Category Archives: Iran

Fears grow Iran players may face reprisals for not singing national anthem

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Politician says no one will be allowed to ‘insult our anthem and flag’ as loyalist media vent fury over protests during England game

Iran’s footballers could face reprisals if they fail to sing the national anthem in their remaining World Cup group games, after a politician said the country “will never allow anyone to insult our anthem”.

The football team stayed silent while the anthem was played before their 6-2 defeat to England on Monday, in a symbolic show of support for the protest movement that has roiled Iran since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in September.

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Iran players stay silent for anthem in apparent support for protests

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World Cup footballers did not sing before match against England in apparent show of support for protesters back home

Not a single member of the Iranian team sang their country’s national anthem at the start of their World Cup match with England, in an attempt to distance themselves from their government.

One official on the touchline sang, only serving to highlight his isolation, but there was heavy booing of the anthem by the large Iranian crowd inside the stadium.

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‘We are all Mahsa’: Iranians in Doha for World Cup voice anger at regime

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Signs of uprising were everywhere outside the stadium hosting England v Iran

Hundreds of Iranian fans arrived at Doha’s Khalifah stadium on Monday with a secret: they wanted their national team to lose.

“In my heart, I don’t want them to win,” said Mokhtar, 59, wincing visibly at the admission. The propaganda value of defeating Iran’s former colonial master, England, would simply be too irresistible for the country’s embattled rulers, he said.

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Iran arrests top actors who removed headcarves, in wider crackdown on celebrities

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Prominent Iranians in film and sport have been condemned for expressing solidarity with the protest movement

Iran has arrested two prominent actors who expressed solidarity with the country’s protest movement and removed their headscarves in public, according to state media.

Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi were both detained after being summoned by prosecutors looking into their “provocative” social media posts, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said.

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Women, life, freedom, food: chefs spread the word on Iran protests

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#CookForIran uses the country’s rich culinary tradition to highlight the fight for human rights, says organiser Layla Yarjani

When Layla Yarjani thinks of Iran, she thinks of ice-creams by the Caspian Sea and eating beef tongue sandwiches with her dad in a Tehran cafe. She remembers the warmth and community spirit: the bustle of noisy dinner parties with neighbours, everyone reaching across one another for spoonfuls of Persian stew; and afternoons playing football with the boys on her street.

She also remembers the strict rules beyond her happy bubble: the ban on her mother leaving the country without a man’s permission; being ordered to chant “death to America” at school and the day she was scolded by teachers for wearing a Disney princess backpack, because the character’s hair was not covered by a headscarf.

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Armed police guard Iranian TV studios in London after Tehran threats

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Persian language channel said threats to journalists had escalated in response to coverage of protests

Armed vehicles have been deployed outside the Iran International television studios in London after two of its journalists were threatened by Tehran, the channel said.

There were about seven vehicles outside the studio in Chiswick Park, west London, after “severe and credible” threats were recently made against two of the UK-based channel’s journalists, one of its spokesmen told AFP.

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Iranian protesters set fire to Ayatollah Khomeini’s ancestral home

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Social media images show what is now a museum commemorating the Islamic Republic founder ablaze as protests continue

Protesters in Iran have set on fire the ancestral home of the Islamic republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as two months of anti-regime demonstrations show no let up.

The house in the city of Khomein in the western Markazi province was shown ablaze late on Thursday with crowds of jubilant protesters marching past, according to images posted on social media, verified by AFP.

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Iranian protesters chant anti-regime slogans at boy’s funeral

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Footage shows mother of Kian Pirfalak telling mourners officials are ‘lying’ about cause of son’s death

Protesters at the funeral of a young boy whose family say was killed by Iranian security forces have chanted anti-regime slogans and ridiculed the official account of his death.

Hundreds of mourners flocked to the city of Izeh in south-western Iran for the funeral of Kian Pirfalak, according to footage posted online.

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Iran protests: family of boy, 9, killed in night of violence blame attack on security forces

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Kian Pirfalak was one of several people killed on Wednesday as anger over Mahsa Amini transforms into wider protest against the regime

The family of a nine-year-old boy killed on Wednesday evening by assailants on motorbikes during some of the worst violence in Iran in two months of protests have accused security forces of carrying out the attack.

Kian Pirfalak was one of seven people, including a woman and a 13-year-old child, killed by gunmen in the western city of Izeh.

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Iranian police open fire at Tehran metro station and beat women on train

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Video footage shows people running for exits and police with batons beating women in metro carriages

Iranian security forces have opened fire on people at a metro station in Tehran and beaten women who were not wearing mandatory hair coverings as protests over the death of Mahsa Amini entered a third month.

Footage shared on social media showed passengers running towards exits, with many falling and being trampled, after police opened fire on a crowded platform. Police were also filmed through train windows marching through carriages and beating women with batons.

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US and Israel blame Iran after drone strikes oil tanker off Oman

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Pacific Zircon, linked to Israeli billionaire, said to have been ‘hit by projectile’ but suffered only minor damage

The US and Israel have pointed the finger at Iran after an oil tanker associated with an Israeli billionaire was struck by a bomb-carrying drone off the coast of Oman.

