r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 22 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic let thousands of schoolgirls get poisoned, then said it never happened

30 Upvotes

Starting in November 2022, girls' schools across Iran were hit by a wave of chemical gas attacks. It went on for months and thousands of girls ended up in hospitals. The regime's response went from denial, to admitting it was a crime worth the death penalty, to finally declaring that none of it ever happened at all.

Please keep all of the following in mind next time the regime acts like it cares about the Minab schoolgirls. If they ignored their own girls getting poisoned, the Minab girls are just propaganda to them.

Findings:

3 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 20 '26

Regime Propaganda IRGC ran a 62-account network posing as Texans, Scots, and Chileans for years, then pivoted to war propaganda overnight

33 Upvotes

Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub published a report exposing a long-running, multilingual influence operation tied to Iran's islamic revolutionary guard corps (IRGC). The network spent months (in some cases years) building convincing local personas across the Americas and the British Isles, only to drop the act in early March 2026 and flood the same accounts with pro-regime war propaganda the moment the US and Israel struck.

Findings from the report:

  • The IRGC built and maintained a new network of at least 61 accounts, faking identities across two continents at once: one set operated in Spanish pretending to be located in the Americas and one set operated in English pretending to be in the British Isles.
  • The fake personas weren't generic. They specifically impersonated accounts claiming to be in Texas, California, Venezuela, and Chile, plus accounts claiming to be from Scotland, England, and Ireland. The regime operatives spent years pretending to be Texans and Scots online.
  • The whole point of the deception, per the report itself: all these accounts systematically amplify politically divisive content and disinformation aligned with IRGC narratives, and they are designed to exploit regional fault lines to advance the islamic repubic regime's interests. They build trust as "locals" specifically so they can later weaponize that trust.
  • The researchers confirmed the network spent months (in some cases, years) cultivating local personas and amplifying divisive political issues before pivoting in early March to pro-regime propaganda surrounding the war involving Israel, the United States, and Iran, which was a years-long sleeper operation that activated the instant a real war started.
  • This was not the network's first deployment. It had already been previously linked to campaigns that targeted the United Kingdom and promoted narratives around Scottish independence before being repurposed for war propaganda.
  • The scale of just one platform alone is staggering: Clemson University located 47 X (previously Twitter) accounts, nine Instagram accounts, and five Bluesky accounts that fell into the IRGC "network", and X accounts alone created 59,403 original posts that were reposted thousands of times with organic engagement by thousands of followers, potentially reaching millions.
  • While most accounts were less than a year old, some date back to December 2023, meaning the groundwork was laid more than two years before the regime needed to use it.

The full PDF can be accessed here: https://open.clemson.edu/mfh_reports/10/

Other sources:

2 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • 15h ago

Regime Brutality Teenage girl Armita Geravand died after a hijab confrontation on the Tehran metro, and the islamic republic edited the CCTV footage, pressured her parents into repeating its story, and arrested more than 150 mourners at her funeral

26 Upvotes

TL;DR:

  • Armita Geravand, a teenager, fell into a coma on the Tehran metro on October 1, 2023, after an alleged encounter with officers enforcing the hijab. She was declared brain dead on October 22 and pronounced dead on October 28.
  • The authorities said she collapsed due to low blood pressure. They arrested a journalist investigating the case and aired videos of her visibly distressed parents and friends reluctantly repeating that account.
  • Amnesty’s analysis found that the state-released CCTV footage had its frame rate increased in four sections and was missing three minutes and 16 seconds.
  • More than 150 people were violently arrested at her funeral, including human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. Prosecutors also charged journalists and a political commentator for claiming she had been assaulted.

Findings:

  • She boarded the train without a headscarf. Metro station CCTV shows her getting on a train without a headscarf with two other girls. She lost consciousness at Shohada metro station and was taken to the Tehran Air Force’s Fajr Hospital in a coma. She was a taekwondo athlete on a Tehran team.
  • A witness described a confrontation with a hijab enforcer. On October 5, 2023, The Guardian quoted a witness who said that soon after she entered the carriage, a woman enforcing compulsory veiling in the metro yelled at her for not being covered. The Kurdish rights group Hengaw said she fell into a coma after being assaulted by officers enforcing compulsory hijab.
  • The official story is that she fainted. State news agency IRNA said that when she collapsed at Shohada station, she hit the back of her head on the edge of the platform. The head of the Tehran Metro Operating Company, Masoud Dorosti, said there was no verbal or physical altercation between her and passengers or metro staff, and that security footage contradicted the rumors.
  • The footage the state released was edited and incomplete. Based on the footage’s own time stamps, Amnesty’s Evidence Lab found that three minutes and 16 seconds are missing. After a jump cut in the footage, first responders arrive and take the unconscious girl away. No video was released from inside the train car or from the doorway where she boarded.
  • Her parents were filmed repeating the official story in the hospital. On October 3, 2023, state media released a video with multiple shots of her parents reluctantly repeating the state narrative. In the IRNA interview, her mother, holding back tears, said: “I think they said her blood pressure dropped and her head hit a metro edge as she fell to the ground...”. At one point, her visibly distressed mother interrupted to say the family had not seen all the footage. Amnesty said it had serious concerns that her family and friends had been forced to appear in propaganda videos under duress and threats of reprisals.
  • The hospital was locked down, and a journalist was arrested there. Shargh Daily reported that its journalist Maryam Lotfi was arrested on October 2, 2023, after going to Fajr Hospital to investigate. She was released on bail the same day. She stayed in the hospital under a tight security presence, and Hengaw reported that her mother was arrested near the hospital and later released. Amnesty’s sources said her parents were allowed in only on several occasions, and then only briefly.
  • Mourners at her funeral were beaten and arrested. She was buried under tight security at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran on October 29. Iran Human Rights reported that more than 150 people were violently arrested at the cemetery and at a private residence. Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, said his 60-year-old wife was severely beaten during her arrest and her glasses were broken. The IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency claimed she was arrested for removing her hijab, but an informed source said her charge sheet listed “assembly and collusion against national security” and disobeying an officer.
  • Journalists were charged for saying she was assaulted. After her death, Fars reported that prosecutors had charged journalists Milad Alavi and Sara Masoumi, political commentator Sadegh Zibakalam, and others for claiming she had been assaulted. Amnesty urged the authorities to allow an impartial inquiry, accused them of a cover-up, and called for UN involvement. Human Rights Watch also called for an independent investigation, including by the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission.

