Majidreza Rahnavard accused of fatally stabbing security force members early in protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in custody
Iran has publicly hanged a man accused of killing two members of the security forces in its second use of capital punishment against anti-government protesters.
Majidreza Rahnavard’s family were woken early on Monday morning to be informed that he had been executed and that his body had been buried in a lot in the local cemetery.
Continue reading...Penny Wong announces Magnitsky-style sanctions to punish Iran’s violent crackdown on protesters and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
The Australian government will use human rights sanctions to punish “egregious human rights violations and abuses” by Iranian and Russian perpetrators.
The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, announced the Magnitsky-style sanctions (named for the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison after exposing corruption in Russia) have been imposed on 13 Russian and Iranian individuals.
Continue reading...Uncle of Mohsen Shekari, who was convicted of ‘waging war against God’, says family have not been told location of body
Iran has conducted the first known execution in relation to the anti-government protests that have rocked the country, hanging a man who was found guilty by a revolutionary court of “waging war against God”.
Mohsen Shekari was accused of blocking a street and wounding a member of the pro-regime Basij militia on 25 September, during the early phase of the protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Men and women coming in with shotgun wounds to different parts of bodies, doctors say
Iranian security forces are targeting women at anti-regime protests with shotgun fire to their faces, breasts and genitals, according to interviews with medics across the country.
Doctors and nurses – treating demonstrators in secret to avoid arrest – said they first observed the practice after noticing that women often arrived with different wounds to men, who more commonly had shotgun pellets in their legs, buttocks and backs.
Continue reading...Mikhailo Podolyak says pressure on Tehran from overseas and distraction of civil unrest mean helping Moscow is not a priority
Iran has so far not delivered ballistic missiles to Russia and may not do so, as a result of diplomatic pressure and Iran’s own internal political turmoil, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser has said.
Mikhailo Podolyak also told the Guardian that Russian forces had run short of their first batch of Iranian drones – and only had enough of their own cruise missiles in their stockpile for “two or three” more mass strikes against Ukraine.
Continue reading...Shopkeepers and lorry drivers from almost 40 cities are participating in mass walkouts
Iranian shopkeepers and lorry drivers staged a walkout in nearly 40 cities and towns on Monday after calls for a three-day nationwide general strike from protesters as the government declined to confirm a claim by a senior official that the morality police had been abolished.
Iranian newspapers instead reported an increase in patrols, especially in religious cities, requiring women to wear the hijab, and shop managers being directed by the police to reinforce hijab restrictions.
Continue reading...State media distance themselves from claim ‘morality police’ have been shut down after Mahsa Amini death
Protesters in Iran have called for a three-day strike this week amid conflicting reports that its “morality police” had been shut down, and as the US said the leadership in Tehran had locked itself into a “vicious cycle” that had cut it off from its own people and the international community.
The call steps up pressure on Iranian authorities after the attorney general said this weekend that the morality police – whose detention of a young woman triggered months of protests – had been shut down. There was no confirmation of the closure from the interior ministry, which is in charge of the morality police, and Iranian state media said the attorney general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, was not responsible for overseeing the force.
Continue reading...Washington focusing on protests and Tehran’s support of Russia in Ukraine rather than nuclear talks, envoy says
Iran’s leadership has locked itself into a “vicious cycle” that has cut it off from its own people and the international community, the US special envoy has said, adding that Washington was more focused on Tehran’s decision to arm Russia in Ukraine and the repression of its internal protests than on talks to revive the nuclear deal.
“The more Iran represses, the more there will be sanctions; the more there are sanctions, the more Iran feels isolated,” Rob Malley, the US special envoy on Iran, told a conference in Rome.
Continue reading...Dozens of women turn out on streets of provincial capital, where men have been protesting for months
Black-clad women in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province have joined nationwide protests on Friday sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, in what a rights group called a rare move in the staunchly conservative region.
Videos online showed dozens of women on the streets of the provincial capital, Zahedan, holding banners that declared “Woman, life, freedom” – one of the main slogans of the protest movement that erupted in mid-September.
Continue reading...Mehran Samak was killed by security forces after honking car horn in celebration of Iran’s defeat to US, human rights groups say
An Iranian man was shot dead by security forces after Iran’s national team lost to the US and exited the World Cup, as anti-government demonstrations took place inside and outside the stadium in Qatar and across Iran.
Mehran Samak, 27, was shot dead after honking his car horn in Bandar Anzali, a city on the Caspian Sea coast, north-west of Tehran, according to human rights activists.
