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LONDON: The BBC has opened the doors to its Persian newsroom in a new documentary that provides viewers with an unprecedented glimpse into the lives and work of the people whose job it is to report on Iran.
“For the first time the BBC has lifted the lid and gone behind the scenes with the BBC News Persian team, showing the work that goes into reporting Iran while the BBC is banned from the country, and the struggle and turmoil faced by staff,” the company said in a statement.
“In an emotive narrative of ‘Reporting Iran: Inside BBC Persian,’ the reporting of the dramatic and tragic events unfolding in Iran is intertwined with the personal drama and sacrifice by the BBC journalists whose persecution and harassment by Iranian authorities have been the subject of multiple protests by the BBC and the UN,” it said.
Produced, directed and filmed by the BBC’s Namak Khoshnaw, the documentary follows the daily lives of those trying to report in a country where they are not allowed to operate and shows how social media is being used to root out stories and verify what is happening on the ground.
In a series of emotional interviews, BBC Persian presenters, reporters and producers discuss the professional and personal sacrifices they make to uncover stories while defying the best efforts of the Iranian government to stop them.
Members of the newsroom’s social media team show how they check information to authenticate events, individuals, locations and metadata, which is essential in countering the spread of disinformation online.
That verification process, which requires the team to establish the exact locations of video clips, analyze officially released footage, speak to witnesses and examine the legitimacy of documents, often takes several days.
As well as highlighting the logistical challenges of unearthing stories in Iran, the documentary recounts the personal struggles of the team and what their association with the network means for their families and loved ones living in Iran.
BBC Persian journalists and their families are frequently the target of online abuse and many have received threats of violence and even death.
“‘Reporting Iran: Inside BBC Persian’ is full of poignant details that bring to the fore the personal dimension of the journalists who are reporting the country they come from,” the BBC said.
Iran has been in turmoil since mid-September, when the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini sparked large protests against the strict restrictions and prompted calls for regime changes.
BBC Persian, which reaches 18.5 million viewers a week around the world, has often been criticized for its stance on the regime. Some Iranians have even accused it of playing a role in bringing the clerical establishment to power 43 years ago and of siding with the Iranian regime.
In 1980, a BBC report on human rights abuses and social restrictions led to the closure of the BBC Persian office in Tehran and expulsion of its correspondent, forcing the network to relocate to London.
After the election of President Khatami in 1999, the BBC was allowed to reopen its Tehran bureau with a resident correspondent. But in 2010, Iranian authorities banned more than 60 international organizations, including BBC Persian, in what experts said was an intensification of a campaign to blame the country’s political turmoil on foreign entities.
Relations between the broadcaster and the Iranian government deteriorated further in 2017, when authorities froze journalists’ assets and interrogated, and in some cases detained, their families, prompting the BBC to make an appeal to the UN Human Rights Council to intervene.