle Eastern country, has been described as“terrorist organization”» by the Tehran regime, which has promised that the employees of the television channel will be pursued by the security services. For his part, the Iranian chargé d’affaires in the United Kingdom, who heads the country’s diplomatic mission, has denied any link between the Tehran regime and the attack on Zeraati.
Source: www.slate.fr
