The BBC has confirmed that its Persian television service is being jammed from within Iran. It follows the outlet’s coverage of the political unrest within Egypt.
BBC Persian TV has been working alongside BBC Arabic TV to bring rolling news coverage from the region, which is believed to have sparked the interest of the Iranian authorities, leading to the jamming that commenced on Thursday evening (February 10).
Peter Horrocks, director BBC Global News, called for the jamming to stop immediately, “The events in Egypt are being viewed by the entire world and it is wrong that our significant Iranian audience is being denied impartial news and information from BBC Persian TV.”
BBC engineers have traced the heavy electronic jamming of its satellites used to reach the Middle East to Iran.
Since its launch in 2009 BBC Persia has been subject to periodic jamming. The BBC subsequently added capacity on Eutelsat W2M and Telstar 12 to counter interference to its Eutelsat Hot Bird signal.
Earlier this month Al Jazeera said its Nilesat feed had been subject to unprecedented jamming.