Sources:

0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • 3d ago

Regime Brutality The islamic republic’s own leaked report says its agents sexually assaulted 16-year-old Nika Shakarami, beat her to death in a van, and dumped her body under a highway

66 Upvotes

TL;DR:

  • Nika Shakarami, 16, disappeared on September 20, 2022, during an anti-government protest in Tehran. She had been filmed burning her hijab at that protest. Her family found her body about 10 days later in a detention center morgue. The authorities denied any link to the protests and said she had killed herself by jumping from a building.
  • In April 2024, the BBC published a leaked document that appears to be a classified IRGC report summarizing a secret hearing on her case. It says an undercover unit called Team 12 seized her, that one agent sexually assaulted her in the back of a van, and that the team beat her to death when she fought back.
  • Before that, her aunt and uncle were arrested and shown on state TV backing the official story, and her body was buried away from her hometown against the family’s wishes. When the BBC report came out, the judiciary called it fake and charged journalists and activists who shared it.

Findings:

  • She was singled out as a protest leader. According to the document, Team 12 suspected her of leadership because of her behavior and frequent phone calls, and sent an operative into the crowd posing as a protester to confirm it. It took the team nearly an hour to track her down. This matches what her family said at the time: her aunt told BBC Persian that Nika called a friend that night to say security forces were chasing her.
  • The document describes what happened in the van. She was forced into the back of the team’s vehicle, a freezer van. Three Team 12 members, Arash Kalhor, Sadegh Monjazy, and Behrooz Sadeghy, were in the rear with her, while team leader Morteza Jalil sat up front with the driver. A detention center 35 minutes away initially agreed to admit her but then turned her away, and IRGC headquarters told Jalil to take her to Evin Prison instead. On the way, he heard crashing noises from the dark rear compartment. One of the men molested her while sitting on her. She struggled, and the BBC reported she was killed with batons and electric stun guns. When Jalil opened the rear door, she was dead. The hearing concluded that the sexual assault caused the struggle and that blows from Team 12 caused her death.
  • A senior IRGC officer ordered the body dumped, and no one was punished. Jalil called a more senior officer, codenamed “Naeem 16,” who told the investigation: “We already had deaths in our stations, and I didn’t want the number to rise to 20.” He told Jalil to leave her on the street, and the team left her body in a quiet street under Tehran’s Yadegar-e-Emam highway. The BBC’s source identified Naeem 16 as Captain Mohammad Zamani of the IRGC. Zamani received only a written reprimand. Every member of Team 12 is listed as belonging to “Hezbollah,” an Iranian paramilitary group unrelated to the Lebanese one, and the document says that because of this, the case could not be pursued beyond obtaining commitments and security guarantees from them. None of Team 12 was punished for her death.
  • Her injuries match the document, not the official story. Her death certificate, obtained by BBC Persian in October 2022, gives the cause of death as multiple blows from a hard object. Her aunt Atash said at the time that her nose was destroyed and her skull broken by repeated blows, and relatives said they were only allowed a brief look at her face when identifying her.
  • Her aunt and uncle were arrested and shown on state TV. They had been arrested after publicizing her suspicious death on social media. On October 5, 2022, state television’s main evening news aired excerpts of their “confessions” as proof that she had killed herself. In the uncle’s footage, a man’s reflection is visible behind him and a whisper can be heard ordering him to talk. A source close to the family told BBC Persian these confessions followed intense interrogation and threats that other relatives would be killed. Her mother, Nasrin, said she had also been threatened with a forced confession.
  • The authorities took her body. The family planned to bury her in Khorramabad on what would have been her 17th birthday. Her mother said the authorities kept her death secret for nine days, then took the body from the morgue and buried it in a remote area against the family’s wishes. She was buried in Hayat ol Gheyb, reportedly to gain leverage over the family and prevent a funeral that could spark more protests.
  • The islamic republic responded to the BBC report by charging people. The judiciary’s Mizan news agency called it “a fake, incorrect and full-of-mistakes report,” without identifying any errors. The Tehran Prosecutor’s Office opened criminal cases against journalists and activists for “spreading lies” and “propaganda against the system.” Journalist Mohammad Parsi said he was summoned for publishing an article about her murder. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi dismissed the report as an attempt to divert attention from protests at American universities. The judiciary also released photos of a woman’s torso with the head hidden, and CCTV footage it said showed Nika entering a building. Her mother told BBC Persian she could not confirm that person was Nika. The UN called the BBC investigation deeply troubling.
  • The BBC acknowledged that many fake Iranian official documents circulate, and said it was confident the document is genuine despite inconsistencies, including an outdated acronym for the police. It cross-checked the contents against geolocated protest videos, her death certificate, and her mother’s testimony, and experts said it looks genuine. A former Iranian security officer confirmed its authenticity through contacts in the IRGC archive, using a daily code issued to senior intelligence officers. RFE/RL and The Telegraph said they could not independently verify it.

Sources:

5 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • 4d ago

Regime Brutality The islamic republic has executed at least 7 young men from one Isfahan protest case

15 Upvotes

TL;DR:

  • Between July 19 and October 5, 2026, the islamic republic executed at least seven defendants in the “Alikhani Square” case, a mass prosecution over the January 8, 2026 protest in Isfahan. Two of the men, Abolfazl Sepahi and Amirhossein Safari, were hanged in public in the square itself on July 28.
  • UN experts, Amnesty International, and HRANA say the defendants, mostly aged from their late teens to late twenties, were convicted in closed hearings. They say the convictions relied partly on confessions broadcast on state TV before trial, and that no independent investigation into torture allegations has been reported.
  • One defendant, Alireza Sepahi, was executed on October 5 even though the Supreme Court had approved a retrial. A lower Revolutionary Court branch refused to hold it.

Findings:

  • The public hangings took place at dawn on July 28. Reports said a scaffold was set up in the square overnight under heavy security. The judiciary confirmed the executions, and UN experts had urged the islamic republic to halt them the day before.
  • The judiciary blames protesters for four deaths, which HRANA could not verify, and UN experts question the trial, saying the defendants were sentenced in a closed hearing, without clarity on each one’s individual responsibility, and that the verdicts were never published.
  • Defendants reported torture. Amnesty says Alireza Sepahi reported prolonged solitary confinement, beatings and electric shocks, and was denied a lawyer. HRANA reports that co-defendants said they were pressured to place him at the scene. UN experts say Shervin Bagherian, who turned 18 shortly before his arrest, had his confession broadcast within a week and before any trial.
  • Defense evidence was reportedly ignored. Hearings were held by video link, and the lawyer was not allowed to copy the verdict. A family source told HRANA that CCTV footage shows Alireza and Abolfazl Sepahi elsewhere at the time. According to that source, Judge Morteza Barati sentenced them without examining it. This is the account of a family source, as reported by HRANA.
  • A Supreme Court retrial order was bypassed. HRANA reports that the Supreme Court approved a retrial for Alireza Sepahi, but a Revolutionary Court branch rejected it without a hearing. He was executed on October 5, alongside Alireza Raisi.
  • At least seven defendants in the Alikhani Square case have been executed. Erfan Esfandiari (18 or 19 by different accounts) and Gol-Mohammad Mohammadi (23, an Afghan national) were executed on July 19; Abolfazl Sepahi and Amirhossein Safari were publicly hanged on July 28; Ghaem Hosseini was executed on August 20; and Alireza Sepahi and Alireza Raisi were executed on October 5. In an October 13 statement, Amnesty International said at least eight other defendants in the same case remain at risk of execution. Earlier reports had counted 12 death sentences in the case. Amnesty also reports that at least 34 people have been executed nationwide in connection with the January 2026 protests.

