BBC news chief seeks government action over Irania

BBC news chief seeks government action over Iranian 'intimidation'

Peter Horrocks says Tehran has intensified blocking of Persian TV channel, and arrested staff's relatives and friends

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Iran's intimidation of the BBC had increased since it aired a documentary on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the corporation's global news chief said. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

The BBC's head of global news has called on the UK government to rebuke Iran after relatives of 10 of the corporation's staff were arrested or intimidated following a documentary about the country's supreme leader.

Peter Horrocks claimed on Wednesday that Iran was responsible for a "dramatic increase in anti-BBC rhetoric" and that attempts to intimidate the corporation had reached new levels since mid-September, when the BBC aired a documentary on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In a post on the BBC's Editors blog, Horrocks said that Tehran had intensified its blocking of the corporation's Persian TV channel, and that relatives and friends of 10 members of