TEHRAN: Hackers have disrupted the work of Iran's Fars news agency, one of the main sources of news disseminated by the state during protests over Mahsa Amini's death, the agency said. Iran has been rocked by protests since Amini's death in custody on September 16, after her arrest for an alleged breach of the country's dress code for women. Fars said its website had been disrupted late Friday by a "complex hacking and cyberattack operation".

"Removing possible bugs... may cause problems for some agency services for a few days," it said in a statement posted Saturday on its Telegram channel. "Cyberattacks against Fars news agency are carried out almost daily from different countries, including the occupied territories (Israel)," it added, without elaborating. On October 21, a group called Black Reward said it had obtained documents related to Iran's nuclear program, and demanded the release of all political prisoners and people arrested during the protests.

After its 24-hour ultimatum expired, material on social media said to be released by the group included a short clip from a purported nuclear site in Iran, as well as documents. On November 23, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran acknowledged that one of its subsidiaries had been targeted by "a specific foreign country", while downplaying the importance of the documents in question. Iran on the one side and Israel and the United States on the other have regularly accused each other of cyberattacks.

More security

The Iran International TV channel said that further security measures have been put in place around its London offices after threats from the regime in Tehran. Concrete barriers have been erected similar to those at key government buildings and tourist spots in the British capital, to prevent vehicle attacks. The barriers were "guaranteed to stop a 7.5 ton truck at 50 miles per hour", a spokesman for the Persian-language channel said. Vehicle access in and around the site would also be controlled and checks carried out, he added.

The threats were an escalation of years of intimidation because of its broadcasting of protests in Iran, the spokesman told AFP. "We're the only channel running 24/7 coverage of the protests," he said. But he added: "We're not the voice of the protests. We're the only means that people in Iran can see them." The spokesman, who asked not to be identified, stressed that Iran International was not an opposition channel and its staff were not activists. "We were set up as a service for people in Iran and the diaspora," he said.

Last week, London's Metropolitan Police confirmed that armed police vehicles had been deployed outside the TV studios. That followed "severe and credible" death threats against two of its UK-based journalists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The UK government promptly hauled in Iran's highest-ranking diplomat to the country for a dressing-down. MI5, the UK domestic intelligence agency, has uncovered at least 10 plots by Iran to kill UK-based individuals deemed to be "enemies of the regime" so far this year, its boss said last week.

The channel employs about 100 staff in London, whose coverage of the protests largely involves sifting through and verifying social media content of the demonstrations. Iranian staff were "more anxious" than panicked about the threats and more worried about the safety of their families back home, as well as the wider impact of the protests, said the spokesman for the channel. "We all don't know what the hell is going to happen. That's stressful," he said. - AFP