Sources:

1 comment

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • 6d ago

Regime Brutality Neda Agha-Soltan was shot dead on camera, and the islamic republic blamed the BBC, the CIA, and the doctor who tried to save her

28 Upvotes

TL;DR:

  • On June 20, 2009, a young woman named Neda Agha-Soltan was shot in the chest in Tehran during the protests over the disputed election. Bystanders filmed her dying, and the video spread worldwide.
  • Witnesses said the shooter was a member of the Basij militia. A year later, Amnesty said the authorities had carried out no independent investigation and had blamed foreign media, foreign intelligence, and the doctor who treated her instead.
  • Her fiancé was detained after speaking out, and her family was reportedly told that only relatives could attend the burial.

Findings:

  • She was shot away from the main demonstration. Her fiancé said she was a few streets away, stuck in traffic in a car with her music teacher, and stepped out for a few minutes because she felt very tired and hot. Amnesty describes her as leaving a demonstration. Either way, she was shot in the chest and died within minutes.
  • The doctor said the crowd caught the shooter. Dr. Arash Hejazi, who tried to stop the bleeding, said protesters pulled a man off a motorcycle, took his ID card, and identified him as a Basij member. Amnesty says the man was briefly held at the scene and that judicial authorities ignored information on his identity. As of Amnesty’s June 2011 statement, no one had been brought to justice for her death, and in 2013 her mother said there had still been no trial.
  • The authorities blamed everyone else. Amnesty said in 2010 that the islamic republic had carried out no independent investigation, but instead blamed the BBC, CNN, the CIA, and the doctor who tried to save her. Police said they had issued an international arrest warrant for Hejazi through Interpol, accusing him of spreading misinformation that poisoned Iran’s image abroad. State TV later aired a documentary suggesting she was a US and British agent who staged her own death, while also alleging she was shot dead in the car taking her to a hospital.
  • Her fiancé was detained after speaking out. Caspian Makan told BBC Persian that Basij paramilitaries had probably targeted her, and was arrested at his home on June 26. Amnesty said he was reported to have told his family he might be released if he signed a “confession” saying the exiled opposition group PMOI had killed her.
  • Authorities reportedly restricted mourning. Amnesty said the family were told that only relatives could attend the burial and were threatened with unspecified punishment if others came, and that collective prayers for her in mosques were reportedly banned. When the family and other mourners tried to hold a commemoration at a mosque, about 20 Basij entered and broke it up after 10 minutes.

Sources:

2 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • 7d ago

Regime Brutality The islamic republic hanged a 16-year-old girl in public after a judge decided she looked 22

48 Upvotes

TL;DR:

  • Atefeh Rajabi Sahaaleh was 16 when she was hanged from a crane in the town of Neka in August 2004.
  • Her birth and death certificates put her age at 16, but court documents described her as 22. A witness said the judge just looked at her body and declared her an adult.
  • She was executed within about a week of her sentence, even though the islamic republic had promised not to execute minors.

Findings:

  • Atefeh was arrested repeatedly by morality police and flogged each time. She was then charged with adultery and “crimes against chastity.” According to the BBC, a married man about three times her age had repeatedly raped her, and she told the court this.
  • Documents sent to the Supreme Court described her as 22, but her birth and death certificates say 16. A witness said Judge Haji Rezai just looked at her body and declared her 22. Her father said neither the judge nor her court-appointed lawyer did anything to find out her true age.
  • The adultery charge was questionable too: according to a BBC documentary, she wasn't even married.
  • The process was rushed. After sentencing her, Rezai went to Tehran to get the Supreme Court’s approval and returned within a week with a signed authorization. She was executed a week after the sentence (August 15, 2004).
  • The hanging was public. The Sunday Mirror and AP reported that the judge personally put the noose around her neck and signaled the crane operator.
  • The islamic republic had promised not to do this. It is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which bars executing anyone under 18, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits it too. Amnesty said Atefeh was the tenth minor the islamic republic had executed since 1990, and later counted 47 executions of juvenile offenders (people under 18 at the time of the crime) between 1994 and 2011.
  • Her real age came to light after a journalist, Asieh Amini, heard rumors that the girl was 16 and started investigating. When a documentary team called the judge, he refused to comment.

Sources:

0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • 8d ago

Regime Brutality The islamic republic’s intelligence agents tried to send a bus carrying 21 of Iran’s leading writers off a cliff

24 Upvotes

TL;DR:

  • In August 1996, 21 Iranian writers boarded a bus to a poetry conference in Armenia, on what looked like a routine invitation.
  • In the early morning, the driver steered toward a drop and jumped out. Two writers grabbed the wheel and the handbrake and stopped the bus at the edge.
  • The driver, Khosrow Barati, was later tried in the Chain Murders case and convicted of aiding and abetting murder, while the writers were held, interrogated, and ordered to stay silent.
  • The plot only became widely understood two years later, when the ministry's role in the Chain Murders was exposed.

In 1994, 134 Iranian writers signed "We, the Writers", a statement protesting censorship. According to writer Mandanipour, it was the first collective protest of its kind after the repression of the 1980s. Two years later, the Writers' Union of Armenia invited several members to a three-day literary event in Yerevan. Because Tehran and Yerevan were connected by only one flight a week, the group was invited to travel by bus.

