TEHRAN-The Persian translation of the book “Persian Service: The BBC and British Interests in Iran” written by Annabelle Sreberny and Massoumeh Torfeh has been released in the book market across Iran.

Translated by Mohammadreza Rezai Bayandor and Fatemeh Azimifard, the book has been published by Logos Publication, IRNA reported.

Rumor and speculation in Iran have been rife for generations that the BBC has had a hand in every political upheaval in the country. In this vein, the BBC has become a notable element in Anglo-Iranian relations' complex and tortured narrative. The BBC Persian Service was initially developed in 1940 to prepare and broadcast British wartime propaganda. And it has since been seen by many in Iran as an integral part of British policy-making in the region. 

The BBC Persian Service was widely accused of having been complicit in the CIA-led 1953 coup against the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq. And a decade earlier. The BBC Persian service has frequently been perceived as an entity that was not simply a vehicle to record the changes occurring in Iran and throughout West Asia, but rather an active agent of change.

In this book, originally published in 2014, Sreberny and Torfeh track the history of the BBC Persian Service, critically analyzing both the assumptions that the BBC is a standard bearer for objective reporting and representations of it as a simple tool of Western interests. Also examining the history of relations between the Foreign Office and the BBC Persian Service, they demonstrate that these have never been pre-defined.

Sreberny (1949-2022) was a writer, scholar, and professor of Global Media and Communications in the Centre for Media and Film Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her writing covers globalization, communication, and culture, focusing on international news and Iran.

Torfeh is a research associate in the Centre for Media and Film Studies at SOAS. In 2012, she was appointed as the director of the Strategic Communication & Spokespersons Unit, part of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Kabul, Afghanistan. She was previously a senior producer for the BBC World Service. 

SS/SAB