Efe
Updated Saturday, March 30, 2024-15:31
A journalist from the London-based Persian channel
Iran International
was stabbed this Friday outside his home in south London, the station and the London Metropolitan Police (Met) confirmed.
The network founded in 2017, which also broadcasts from Washington and Paris, indicated on X that its presenter
Pouria Zeraati
, 36, is stable, after having been treated by health personnel for a leg injury.
"The attack comes after the Iranian regime's plot in 2022 to kill two @IranIntl television presenters @Sima_Sabet and @FardadFarahzad," Iran International English wrote on the social network.
For its part, The Met explained that it received a call at 14:49 GMT alerting of the attack supposedly by a group on a man in the Wimbledon neighborhood, for which no arrests have yet been made.
"At this time, the motive for the attack is unclear," the police force said in a statement.
"However, due to the victim's occupation as a journalist at a UK-based Persian language media outlet, coupled with the fact that there have been a number of threats directed against this group of journalists lately, the incident "It is being investigated by specialists from the Anti-Terrorist Command," he added.
In November 2022,
two British-Iranian journalists from the network were threatened,
resulting in the station receiving police surveillance. In February 2023, Iran International temporarily moved to the United States, returning to London last September.
Michelle Stanistreet,
general secretary of the British journalists' union NUJ, called the incident a "cowardly attack" and "deeply shocking."
"It is too early to know whether this violent attack is related to the escalation of intimidation and harassment by Iran, including the plot to assassinate journalists Fardad Farahzad and Sima Sabet in 2022," he declared.
"However, this brutal stabbing will inevitably create fear among many journalists at Iran International and the BBC Persian Service that they are not safe at home or doing their jobs," he lamented.
Scotland Yard noted that since 2022, at least 15 plots to assassinate or kidnap people perceived as enemies of the Iranian regime in the United Kingdom have been thwarted.