The drone attack on the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Pacific Zircon happened on Tuesday night off the coast of Oman, a Middle East-based defence official told the Associated Press.

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Iranian security forces shoot dead at least two demonstrators

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Forces opened fire as protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death swelled on anniversary of bloody 2019 crackdown

Iranian security forces have shot dead at least two protesters, as demonstrations sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death swelled on the anniversary of a bloody 2019 crackdown.

The protesters were responding to a call to commemorate those slain in the 2019 crackdown, giving new momentum to the demonstrations sparked by the death of 22-year-old Amini in mid-September this year, after her arrest for allegedly flouting Iran’s strict dress code for women.

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Iran issues first death sentence over protests

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Unnamed person faces execution for alleged arson as part of crackdown on unrest triggered by death of Mahsa Amini

Iran has issued a first death sentence over protests that have mounted a fierce challenge to four decades of hardline clerical rule, as rights groups warn that a wave of executions may follow as leaders try to end nearly two months of sustained nationwide dissent.

The execution was ordered for an unidentified person for allegedly setting fire to a government building. It followed 272 of Iran’s 290 lawmakers voting earlier this month to implement the death penalty for serious crimes against the state, and repeated demands by some officials to take a harder line against unrest that shows little sign of abating.

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‘An amazing feeling’: asylum seeker stuck in hotel thanks Observer readers for sending books

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Ali, a Kurd who fled Iran, may also be offered a university place after he told of the tedium of 500 days in limbo

An asylum seeker who has spent almost 500 days stranded in a Berkshire hotel has thanked Observer readers for their generosity after he was inundated with books.

Last week Ali featured in an article articulating life in limbo for the 37,000 asylum seekers living in hotels, with the Kurdish Iranian lamenting that the one thing he craved to relieve the tedium was a book to read.

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Germans ‘disgusted’ by Iran protest crackdown, says chancellor

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Olaf Scholz says responsibility for violence lies solely with regime and pledges new sanctions

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has strongly criticised the Iranian government for its brutal crackdown on protests and said Germany stood “shoulder to shoulder with the Iranian people”.

Scholz said the protests sparked by the death on 16 September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her detention by Iran’s morality police were no longer “merely a question of dress codes” but had evolved into a fight for freedom and justice.

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Thousands of Iranians protest in south-east to mark ‘Bloody Friday’

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Video apparently shows crowds marching in Zahedan to condemn 30 September massacre of activists

Thousands of Iranians protested in the restive south-east to mark a 30 September crackdown by security forces known as “Bloody Friday” as the country’s rulers faced persistent nationwide unrest.

Amnesty International said security forces unlawfully killed at least 66 people in September after firing at protesters in Zahedan, capital of flashpoint Sistan and Baluchistan province. Authorities said dissidents had provoked the clashes.

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Foreign Office asks Iran to explain alleged death threats to UK-based reporters

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Deputy ambassador summoned after Met police warns of credible threats to journalists reporting on Iran protests

The Foreign Office has summoned the Iranian deputy ambassador over allegations that two London-based journalists have faced death threats from Tehran-backed agents over the reporting of the country’s protests.

The news channel Iran International took precautionary steps to protect its reporters after being informed by the Metropolitan police earlier this week that it believes there were credible threats to the journalists’ lives. The two reporters have not been named nor the precise threats detailed.

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Rapper who protested over death of Mahsa Amini faces execution in Iran

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UN calls for international action as regime announces public trials for protesters and Iranian lawmakers seek harsh punishment

Three weeks after he was violently arrested at his home by Iran’s security forces, Saman Yasin, a young Kurdish artist and rapper, is facing execution. He has been charged with waging war against God after posting his support for anti-regime protesters on social media.

His fate, which will be decided in the coming days by the Iranian courts, could be shared by thousands of other young protesters being held in detention as human rights organisations warn that the regime may unleash a bloody campaign of revenge in an attempt to quash continuing protests.

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Iran and Russia find common ground through Syrian and Ukraine wars

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Tehran’s supply of drones to Moscow deepens a collaboration between two unlikely allies

When a Russian plane arrived in Iran with €140m in cash and a booty of captured western weapons, an exchange for Iranian drones, it marked a new phase in a seven-year alliance between two unlikely bedfellows.

The delivery of cash and weapons was reportedly made in August, after Russia received its first deliveries of drones to support its war in Ukraine. It was Iran’s first known contribution to the Russian offensive in Europe. But the bond between the two countries had been forged on another continent ravaged by war, the Middle East.

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Drone analysis in Ukraine suggests Iran has supplied Russia since war began

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Guardian visits space used by Ukrainian military intelligence to examine captured drones

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Ukraine’s military has shown the Guardian evidence that at least some of the Iranian-made drones used by Russia in its war were probably supplied after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February.

Ukraine said it first noticed that Russia was using Iranian-supplied weapons in September. Since then, Russia has successfully used them to target Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure, causing serious power shortages.

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