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Journalists testify to human rights council

THE National Union of Journalists (NUJ) testified to the United Nations human rights council yesterday over female journalists’ harassment by Iranian authorities while working for the BBC Persian Service in London.

The council is holding its 41st congress in Geneva.

NUJ member Anahita Shams told the meeting: “My female colleagues and I have been consistently attacked online, with concerted sexual defamation and harassment on social media platforms.

“One of the main techniques to discredit women journalists is through the spread of fake images online and false information accusing us of sexual indecency, to discredit us with our families and the broader public.

“In one example, a fake photoshopped pornographic image of a female presenter was sent to her 14-year-old son at his school in London.”

Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC and Jennifer Robinson, counsel to the BBC World Service, said female journalists receive three times the abuse received by their male counterparts.

They added that the Iranian authorities’ harassment is “a particularly extreme and concerning example of this wider trend.”

The majority of BBC Persian staff affected by online abuse and persecution by Iranian authorities are British nationals.

Dual nationals from France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Canada and the United States are also affected, the union says.

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