On Friday evening Pouria Zeraati, television presenter of the Iran International channel, he was stabbed outside his home in London several times and is now in hospital. Iran International is a Persian-language television channel based in the United Kingdom that is considered a terrorist organization by the Iranian government due to its coverage of anti-government protests in Iran starting in 2022. It is not yet clear the motive behind the attack on Zeraati, which was allegedly carried out by a group of people, but London police said its counter-terrorism division is handling the case. There have been no arrests at this time.
The threats to Iran International’s journalists began in November 2022. Shortly thereafter, an armed police patrol was assigned to monitor the security of the channel’s television studios, outside of which concrete barriers were also placed. In February 2023, Iran International temporarily closed its studios in London and moved to Washington DC, US, due to a “significant escalation of Iranian state-backed threats”, before returning to the UK last September.
At the beginning of 2024, the British secretary of state for Foreign Affairs David Cameron announced sanctions against some commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian military body responsible for defending the revolution, after an investigation by the British television network ITV had them identified as the perpetrators of a plot to assassinate two Iran International presenters in London. According to British police, 15 plots to kidnap or kill people living in the UK perceived as enemies of the Iranian regime have been foiled since the start of 2022.