Britain's broadcasting watchdog said Thursday it had slapped Iran's Press TV with a heavy fine, leading the English-language channel to accuse the British royal family of trying to silence it. Ofcom fined the state-run outlet £100,000 ($156,000, 117,000 euros) for showing an interview in 2009 with Maziar Bahari, an imprisoned journalist for US magazine Newsweek.
The regulator said it had also considered revoking the channel's licence but had instead decided to give it 35 days to transfer the licence to its Tehran headquarters from its London office. An Ofcom spokesman said it was the biggest fine that it had imposed for the type of offence. The independent regulator said Press TV had invaded Bahari's privacy while filming the interview without his consent while he was in detention during protests in Iran in 2009, and that its treatment of him was biased.
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