Iran’s most senior diplomat has again been summoned by the Foreign Office after a UK-based Iranian broadcaster was forced to move out of the UK due to assassination threats from Tehran.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said he summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires in the UK, Mehdi Hosseini Matin, “to make clear we will not tolerate threats to journalists in the UK”.
He said the UK has also sanctioned members of the Iranian regime “involved in repressing and killing the Iranian people, including children”.
“Iran’s threats will never go unchallenged”, he tweeted.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokeswoman said Iran’s charge d’affaires was summoned to the Foreign Office on Monday afternoon and a meeting took place with the director general for the Middle East.
“The UK will not tolerate threats to life and media freedom in the UK,” the spokeswoman said.
Iran’s charge d’affaires has been summoned every month since October last year over various human rights issues, including over alleged threats by Iranian security forces to journalists in the UK last November.
Over the weekend, Iran International TV revealed it had been forced to relocate its headquarters temporarily from Chiswick, west London, to its studios in Washington DC after police warned of “imminent and credible threats to the lives of their journalists”.
Security Minister Tom Tugendhat condemned “this outrageous violation of our sovereignty” and confirmed eight individuals from the Iranian regime had been sanctioned on Monday, on top of the 300 sanctions already in place.
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He added that counter-terrorism police are trying to find a safe place for Iran International TV to move to within the UK and insisted they will come back as there is no more fundamental freedom “than the freedom of the press”.
On Monday last week, a man was arrested outside the Chiswick TV studio and was charged with terrorism offences related to the surveillance of the company’s headquarters, police said.
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The channel said that it had “reluctantly” closed its London studios but its staff “refuse to be silenced by these cowardly threats”.
Following the decision, editor Niusha Boghrati told Sky News: “The threats have turned into a reality of terrorism.
“That is what the Met Police have been telling us. Threats were so real this time that they had to ask us to move the operation out of the country. It was hard to believe.”
He added that police have been “heavily guarding” the channel’s offices with armed police but it was “getting out of hand”.
Mr Boghrati said threats on journalists reporting on Iran “is not something new, but the threats of assassination and kidnapping is an extreme that so far we had not experienced”.
Scotland Yard revealed that police and MI5 had foiled 15 plots since the start of 2022 to either kidnap or assassinate UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the Iranian regime.
Russia launched a large drone attack on Kyiv overnight, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning the attack shows his capital needs better air defences.
Ukraine’s air defence units shot down 50 of 73 Russian drones launched, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries as a result of the attacks.
Russia has used more than 800 guided aerial bombs and around 460 attack drones in the past week.
Warning that Ukraine needs to improve its air defences, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “An air alert has been sounded almost daily across Ukraine this week”.
“Ukraine is not a testing ground for weapons. Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state.
“But Russia still continues its efforts to kill our people, spread fear and panic, and weaken us.”
Russia did not comment on the attack.
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It comes as Russian media reported that Colonel General Gennady Anashkin, the commander of the country’s southern military district, had been removed from his role over allegedly providing misleading reports about his troops’ progress.
While Russian forces have advanced at the fastest rate in Ukraine since the start of the invasion, forces have been much slower around Siversk and the eastern region of Donetsk.
Russian forces have reportedly captured a British man while he was fighting for Ukraine.
In a widely circulated video posted on Sunday, the man says his name is James Scott Rhys Anderson, aged 22.
He says he is a former British Army soldier who signed up to fight for Ukraine’s International Legion after his job.
He is dressed in army fatigues and speaks with an English accent as he says to camera: “I was in the British Army before, from 2019 to 2023, 22 Signal Regiment.”
He tells the camera he was “just a private”, “a signalman” in “One Signal Brigade, 22 Signal Regiment, 252 Squadron”.
“When I left… got fired from my job, I applied on the International Legion webpage. I had just lost everything. I just lost my job,” he said.
“My dad was away in prison, I see it on the TV,” he added, shaking his head. “It was a stupid idea.”
In a second video, he is shown with his hands tied and at one point, with tape over his eyes.
He describes how he had travelled to Ukraine from Britain, saying: “I flew to Krakow, Poland, from London Luton. Bus from there to Medyka in Poland, on the Ukraine border.”
Russian state news agency Tass reported that a military source said a “UK mercenary” had been “taken prisoner in the Kursk area” of Russia.
The UK Foreign Office said it was “supporting the family of a British man following reports of his detention”.
The Ministry of Defence has declined to comment at this stage.
The body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been found, Israel has said.
Zvi Kogan, the Chabad representative in the UAE,went missing on Thursday.
A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office on Sunday said the 28-year-old rabbi was murdered, calling it a “heinous antisemitic terror incident”.
“The state of Israel will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death,” it said.
The Emirati government gave no immediate acknowledgment that Mr Kogan had been found dead. Its interior ministry has described the rabbi as being “missing and out of contact”.
“Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the interior ministry said.
Mr Kogan lived in the UAE with his wife Rivky, who is a US citizen. He ran a Kosher grocery store in Dubai, which has been the target of online protests by pro-Palestinian supporters.
The Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of Orthodox Judaism, said Mr Kogan was last seen in Dubai.
Israeli authorities reissued their recommendation against all non-essential travel to the UAE and said visitors currently there should minimise movement and remain in secure areas.
The rabbi’s disappearance comes as Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel after the two countries traded fire in October.
While the Israeli statement on Mr Kogan did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have previously carried out kidnappings in the UAE.
The UAE diplomatically recognised Israel in 2020. Since then, synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners have been set up for the burgeoning Jewish community but the unrest in the Middle East has sparked deep anger in the country.