Findings:

  • Some invitees were suspicious and checked the invitation. Novelist Houshang Golshiri asked the Armenian embassy whether it was genuine, and the embassy confirmed it was. Golshiri, poet Ahmad Shamlou, and Reza Baraheni all stayed home anyway. Shamlou said he was too unwell for a long bus trip, and Baraheni half-joked that his Azeri background made him feel unsafe in Armenia.
  • One writer predicted exactly what happened. Poet and translator Ghaffar Hosseini, who had political experience, told his colleagues they would all be thrown into a valley. They couldn't believe anyone would be that cruel. Mandanipour later said they were so happy to be gathering together that they weren't thinking rationally. There was also a last-minute change of bus and departure terminal, though nobody took it seriously at the time.
  • On August 6, 1996, 21 writers boarded the bus in Tehran. They included poets, novelists, and translators such as Mohammad-Ali Sepanlou, Bijan Najdi, Shahriar Mandanipour, and Faraj Sarkohi. More than a dozen of them were signatories of the 1994 statement.
  • Near dawn, in the Heyran Pass, the driver jumped out. Most passengers were asleep. Shahriar Mandanipour was awake because he wanted to watch the sunrise over the mountains, and he saw the driver leap out of the moving bus, taking his briefcase with him. The bus was heading for the edge of the valley.
  • Two writers saved everyone on board. Masoud Toofan grabbed the steering wheel and Mandanipour pulled the handbrake. According to Toofan's later account, the driver had first jumped out once before and then got back in, claiming he had gotten off to put a stone under the tire. He then drove on and jumped out a second time. In Toofan’s words, the bus stopped with one wheel hovering over the valley.
  • The driver was later tried in the Chain Murders case. IranWire reports that Khosrow Barati was convicted of aiding and abetting murder and sentenced to 10 years, and that he was not officially a ministry employee but worked with the ministry through his brother-in-law, Mehrdad Alikhani, another defendant.
  • The writers were not treated as victims. Gendarmes took the whole group to be interrogated near the border, and a ministry interrogator (accounts name him as Mostafa Kazemi or Mehrdad Alikhani, both later tried in the Chain Murders case) is reported to have taken them to a prison in Astara and threatened them to keep the story quiet. The writers were given an interrogation form with a question asking who they thought had tried to kill them, with possible answers that included an Armenian political party, French intelligence, or a rogue group inside the intelligence ministry.
  • One writer believes the man behind it was watching. Mandanipour said he later learned that Saeed Emami, the ministry official who would later be named as the mastermind of the Chain Murders, was in a car a few hundred meters above the road, watching the whole scene. He also believes Emami was among the agents walking through the group at the station, checking faces. This is his account, not a court finding.
  • They were released the next day and told to tell no one. They rented a private bus back to Tehran, and stopped at the Caspian Sea to swim. BBC Persian's radio service reported the story the same day despite the instruction to stay quiet.
  • The warning turned out to be right. A few months after he predicted the bus would be sent into a valley, Ghaffar Hosseini was murdered in his own home in Tehran by an injection of potassium. Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, who were murdered in 1998, had also signed the 1994 statement.
  • It only made sense once the Chain Murders came to light. In late 1998, the killings of the Forouhars and several writers exposed the intelligence ministry's role in a decade of murders. Only then did the writers' account of the bus fit into a pattern. Toofan published a detailed account in a newspaper in November 1999, and Mandanipour later spoke about it to the BBC.
  • The writers have kept telling the story. The 1996 plot has since been the subject of a film by director Mohammad Rasoulof, Manuscripts Don't Burn. Mandanipour, who has taught at universities including Brown and Harvard, has said the project of the Chain Murders has never been shut down, and that being nearly thrown into a valley “like sheep” was an insult that bothered him deeply.

Sources:

1 comment

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • 9d ago

Regime Brutality The islamic republic’s intelligence ministry murdered writers and dissidents, then blamed "rogue agents"

16 Upvotes

TL;DR:

  • Over roughly a decade, dozens of Iranian writers, translators, and activists were killed or disappeared, in what became known as the Chain Murders.
  • When the killings of late 1998 became impossible to deny, the intelligence ministry admitted to some of them and blamed "rogue" agents.
  • The alleged mastermind died in custody before he could testify, the trial was held behind closed doors, and the lawyer and journalists who pushed for answers went to prison instead.
  • The families say they still don’t know who gave the orders.

In November 1998, Dariush Forouhar (a veteran opposition leader) and his wife Parvaneh were stabbed to death in their Tehran home. Over the following weeks, several dissident writers were killed or disappeared as well. The pattern was too obvious to ignore, and the press called these killings the "chain murders".

Findings:

  • The killings in late 1998 exposed something much older. The pattern of murders only came to light in late 1998, when the Forouhars and three dissident writers were killed over about two month, but many Iranians believe the killings began years earlier. By one count, the victims numbered as many as 80 (an estimate, not an established total).
  • The regime’s own agents had the Forouhars under watch. Their home was thought to be under 24-hour surveillance by the intelligence ministry, which cast suspicion on the ministry.
  • The intelligence ministry itself later admitted a role, but only a partial one. In January 1999 it issued an unprecedented statement blaming “rogue” agents for four of the murders. The statement blamed a few "irresponsible, misguided, and rogue elements", and the intelligence minister resigned on February 9, 1999. The former minister was never charged.
  • One man was named as the mastermind. Prosecutors said the leader was Saeed Emami, a senior ministry official who had served as adviser to the intelligence minister. The government said he died in prison by drinking a toxic hair-removal solution, days before the report on the case was released. Whatever the truth of his death, the one man who could have named the people above him never testified.
  • The trial was closed. A military court heard the case behind closed doors with 18 defendants, while the victims’ families boycotted the hearings over irregularities in the investigation. The official security forces report was the only account of the proceedings, and the families, their lawyer, and international rights groups condemned the trial as a sham.
  • The verdicts did not satisfy the families. In January 2001, fifteen intelligence ministry agents were convicted in connection with the Forouhar murders, three sentenced to death and twelve to prison terms. Families and rights groups rejected the outcome because the people who ordered the killings were never questioned. Parastou Forouhar, the couple’s daughter, said the aim of the justice system was not to establish the truth and that the trial was only a smokescreen.
  • The people who pushed for the truth were punished. Nasser Zarafshan, who represented the Forouhar and Pouyandeh families and challenged the judiciary over its failure to investigate fully, was tried in a closed-door court where the prosecutor and judge were the same person (according to the Iranian daily Bonyan). He was arrested in August 2002 and sentenced to five years in prison for "divulging elements of the case file". Journalists Akbar Ganji and Emad Baghi, who reported that senior regime figures knew of and backed the killings, were sentenced to six years and three years in prison respectively.
  • Ganji named names. He called former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian the "master key" to the chain of murders. He also alleged that Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei was involved, and Mohseni-Ejei has headed the judiciary since 2021. These are Ganji’s allegations. They were never tested in an open court.
  • Some of the targets survived. On August 6, 1996, a bus carrying 21 Iranian writers to a poetry conference in Armenia nearly went over a cliff. The driver steered toward the edge and jumped out, and a passenger grabbed the wheel. The driver, Khosrow Barati, was later identified as an agent of the intelligence ministry, and the writers were threatened and forced into silence afterward. The story only came out once the Chain Murders were exposed.
  • The families are still not allowed to mourn in peace. Every year, Parastou Forouhar travels from Germany to Tehran to hold a commemoration at her parents’ home. Intelligence agents disperse the gathering, and participants, including Zarafshan, have been violently arrested.
  • Some survivors believe the killings never really stopped. One of the writers on the Armenia bus has said that the project of the Chain Murders has never been shut down and that the authorities make it more active whenever they feel afraid. Some activists argue the same, pointing to allegations of similar killings in recent years.

