BBC Persian

BBC Persian is the Persian language radio station and TV operated by the BBC which conveys the latest political, social, economical and sport news relevant to Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, and the world. Its headquarters are in London, United Kingdom. Sadeq Saba is head of BBC Persian.

BBC Persian has had a web presence since May 2001.

In 2008, the BBC announced the launch of the BBC Persian Television, which is based in BBC Broadcasting House: as BBC's Press Office website states

BBC proposals for the service were drawn up by senior BBC management. These were approved by the then BBC Governors – the body that oversaw the BBC and ensures the BBC's independence from the UK Government. They were then submitted to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for their consent as the BBC is obliged to do under the agreement with the FCO.

The operating cost of £15m a year will be funded by the UK Government. Funding for the new service was announced by then UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in a speech in October 2006. The funding was confirmed by the next Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling in October 2007. Some 140 staff are employed of which about 40 are support personnel.

Alireza Nourizadeh (Persian: علی‌رضا نوری‌زاده‎, born 24 June 1949 in Tehran) is an Iranian scholar, literary figure, journalist and an expert on Iranian contemporary history.

Nourizadeh is a political refugee from Iran. After fleeing to Great Britain, he obtained his PhD from the University of London in International Relations. Nourizadeh him self has been active in the Iranian journalistic milieu since 1967. He is a Senior researcher and director at the Centre for Arab & Iranian Studies strongly opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is also a correspondent for Deutsche Welle(German Radio), a Political Commentator for the radio channel Voice of America, a Senior writer for the Saudi Arabian Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.

Nourizadeh is also the father of director Nima Nourizadeh, director of 2012 film Project X and electronic music producers Omid 16B and Navid.

Akbar Ganji (Persian: اکبر گنجی ‎, born 31 January 1960 in Qazvin Province) is an Iranian journalist and writer. He has been described as "Iran’s preeminent political dissident", and a "wildly popular pro-democracy journalist" who has crossed press censorship "red lines" regularly. A supporter of the Islamic revolution as a youth, he became disenchanted in the mid-1990s and served time in Tehran's Evin Prison from 2001 to 2006 after publishing a series of stories on the murder of dissident authors known as the Chain Murders of Iran. While in prison he issued a manifesto which established him as the first "prominent dissident, believing Muslim and former revolutionary" to call for a replacement of Iran's theocratic system with "a democracy".

Having been named honorary citizen of many European cities and awarded distinctions for his writing and civil, Ganji has won several international awards for his work, including the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award,Canadian Journalists for Free Expression's International Press Freedom Award, the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, the Cato Institute Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and the John Humphrey Freedom Award.

Pejman Akbarzadeh (Persian: پژمان اكبرزاده‎) is an Iranian musician, researcher, journalist and radio producer.

Born in Shiraz in 1980, Akbarzadeh had his first music lessons at the age of nine from Gholam Loghmani and later from Bahram Nasrollahi. In 2001 moved to Tehran and continued his piano studies under Farman Behboud.

At age fifteen he started to research the works and activities of twentieth-century Persian (Iranian) composers and conductors. Three years later he published the first volume of his projected four-volume work, Iranian Musicians.

Pejman Akbarzadeh has written articles in both Persian and English, mostly on cultural topics, which have been published in BBC Persian Service Online, "Persian Heritage Magazine" (New Jersey), "Shargh Newspaper" (Tehran), "Rahavard Quarterly" (Los Angeles), "Gooya.com" (Brussels), "Payvand.com" (San Francisco)... and Yas-e-no Daily, which was banned in Iran in 2003.

From 2002 to 2006 Akbarzadeh was the representative of Persian Gulf Online organization in Tehran. He has published various articles about this waterway in both English and Persian. He also lectured at the Persian Studies Foundation conference in Shiraz and Iranian Artists Forum in Tehran. The text of most of these lectures were published in "Shargh" daily.

Prince Reza Pahlavi (Persian: رضا پهلوی‎, born 31 October 1960) is the last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran and current head of the House of Pahlavi. He is the older son of the late Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his Shahbanou Farah Pahlavi. In 1979, Reza Pahlavi left Iran at the time of the Iranian Revolution.

Reza Pahlavi was born in Tehran, Iran, as eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, and Empress Farah Pahlavi. Reza Pahlavi's siblings include his sister Princess Farahnaz Pahlavi (12 March 1963), brother Prince Ali-Reza Pahlavi (28 April 1966 – 4 January 2011), and sister Princess Leila Pahlavi (27 March 1970 – 10 June 2001), as well as a half-sister, Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi (27 October 1941).

He left Iran at the age of 17 for air force training. He spent a year at Williams College, but was forced to leave because of the turmoil in Iran. With the monarchy overthrown and an Islamic Republic established, Reza Pahlavi did not return to Iran. He received a BSc degree by correspondence in political science from the University of Southern California, because Williams did not offer that option. A jet fighter pilot, Reza Pahlavi completed the United States Air Force Training Program at the former Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas. In 1980, at the start of the Iran–Iraq War, Pahlavi, a highly-trained fighter pilot, wrote to General Valiollah Fallahi, Chief Commander of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic, offering to fight in the air force for Iran in the war. The offer was rebuffed.