HispanTV in Britain: Alicia Kearns reports the Islamic Republic network's UK branch to police

Alicia Kearns, the Conservative shadow home secretary of Britain, has reported the British branch of "HispanTV", the Spanish-language network of the Islamic Republic's state broadcaster (IRIB), to the Metropolitan Police in London. She says the company has breached the rules of the "Foreign Influence Registration Scheme" (FIRS), part of Britain's national security legislation. Kearns called these outlets a cover tool of the Islamic Republic's government and criticised the failure of the police and the government.

Under the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, anyone working for governments hostile to Britain must register with the Home Office, and failing to do so is punishable by up to five years in prison. The entire governing structure of the Islamic Republic has been placed at the scheme's highest tier.

The link to Press TV

UK company registry records show that the British branch of HispanTV was registered in the Iranian month of Dey 1389 (the turn of 2010–11) with capital of one pound and has been declared dormant since 2012. Its current director and main shareholder, Seyed Mehdi Mirtaleb, according to his professional profile was Press TV's executive producer in London from 2009 to 2020, and the company's founder, Hamid Kheyroddin, was also previously among Press TV's managers. The company's registered address in north-west London, according to neighbours, has been empty for years.

Press TV, the Islamic Republic's English-language network, lost its licence in 2012 after refusing to pay a £100,000 fine. The fine was for broadcasting an interview with the imprisoned journalist Maziar Bahari, which, according to the British media regulator Ofcom, had been obtained under duress; an example of the forced confessions the Islamic Republic's state broadcaster has aired many times. Ofcom has said HispanTV never held a licence to broadcast in Britain.

The state broadcaster under sanctions

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) considers HispanTV one of the main platforms of antisemitism and incitement against Israel in Latin America. The Islamic Republic's state broadcaster is under US and European Union sanctions, and the Spanish government closed HispanTV's office in Madrid in 2013 under EU sanctions. The report comes after the London espionage trial over the identification of journalists of free Persian-language media and amid pressure from British MPs to register the staff of the Islamic Republic's state media as foreign agents. London police and HispanTV have so far not responded.

A branch of the Islamic Republic's state broadcaster that has stayed registered in Britain for 15 years has now been reported to police under national security law.