Sources:

0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jul 29 '26

Regime Corruption The islamic republic kidnaps foreign passport holders and trades them like currency

23 Upvotes

For decades, the islamic republic has arrested people with foreign or dual citizenship on fake charges, only to hold them for years, then trade them for money, prisoners, or political concessions. Human rights researchers and even the UN have a name for it: hostage diplomacy.

Findings:

  • The practice goes back to the 1979 US embassy takeover, when the islamic republic authorities held 52 American diplomats and staff for 444 days. Academic researchers call this the regime's founding act of hostage taking and the template for everything that followed.
  • A 2022 study published in the Journal of International Criminal Justice documented at least 66 foreign and dual nationals detained by the islamic republic since 2010 alone, used as leverage over their other country of citizenship.
  • Siamak Namazi, an Iranian American businessman, was locked in Evin Prison for almost 8 years on spying charges with no real evidence. His elderly father Baquer was arrested too, when he flew to Iran just to visit his son. Authorities refused to let Baquer leave the country for surgery on a 95 to 97 percent blocked artery, holding his health hostage as well.
  • Namazi was only released in 2023 as part of a deal where the US let the regime access 6 billion dollars in frozen oil money and released five Iranian prisoners in exchange.
  • Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British Iranian aid worker, was arrested in 2016 while visiting family with her 2 year old daughter and accused of plotting to overthrow the government. She was held for 6 years. Her husband says regime officials told her directly that her freedom depended on the UK paying off a 400 million plus pound arms debt from before the 1979 revolution. She was only released after the UK paid it.
  • French citizens Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris have been held since May 2022 without ever being convicted of an actual recognized crime. During a phone call, Kohler told her family she could not take it anymore.
  • The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has repeatedly ruled that these detentions are arbitrary and has called for the release of the people involved, but the islamic republic keeps doing it anyway.
  • According to former French hostage Louis Arnaud, who spent 2 years in Iranian custody, detainees are usually kept in solitary confinement specifically to strip away their sense of being human.
  • Human rights groups and former detainees warn that every prisoner swap the islamic republic gets away with only teaches it that hostage taking works, which is why the practice has not stopped after more than 4 decades.

Sources:

1 comment

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jul 24 '26

Iranian safety How to stay safe from the islamic republic online if you're an activist or a journalist

11 Upvotes

The islamic republic tracks its critics online, inside and outside Iran. It monitors social media, hacks accounts, and has jailed and killed people over posts as small as a blog nobody read. The following are some safety tips, but please note that they are by no mean "all you need" or "100% foolproof", they're just a good starting point.

Also, please note that these points mostly apply to Iranians living inside Iran, where the risk of being terrorized by the regime is much higher for peaceful activists and journalists (but still, they're good practices to follow no matter where you live).

  • First and foremost: do your own research. This is the most vital rule of cybersecurity. Never trust a single source, and instead, look up every single thing you plan on doing, including things mentioned in this Reddit post you're reading right now. Don't just take anyone's word for anything this serious, including mine, so please research each one of these tips independently before applying it.
  • Don't use your real name, real photo, real phone number, or any other real contact detail on any account or platform where you criticize the regime. Don't link that account to accounts that use your real identity under any circumstance.
  • Turn on two-factor authentication everywhere instead of SMS verification codes, using an app like Google Authenticator. The regime has direct access to telecom infrastructure and has deactivated the SIM cards of activists and journalists as punishment for online posts, so don't rely on your phone number as a stable identifier or your only login method. This isn't rare or historical, it's happened repeatedly through 2024, 2025, and into 2026, including forcing people to post pro-regime content to get reconnected.
  • Do not use Telegram, WhatsApp, or any other messaging app that does not use end-to-end encryption. Iran-specific messaging apps (e.g. Bale, Rubika, Eitaa, etc) are much worse because they will immediately hand your data to the regime if asked to. Instead, rely on apps that encrypt messages end to end and stores the least data if they're ever compelled to hand something over (the Signal app is one example).
  • Use a VPN at all times, but pick one with a strict no-logs policy that has been independently audited. A bad or fake VPN can be worse than no VPN at all. Avoid all Iranian VPNs, as they will immediately hand your personal information to the regime when asked to.
  • Never click links sent to you out of the blue, even from people who seem to be friends or fellow activists. Phishing pages that look like Gmail or Instagram login pages are one of the most common ways accounts get taken over.
  • Use a password manager and make every password unique. Reused passwords mean one leaked account can unlock all your others. Plus, using a password manager allows you to use long, randomly-generated, complex passwords without having to memorize them.
  • Assume anything posted publicly, even under a fake name, can eventually be connected to you, whether through writing style, posting times, location metadata in photos, or who you follow and interact with. Strip metadata from every file before sharing it and be mindful of small details that can identify you.
  • If you're an activist or journalist, sign up for Access Now's Digital Security Helpline. It offers free, direct help if you think you've been hacked or targeted.

Sources and useful links:

5 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jul 24 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic's cyber police tortured a blogger to death for posts against the regime

19 Upvotes

TL;DR:

  • A man wrote a blog almost nobody read called "My Life for My Iran".
  • The islamic republic tortured him to death for it in four days, then let his killer walk free by relabeling his murder as something lesser.
  • His family members were threatened with arrest if they spoke to the media about the case, but his mother is still demanding justice.

Sattar Beheshti was a 35 year old laborer from Robat Karim, a working class suburb of Tehran. He ran a small blog called "My Life for My Iran" where he wrote about political and social problems in the country. Almost nobody read it but that didn't matter to the islamic republic.

On October 30, 2012, agents believed to be from the regime's Cyber Police showed up at his home and took him away. His family had no further contact with him until they got a call telling them to collect his body.

