U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a press statement that security forces raided the home of a relative of a BBC Persian service employee in Tehran in January and “arbitrarily detained and held him as a hostage for close to two weeks.”
The statement quoted Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East director, as saying that the move against the relative of the BBC journalist “seems to be part of a wider campaign to harass Iranian journalists by putting pressure on their families.”
An opposition website has reported that a BBC employee’s sister was released recently after Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officers used information they gained from her to contact and question the BBC staffer, who is based in London, via Internet connection through which they could see her but she could not see them.
In October, the BBC accused Iranian authorities of harassing relatives of its London-based Iranian employees.
Compiled from agency and RFE/RL reports
Source Article from http://www.rferl.org/content/hrw_iran_detaining_relatives_of_journalists/24472627.html
