Like other foreign broadcasters, the BBC beams its programs to rooftop satellite dishes atop thousands of buildings across Iran. In itself, this is a defiance of the ruling ayatollahs, who long ago banned the dishes as un-Islamic. But they have abandoned enforcement as impractical and politically risky, given the wide popularity of foreign television.
Instead, the government has made fresh attempts at jamming the Persian channel’s signal, starting as vote-counting began on the night of the election. So far, the efforts have mostly failed, with BBC engineers moving the signal to two additional satellites that are more difficult to jam, they said.
BBC reporters have been kicked out of Iran, one by one, like those at other Western news organizations. The Persian channel has not been permitted to assign correspondents of its own to Tehran, and the main English-language BBC TV and radio network has barred its Tehran-based reporters from appearing on the Persian channel, in an attempt to shield them from the Tehran government’s hostility to the new channel.
John Simpson, the BBC’s best-known foreign correspondent, said he was given a hero’s greeting on the streets of Tehran when people learned he was from the BBC, not because people recognized him but because of enthusiasm for the Persian channel.
For years, Simpson said in a radio report on his return from Tehran, Iran’s Islamic rulers have believed the BBC was part of a wider British attempt to manipulate events in the country.
“The big irony, of course, is that, thanks to the Persian-language TV service, the BBC does have huge influence in Iran again, just like the hard-liners in Iran have always said it did,” he said.
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