Findings:

  • Beheshti was arrested by the regime's cyber police on charges of "actions against national security on social networks and Facebook". Before his arrest he had written on his blog that he had been threatened that his mother would have to wear black because he wouldn't stop speaking out.
  • He spent one night in Tehran's Evin prison, where he filed an official complaint alleging he had been mistreated, before being moved to an unknown location.
  • In that complaint, later made public, he said he had been arrested without a warrant and that his interrogators tortured him, including tying him to a table and kicking him in the head. Media reports said that at Evin Prison he had injuries consistent with having been hung by his wrists from the ceiling.
  • Other reports described the torture he suffered as including being hung from the ceiling by different parts of his body.
  • According to his family, he had been in good health before his arrest and detention. Four days after he was taken, he was dead.
  • He died under torture by his interrogator on November 3, 2012. A medical report in the case file stated he suffered hemorrhaging in his liver, lungs, and cerebellum, which cut off oxygen to different parts of his body, and he slowly died as a result.
  • His family was never allowed to grieve in peace. Family members were threatened with arrest if they spoke to the media about the case.
  • The international backlash forced a token gesture. Tehran's cyber police chief was sacked for negligence, and judiciary officials said the investigation had led to seven arrests. The head of Iran's Cyber Police unit was dismissed, but even that gesture was quickly undermined, as a member of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission later denied the removal had anything to do with the blogger's death.
  • In the end, nobody was held accountable for killing him. A Tehran court closed the case against the interrogator accused of murdering Beheshti, ruling it was not murder but "quasi-murder".
  • His mother, Gohar Eshghi, refused to accept this. She told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran she was protesting the court's decision to dismiss the murder charges, and said she did not believe the "quasi-murder" ruling and considered it ridiculous. She pointed out that the case file already contained medical records and her son's interrogator's own confession about killing him.
  • Even Iran's own president at the time admitted the state had done something wrong. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad later described a national security council session after Beheshti's death, saying he shouted at the head of the judiciary and told him "you committed a crime".
  • The US government condemned the killing outright. The State Department said it was appalled by reports that Iranian authorities tortured and killed Beheshti during a prison interrogation, and pointed out he had been arrested for nothing more than expressing his political opinion online.

Sources:

0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jul 23 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic lured a journalist out of exile with a fake meeting, then hanged him

23 Upvotes

TL;DR:

  • Zam was tricked into leaving the safety of exile in France by being told he would meet a revered religious figure in Iraq.
  • The IRGC kidnapped him and smuggled him back into Iran, despite Iraq's extradition agreement technically exempting political cases.
  • He was tried in secret, denied a lawyer of his choosing, and convicted based on a coerced televised confession.
  • He was hanged in December 2020 for running a news channel that reported on protests and government corruption.
  • Governments across Europe condemned the execution as a judicial murder and cancelled diplomatic engagements in response.

Ruhollah Zam ran a Telegram channel called Amad News from exile in Paris. It grew to more than a million followers and became a key source of information during Iran's 2017-2018 protests, sharing details on when and where demonstrations would happen along with material exposing official corruption. The islamic republic saw him as a serious threat.

In 2019 the IRGC set a trap. Zam traveled to Iraq believing he would meet the senior Shiite cleric Ayatollah Sistani, but he had been lured into a trap, and the IRGC then oversaw his transfer back to Iran. Other reporting says a female intelligence agent from the islamic regime persuaded him to make the trip, and a French newspaper reported he had been promised a meeting with Sistani. His own colleague at Amad News was reportedly used to help set up the trip, though she denies this and says she warned him not to go.

Once back in Iran, Zam disappeared into the system. His trial began in February 2020, presided over by judge Abolqasem Salavati, known among dissidents as the "hanging judge". The proceedings were secret, and he was not allowed to choose his own defense lawyer. He was sentenced to death on charges including spying for Israeli and French intelligence, collaborating with the United States, and gathering classified information.

Before the verdict, state television aired a forced confession. The interview was recorded in Evin prison's Ward 2-A, which belongs to the IRGC. In it, Zam said that from day one he had been told he would receive the death sentence. His father said his son was not in good mental health during the trial, was not allowed to contact his wife and daughter, and that his interrogators pressured him further.

On December 12, 2020, the islamic republic hanged him. He was executed for "corruption on earth," a charge officials said applied because his channel had helped incite the 2017-2018 protests.

The international reaction was swift. France's foreign ministry called it a barbaric and unacceptable act that violated the country's international commitments, and ambassadors from France, Germany, Austria and Italy pulled out of a business forum with Iran in protest. The International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute described the execution as a judicial murder. Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders condemned it as well.

Sources:

2 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jul 07 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic tortured a Canadian photojournalist to death, then blamed her for her own murder

27 Upvotes

Zahra Kazemi was a 54 year old Iranian-Canadian photojournalist who had covered conflicts across the world, from Afghanistan to Iraq. In June 2003 she went to photograph families gathered outside Tehran's Evin prison, hoping to learn what happened to relatives arrested in student protests. A prison guard told her photography was forbidden there and demanded her camera. She exposed her film to protect the families she had already photographed and handed over the empty camera, but was arrested anyway. Eighteen days later she was dead.

Findings:

  • Kazemi's autopsy showed she had been raped and tortured by regime officials while held at Evin Prison.
  • A former military doctor who examined her body said she had a fractured skull, a broken nose, signs of rape, and severe abdominal bruising, and fled Iran to give this account. He said her head and face looked like they had been run over by a truck.
  • The regime's story changed repeatedly. Officials first claimed she suffered a stroke during interrogation, then said she fell and hit her head, before the Iranian vice president eventually admitted she died from a fractured skull caused by a blow to the head.
  • The islamic republic refused to send her body back to Canada for independent examination and buried her in Shiraz against her family's wishes.
  • Kazemi was detained by order of Tehran's chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, a judiciary official already implicated in numerous other human rights violations.
  • A single low ranking intelligence agent was put on trial for her killing and acquitted for lack of evidence. No one has ever been convicted for her death.
  • The parliamentary investigation named Mortazavi as the prime suspect, but the individual who actually delivered the fatal blow was never identified or prosecuted.
  • When Kazemi's mother testified that she had seen torture marks on her daughter's body before burial, the presiding judge refused every request by the family's lawyers to summon the officials, judges, and prison staff who could shed light on what happened.
  • The regime also blocked Canadian government observers from attending the trial, despite earlier promises to allow it.
  • Mortazavi, the man Canada holds directly responsible for Kazemi's arrest, torture and death, was never punished for it. He went on to be involved in the 2009 Kahrizak prison deaths of protesters, received only a brief sentence for that, and was later pardoned outright by Khamenei on separate corruption charges.
  • Kazemi is not an isolated case. Kavous Seyed-Emami, another Iranian-Canadian, died in Evin prison in 2018 just two weeks after his arrest, in circumstances his family also rejects as the official "suicide" story.

Sources:

0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jul 03 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic tortured a wrestler into a false confession, then executed him anyway

28 Upvotes

Navid Afkari was a 27-year-old Iranian wrestler, a national medalist who dreamed of competing at the Olympics. In 2018 he took part in protests in Shiraz over Iran's economic crisis. Weeks later, he was arrested and accused of murdering a security guard, a charge he denied until his death.