Continue reading...Footage shows fireworks and cheering across Iran and at Qatar stadium after team representing Islamic Republic lost 1-0
Some Iranians have celebrated their team’s loss to the US and subsequent exit from the World Cup, as demonstrations against the government’s treatment of protesters took place inside and outside the stadium in Qatar and across Iran.
The contest between the Iranian and American sides, whose countries severed diplomatic ties more than 40 years ago, took place under increased security to prevent a flare-up over the anti-government protests that have taken place across Iran since the death in custody of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini on 16 September.
Continue reading...Both were bailed hours before Iran faces US in World Cup, following release of hundreds of other prisoners
Iran has released two former members of its international football team who were arrested on charges related to countrywide protests, just hours before the national squad was set to play the US at the World Cup.
Right-back Voria Ghafouri was detained last week and accused of tarnishing “the reputation of the national team and spreading propaganda against the state”, while retired goalkeeper Parviz Boroumand was arrested nearly two weeks ago on charges of participating in rallies in the capital, Tehran.
Continue reading...Art activism has increased in and outside the country since death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini
Dozens of Iranian artists have called for an international boycott of cultural institutions run by or affiliated with the Islamic Republic in protest against the regime’s worsening human rights abuses.
The call by artists, writers, film-makers and academics living in Iran and among its diaspora comes amid growing anti-government art activism by Iranians inside and outside the country after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
Continue reading...Rights activist Farideh Moradkhani releases video describing government as ‘murderous and child-killing’ after her arrest
A niece of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called on foreign governments to cut all links with Tehran’s “murderous and child-killing” regime in a video posted online two days after she was arrested.
The video of a statement by Farideh Moradkhani, a well-known rights activist, has been circulating online after it was shared by her France-based brother Mahmoud Moradkhani on Friday. Mahmoud Moradkhani said his sister had been arrested on Wednesday after going to a prosecutor’s office following a summons.
Continue reading...Detention of Voria Ghafouri, who is not part of World Cup squad, seen as warning to players in Qatar
Iranian security forces on Thursday arrested one of the country’s most famous footballers, accusing him of spreading propaganda against the Islamic republic and seeking to undermine the national World Cup team.
Voria Ghafouri, a former member of the national football team and once a captain of the Tehran club Esteghlal, has been outspoken in his defence of Iranian Kurds, telling the government on social media to stop killing Kurdish people. He has previously been detained for criticising the former Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif.
Continue reading...Official says country is in ‘fully fledged human rights crisis’ as fact-finding mission launched
The UN’s human rights council has voted overwhelmingly to set up a fact-finding investigation into human rights abuses in Iran, where an estimated 300 people have been killed and 14,000 arrested since protests began 10 weeks ago.
At a special session convened by Germany in Geneva the HRC voted by 25 to six to set up the inquiry, with 15 abstaining. The vote is regarded as a significant victory for human rights defenders, since a mechanism now exists to file evidence of abuses by the state, making the possibility of prosecutions in international courts more likely.
Continue reading...Regime refuses to provide consular access as it does not recognise dual nationality, Dfat says
An Australian citizen is among at least 40 foreign nationals now held in Iranian jails amid pro-democracy protests across the country – and an escalating violent response by regime forces.
A spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the Iranian-Australian dual national had not been arrested for taking part in the anti-regime protests but confirmed that Australian officials had been refused access to assess the person’s welfare.
Continue reading...Person arrested in Isfahan province accused of sharing information with BBC and Iran International, says state media
An unnamed British-Iranian citizen was arrested in Iran’s Isfahan province on Wednesday for allegedly sharing information with foreign-based news channels, Iranian state media reported.
“The Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organisation arrested a British-Iranian citizen who communicated with the BBC and Iran International,” the Islamic Republic of Iran’s News Network said, before adding the person was born in Britain.
Continue reading...Davoud Jafari and his bodyguard reportedly targeted by roadside bomb near Damascus
An improvised bomb has killed an Iranian colonel from the aerospace division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near Syria’s capital, Damascus, Iranian media reported, blaming Israel for the attack.
The Islamic republic regularly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, which in turn sees Iran, with its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and its regional proxies, as its biggest security threat.
Continue reading...Iran has begun producing enriched uranium at a second site, to a level one step away from weapons grade
The UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed Iran is enriching uranium to 60% at a second plant, amid the breakdown of the nuclear deal with major powers.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Tuesday that Iran was also planning a massive expansion of its enrichment capacity.
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