Omid Khalili is one of the most famous people in Iran. The presenter of a daily TV show broadcast from London, he has an audience of over 30 million, giving voice to millions of Iranians exhausted by the Islamic Republic. Now, though, Khalili is desperate — for his wife, parents, sister and niece, who like him, are all UK citizens, and who are currently being held hostage by the country’s brutal theocratic regime.
The presenter has not heard from his mother, Mahin, since the start of June’s 12-day war with Israel. He suspects she is being detained. What is certain is that Iranian officials have told Khalili that if he ever wants to see his wife Mahsa again, he must return to the land of his birth. For a high-profile opposition broadcaster like him, that is effectively a death sentence, or anyway guarantees a lengthy spell in jail.
Khalili is not alone. Our investigation shows his struggle is part of a wider campaign of intimidation against Iranian journalists working in Britain, one that has reached unprecedented levels since last month’s conflict. Alongside Khalili’s colleagues at Manoto, the satellite channel where he works, Iran’s targets include presenters and reporters at both BBC Persian and the UK-based news channel Iran International.
With its leadership in shambles and its nuclear weapons programme derailed, the Iranian regime is clearly in trouble. That makes controlling the media narrative more urgent than ever, especially as channels like Manoto have become a popular focus for dissident views. It all speaks to a government willing to do anything to survive — even as its opponents remain uncowed despite the personal costs.
Omid Khalili has lived in Britain since 1999, when he was 16, and has been a host at Manoto since it launched 14 years ago. The channel dovetails current affairs with culture and entertainment, and is clearly popular, boasting perhaps 40 million regular viewers worldwide, 34 million of them inside Iran. The channel’s Instagram alone has been viewed some two billion times.
Khalili himself is most famous for Omid/A.M, an extended phone-in that provides a unique platform for Iranians to describe the hardships of life in the Islamic Republic. Drawing callers from across society — from rural poverty to swish north Tehran — viewers risk their safety every time they call in.
The government, for its part, has long tried to suppress Omid/A.M. “As soon as one number starts being used,” Khalili says, “the regime tries to block it, so we just put another one on the screen. Every day we have as many numbers as we need set up and ready to go.”
The war raised the stakes yet further. Such was the volume of calls from Iran — despite the regime’s attempts to restrict communications, up to 15,000 a day — that Manoto extended Khalili’s slot from two to five or six hours, and increased its frequency from five to seven days a week. Worse still from the regime’s perspective, some callers openly welcomed Israeli and US airstrikes, hoping they would hasten the government’s demise. When Donald Trump imposed a ceasefire last week, some bemoaned the fact he was not letting Israel “finish the job”.
With these tensions in mind, Khalili has long had a target on his back. As far back as 2022, three years into their marriage, Khalili’s Iranian-born wife visited their shared homeland. But when she arrived, officials confiscated her passport. Accusing her husband of being “brainwashed by Zionists”, they told Mahsa that she would only be freed if she helped convince Omid to meet them in Turkey or Dubai. “She agreed,” Khalili says, “because she had no choice.”
On her return to Britain, regime officials started calling and emailing — but Mahsa ignored them. In April 2025, however, her brother phoned to say their mother was seriously ill, and that if Mahsa wanted to see her again, she had to travel to Tehran. “I tried to convince her not to go, but I couldn’t,” Khalili says. “She’s her mum’s only daughter.”
His fears were justified. Once Mahsa arrived, a well-dressed man confronted her, confiscating her passport and saying he would be in touch. Three days later, she was summoned to a meeting, which was then postponed and rearranged several times: apparently to increase her stress. Finally, two weeks after landing in Tehran, Mahsa was interrogated at an office in the city centre. Now, the regime’s demand was that if she wanted to leave the country, Omid must meet security officials in Iran.
This, they told Mahsa, was “for your husband’s own good”. They added a further threat: if he did not return, she might be investigated and tried for unspecified crimes, despite not being a journalist herself. For the time being, she was not under arrest. But she would be closely watched, and was banned from leaving Tehran.
As ill-luck would have it, Khalili’s parents and sister had also been in Iran for several weeks, visiting other family. Now, they too faced the same threat, and could only return to Britain if the presenter came to Iran. “If you really love your son,” officials told his mother, “convince him to come here”.
That is easier said than done, and not just because of Khalili’s politics. In December 2020, the dissident reporter Ruholla Zam was executed after being lured from his home in France to a supposed interview with an anti-regime cleric in Iraq, where he was abducted and smuggled across the border by Iranian agents. Last year, Reza Valizadeh, an Iranian-American journalist, was jailed for 10 years for “collaborating with a hostile government” — despite being promised safe passage to visit his family.
For the moment, then, Khalili continues to present Omid/A.M as usual. Yet with the regime humiliated, and its own unpopularity increasingly hard to hide, his case is far from unique.
Since the war with Israel began, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have threatened numerous London-based journalists, as well as their families in Iran. Their message is stark: if the reporters do not resign their jobs, and post pro-regime statements on social media, both journalists and their relatives would be deemed mohareb. Translated as “enemies of God”, the Islamic Republic punishes this crime by death.
Iran International, another London broadcaster, is a particular focus here — hardly surprising given, like Manoto, it also enjoys an Iranian audience in the tens of millions.
“With the regime humiliated, and its own unpopularity increasingly hard to hide, his case is far from unique. .”
As with Khalili, moreover, the regime’s threats are deeply personal. Called by her father in the Islamic Republic, one prominent Iran International presenter was told that he, her mother and her brother had all been detained. Audible in the background was an IRGC official dictating a “script” for the call: the usual warning that if the presenter did not resign and publicly back the regime, her family would be punished.
Such challenges are hardly new. In 2023, after all, Iran International was forced to temporarily close its London offices in the face of IRGC plots. But, says its spokesman Adam Baillie, these threats have increased over recent weeks. It’s hard to disagree: though the family of that first Iran International presenter has been freed for the moment, another hasn’t heard from their relatives in almost a fortnight. For their part, BBC Persian staff say they have received similar threats.
There are signs, moreover, that as pressure on the regime continues to grow, state oppression does too. Last week, Iran’s parliament passed a bill to criminalise “unlicensed electronic communication tools” such as Starlink, which enabled Iranians to communicate freely with each other and the outside world.
The law also introduces jail terms for those involved with media outlets deemed to “spread fear, divide the public, or undermine national security” — such as Manoto. “The regime is seeking to further limit public access to independent news and information during this crucial time,” say Kayvan and Marjan Abbassi, the channel’s directors. “The targeting of international journalists is part of a broader effort to silence critical voices.”
All the while, Khalili himself continues to suffer. “Most nights I don’t go home but stay with friends, because I miss my family so much,” he says. “I can’t bear being in our bedroom, seeing my wife’s dresses and her shoes, knowing what she’s going through.”
Not that the presenter plans to give up. Beyond sticking to his daily presenting schedule, he has even asked Mahsa to divorce him — hoping, at least, to free her from the regime’s clutches. “I can’t let the Islamic Republic tell me what to do,” he says. “Iranians are fighting a war, a war for our country.” Fair enough. But as Omid Khalili knows better than most, all wars have victims.