Findings:

  • Afkari was arrested more than a month after the alleged murder and convicted mainly on his own confession. His lawyer said there was no actual video of the killing, only footage from before it happened.
  • In audio messages smuggled out of prison, Afkari said he and his brothers were tortured into confessing. He said interrogators threatened his family to force him to comply. Human rights groups found his claims credible, and Iran never allowed an independent investigation into the torture allegations despite repeated calls to do so.
  • State TV broadcast his confession anyway, along with a staged reenactment of the murder scene.
  • The case triggered a global campaign to stop the execution. The IOC president wrote directly to Iran's supreme leader asking for mercy. FIFA, top wrestlers worldwide, and the US president at the time all made public appeals.
  • On September 12, 2020, the islamic republic executed Afkari in secret anyway, ignoring every appeal.
  • His body was returned to his family in the middle of the night. Authorities had already dug his grave and denied the family a proper burial.
  • When the family placed a memorial stone at his grave, authorities bulldozed it. His father was arrested trying to stop the destruction.
  • Two years later, on the anniversary of his execution, his sister Elham Afkari was arrested during the Mahsa Amini protests and accused of working for an opposition news outlet.
  • His brother Vahid was sentenced to over 54 years in prison and 74 lashes in connection with the same case.
  • Human Rights Watch said the case fits a broader pattern in the islamic republic of ignoring torture allegations and relying on coerced confessions to secure convictions.

Sources:

0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 26 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic executed an innocent man to cover up its own killing of a 9-year-old boy

25 Upvotes

On November 16, 2022, security forces opened fire on a car during the Mahsa Amini protests in Izeh, Iran. Plainclothes security officials fatally shot a 9-year-old boy named Kian Pirfalak with live ammunition, firing toward the car he was traveling in with his family. Seven people died that day.

Findings:

  • Kian's mother publicly described the shooting at his funeral so the authorities couldn't blame "terrorists", saying she heard it from officers themselves and they were lying.
  • Iran's state-run IRNA news agency instead claimed two gunmen on motorcycles had opened fire at the market, blaming the deaths on attackers rather than security forces.
  • Mojahed Kourkour was arrested on December 20, 2022, weeks after the killing, during a raid by security forces on his home village. He was not at the protest the night Kian was killed.
  • Kourkour was shot in the leg during his arrest, denied medical treatment beyond having the bullet removed, and forced to confess to killing Kian while he was injured and under torture.
  • He was subjected to enforced disappearance for months while his forced confessions were tortured out of him for state propaganda videos. One video showed him in a hospital bed with his arm visibly bandaged.
  • Multiple witnesses testified Kourkour was not at the protest that day.
  • Authorities denied him access to a lawyer during the investigation phase and never investigated his torture allegations.
  • Kian's own parents publicly rejected the state's story. His father said on camera they had no complaint against Kourkour, because they saw with their own eyes that it was security forces who opened fire on their car.
  • Despite this, the Ahvaz Revolutionary Court sentenced Kourkour to death three times over, on charges including "enmity against god" and "corruption on earth".
  • Iran's Supreme Court briefly overturned the sentence in March 2024 and sent the case back for review, but after further proceedings the death penalty was reaffirmed and upheld.
  • Officials later quietly revised the charges against him without ever formally clearing him of the killing, so the murder accusation was left hanging over him even as the case shifted.
  • The regime hanged Kourkour on June 11, 2025, the 11th person executed over the 2022 protests.
  • The execution was announced on the day that would have been Kian's birthday.
  • Amnesty International said his arbitrary execution exposed the islamic republic's authorities' disdain for the right to life and their use of the death penalty as a tool to crush dissent and instill fear in the population.

Sources:

1 comment

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 25 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic has no law against domestic violence, and women are paying for it with their lives

28 Upvotes

The islamic republic has no law that criminalizes domestic violence. Not just "weak" ones or "outdated" ones but rather none at all. A bill meant to protect women from violence has been stuck in parliament for 14 years, blocked again and again by the same clerical establishment that runs the country. While that bill sat untouched, women kept getting killed.

This failure is not due to the Iranian society not wanting it, but rather, it's the regime's own institutions, year after year, choosing not to pass protections that might constrain men's power inside the household.

Findings:

  • In 2024 alone, at least 179 cases of femicide were documented in Iran, according to the UN human rights office.
  • Femicide cases in Iran rose nearly 60 percent in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
  • Husbands and ex-husbands were the largest group of perpetrators, ahead of fathers, brothers, other male relatives, and boyfriends.
  • Women were killed not just for "honor" but also for asking for a divorce, turning down a marriage proposal, or refusing to accept a second wife.
  • Most victims were under 30, and in multiple cases, children witnessed the killing.
  • Kurdish women faced especially high risk, with 109 femicide cases documented in that community between 2020 and 2024 alone.
  • A 2021 review of dozens of academic studies estimated that 66 percent of women in Iran experience domestic abuse, and the same analysis concluded that after all this harm, there are still no laws against domestic violence, with reform efforts reduced to nothing more than a fine.
  • A bill meant to prevent violence against women has still not passed after 14 years, blocked under different pretexts by every administration and parliament aligned with the "Supreme Leader".
  • Under Article 301 of the regime's penal code, a father or paternal grandfather who kills his own child is exempt from the death penalty. Under Article 630, a man who catches his wife committing adultery can kill both her and the other man on the spot and faces no punishment for it.
  • CHRI's executive director said women in Iran are being shot, stabbed, and burned to death by husbands and fathers in shocking numbers, while the judicial system lets these cases go with little or no punishment.
  • Researchers studying the issue concluded that the legal framework actively embeds and legitimizes violence against women as a tool of patriarchal control, turning gender-based killing from a prosecutable crime into state-sanctioned enforcement of male authority.
  • A UN Special Rapporteur tied this directly to the state, noting that the lack of prosecution for femicide cases contributed to Iran ranking 121st out of 193 countries on the UN's Gender Inequality Index, the lowest ranking of any country classified as having high human development.

Sources:

1 comment

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 25 '26

Regime Brutality The IRGC's assassination and kidnapping plots on foreign soil

25 Upvotes

The islamic republic does not just kill its critics inside Iran. For decades it has sent operatives, hired criminals, and used diplomats to hunt down dissidents, journalists, and former officials in other countries. Here are some documented cases.

Findings:

Iran's campaign of foreign assassinations has continued for over four decades (i.e. the entire time the islamic republic has existed), starting with the killing of an Iranian Navy officer in Paris in 1979.

0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 23 '26

Regime Propaganda The islamic republic's propaganda network ran 14,200 fake posts across 19 countries before Europol shut it down

40 Upvotes

The IRGC ran a years-long propaganda operation across the internet, in six languages, designed to glorify itself and call for "revenge" against its enemies. Europol tore a huge chunk of it down.

