LONDON, April 17, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday urged the UK government to better protect Iranian journalists being targeted with "chilling" repression by Tehran.

The call came weeks after a journalist for an independent Iranian media outlet was stabbed outside his London home, in an attack being probed by counter terrorism police.

RSF said almost 90 percent of Iranian journalists surveyed had reported experiencing online threats or harassment, including death and rape threats, in the last five years.

Female respondents said they or their family members had been sent explicit images while facing campaigns to damage their reputations.

"Iran has for a very long time been systematically targeting journalists who report on Iran from abroad in an effort to silence them," RSF UK director Fiona O'Brien told a press briefing.

"The impact on journalists and on journalism is really devastating," she added, saying journalists had spoken of suffering suicidal thoughts, exhaustion and sleeplessness.

The threats, she said, came from multiple actors, with the Iranian government and its proxies the principal source.

Threats, however, were also being made against journalists by Iranian opposition groups and political activists accusing them of being sympathetic to the government.

"For journalists who are on the receiving end of this kind of abuse it feels very much like it's coming from all directions," O'Brien said.

The response by the UK government, law enforcement agencies and social media platforms in stopping the abuse had been "woefully inadequate", she said.

The report has called on Britain to "provide rapid response protection mechanisms for journalists facing serious threats".

Authorities should also establish clear legal pathways for journalists forced to flee their home countries to enter Britain, it added.

RSF urged the government to work with law enforcement agencies to ensure transnational crimes against journalists under UK jurisdiction were "systematically investigated and prosecuted".

Iranian journalists working in the United States, France, Germany, Sweden, were also often subjected to intimidation, it said.

"Exiled Iranian journalists have shown remarkable courage and resilience in continuing to report in the face of such threats, but far more must be done to support and protect them," O'Brien said.

Pouria Zeraati, a presenter for Iran International, needed hospital treatment for leg wounds suffered in the London attack on March 29.

The Iranian government has declared Iran International a terrorist organisation, but has denied any links to the incident.

Zeraati, 36, said the stabbing was a "warning shot".

London police have said two suspects went straight from the scene in southwest London to Heathrow Airport and left "within a few hours".

Detectives were considering whether "the victim's occupation could have prompted the assault".

The UK government last year unveiled tougher sanctions against Iran over alleged human rights violations and hostile actions against its opponents in Britain.