In Britain, police receive complaint about HispanTV structure — The National
In the United Kingdom, Shadow Home Secretary Alicia Kearns filed a complaint with the police about the British structure of the Iranian TV channel HispanTV. She stated that there may have been a violation of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which requires the registration of individuals and organisations exercising political influence in the country at the direction of a foreign state. This was reported by The National.
HispanTV is part of the Iranian state broadcaster Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and broadcasts in Spanish to Latin American countries. The British company HispanTV has been registered since January 2011, with its legal address listed in an industrial area in northwest London.
Links to Press TV
According to the UK Companies House register, the company’s director and majority shareholder is Seyedmehdi Mirtaleb. His LinkedIn profile states that he worked as an executive producer for Press TV in London from 2009 to 2020. Press TV is Iran’s English-language state TV channel.
HispanTV’s previous owner, Hamid Khayroldin, stepped down as director and relinquished ownership in 2014. He was also a director of Press TV in the United Kingdom in 2007–2010. Before its licence was revoked in 2012, Press TV and HispanTV shared a registered address in west London.
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Registration and operations
Regulator Ofcom said that HispanTV had never held a broadcasting licence in the United Kingdom, so the agency had not taken action regarding the company’s presence in the country. Press TV’s licence was revoked in 2012 after it failed to pay a £100,000 fine for broadcasting an interview with imprisoned journalist Maziar Bahari which, according to the regulator’s findings, had been obtained under duress.
The British structure of HispanTV was established with share capital of one pound sterling. In its filings, it has been listed as dormant since 2012, and its assets have been valued at one pound throughout that time. When The National journalists visited the stated address, the premises were occupied by another company, whose representatives said they had not heard of HispanTV.
Kearns called such media structures “a front for the Iranian state” and said their activities do not contribute to national security. IRIB is under US and EU sanctions, while the United Kingdom has placed individual company executives on sanctions lists over programming decisions that led to human rights violations.
