BBC Persian journalists say Iran monitoring them and targeting their families

Behrang Tajdin, BBC Persian TV’s economics correspondent, says Iran ‘hiring criminals to try to harm Iranian journalists and activists based on UK soil’. Photograph: Behrang Tajdin

Exiled Iranian journalists working for the BBC have been warned their movements are being closely monitored by the state, as they said their families in Iran were being interrogated and persecuted for their reporting.

Journalists said family members had been threatened with arrest and the seizure of their assets unless their loved ones stopped reporting on Iranian unrest.