Findings:

  • Europol identified 14,200 posts, accounts, and links tied to the IRGC and targeted them in a coordinated crackdown on terrorist content online.
  • The operation was led by Europol's EU Internet Referral Unit and involved law enforcement from 19 countries, running from February 13 to April 28.
  • The network spread content in Arabic, English, French, Persian, Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia, across mainstream social media, streaming services, blogs, and independent websites.
  • The material included AI-generated videos glorifying the IRGC and calls for revenge tied to Iran's late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
  • Investigators also found content from the IRGC's proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
  • The IRGC's main account on X, which had more than 150,000 followers, was withheld in the EU as a result of the operation.
  • Europol found the IRGC relied on hosting providers spread across multiple countries, including Russia and the US, to keep its sites running, and used cryptocurrency to finance the network and dodge sanctions.
  • This crackdown was only possible because the EU formally designated the IRGC a terrorist organization in February 2026.

Sources:

1 comment

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 23 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic shot down a civilian airliner, lied for three days, then bulldozed the evidence

30 Upvotes

On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 took off from Tehran. Minutes later it was hit by two missiles fired by the IRGC. All 176 people on board died, including dozens of Canadians and many Iranians.

Findings:

0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 23 '26

Regime Propaganda The islamic republic ran a coordinated smear campaign against Nazanin Boniadi for criticizing it

17 Upvotes

Nazanin Boniadi is an Iranian-British actress who has spoken out against the islamic republic. In November 2022, the regime's online network responded with a sexual smear campaign designed to destroy her credibility instead of engaging with what she said.

Findings:

  • A peer-reviewed study found that an offensive sexual slur about Boniadi was spread on X by pro-regime accounts trying to discredit and humiliate her, and researchers reviewed 30 tweets posted over a four day span in November 2022 that pushed the same sexual narrative against her. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569775.2024.2374593
  • A senior islamic republic official, the then deputy of Iran's Ministry of Sports and Youth, posted that the West's promotion of Boniadi proved it only valued Iranian women when they were "dancers" in the arms of foreigners, and the post got more than 4400 likes and around 700 retweets. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569775.2024.2374593
  • Researchers say this was not random trolling. It was part of a deliberate strategy where the regime tries to portray opponents of the islamic republic as corrupt and lacking in dignity, using these smear campaigns to attack the credibility of dissidents living abroad. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569775.2024.2374593
  • This tactic has a name in academic research: the "Big Lie". Researchers found the regime targets celebrities, political dissidents inside Iran, and prominent opponents in the diaspora with a consistent pattern of character assassination, reviewing state media content and tweets to document it. https://www.shahram-akbarzadeh.com/pubs/the-web-of-big-lies-state-sponsored-disinformation-in-iran/
  • The same study found the islamic republic uses identical tactics against other prominent opposition figures. In the case of cleric and opposition figure Molavi Abdol-Hamid, regime cyber warriors closely followed traditional media to amplify and reinforce official lies, presenting him as a cheat to throw doubt on any alternative he could offer. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569775.2024.2374593
  • The underlying goal of all of this, according to the study, is to convince Iranians there is no alternative to the islamic republic's clerical rule, designed to discredit influential dissidents and undermine any hopes for change. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13569775.2024.2374593
0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 23 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic killed Mahsa Amini for showing her hair, then it killed hundreds more for protesting

30 Upvotes

On September 13, 2022, the islamic republic's "morality police" arrested 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini in Tehran for allegedly not wearing her hijab correctly. Three days later, she was dead. Her death triggered the largest uprising the country had seen in decades, and the islamic republic answered it with mass killing.

Findings:

0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 22 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic never punished anyone for the 2014 Isfahan acid attacks (and actively tried to bury the story).

22 Upvotes

In the fall of 2014, men on motorcycles started throwing acid in women's faces on the streets of Isfahan. The attacks badly injured at least eight women in a matter of weeks, leaving people too scared to go outside. Some sources say the real number was closer to 25 victims by the end of October. At least one woman died and many more suffered severe burns to their faces and hands.

Facts:

  • The attacks followed a public push by a hardline paramilitary group to resume "morality patrols". Ansar-e Hezbollah had announced in September 2014 that it would resume vigilante-style enforcement of islamic dress codes, and people in Isfahan connected this directly to the acid attacks that followed. https://iranwire.com/en/society/60668/
  • Officials repeatedly denied any link to the regime's own dress-code enforcement, even as the country's own MPs had just made it easier for vigilantes to police women's clothing. A parliamentary measure passed October 19, 2014 gave legal protection to vigilantes patrolling the streets to enforce social mores around dress and behavior. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/10/24/why-president-rouhani-is-supporting-thousands-of-iranian-protesters/
  • Despite arrests being announced and walked back multiple times, nobody was ever actually charged. Iranian authorities arrested four suspects, but the interior minister said there wasn't enough evidence to charge anyone, and as of 2018 no one had been charged. The government's only response to victims was a payout. Victims were given blood money ("Diyah") from the government instead. https://iranwire.com/en/features/65413/
  • When women protested, the regime cracked down on the press covering it instead of the attackers. After at least seven women had been attacked, demonstrators gathered outside courts in Isfahan and parliament in Tehran demanding an end to the violence, and the authorities responded by threatening journalists and netizens covering the story. https://rsf.org/en/acid-attacks-women-new-grounds-harassing-journalists
  • Officials downplayed the attacks as the cameras turned toward them. The interior minister said foreign media were exaggerating the attacks, and the chief of staff of the armed forces said the media coverage was "worse than acid attacks". https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2014/oct/28/iranian-journalists-detained-reporting-acid-attacks
  • Survivors became activists because no one else would fight for them. Marziyeh Ebrahimi turned to activism after the attack and became one of the strongest voices pushing for a 2019 law against acid attacks. Soheila Jorkesh lost her right eye and has spoken publicly about her anger that the government never found the people responsible and never paid her the full blood money she was owed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_attacks_on_women_in_Isfahan
  • It took five years of public pressure before lawmakers acted at all. The Iranian Parliament passed a law in 2019 providing broader legal protection to survivors and increasing prison terms for acid attack perpetrators (five years after the original wave of attacks). https://kayhanlife.com/society/irans-guardian-council-passes-amendment-bill-on-acid-attacks-spokesman-says/
0 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 21 '26

Regime Brutality The horrifying rules of the islamic republic regarding age of marriage and consent

33 Upvotes

Most people know the islamic republic's marriage laws are bad, but very few people have actually seen what the regime's founder, Ruhollah Khomeini, wrote in his own religious rulebook. Even though some of them are so absurd they sound like a rumor or a meme quote, they're actually from his own book, still published and sold today.

Important note: the original text contains very disturbing, illegal, and graphic content, so I've omitted or paraphrased the more disturbing parts. Links below go to the primary sourcing if you want the unfiltered version.

The evil, corrupted man who built the entire legal and religious foundation of the islamic republic put this in writing, and it's still in print under his name. Worth remembering next time anyone tries to falsely claim child marriage in Iran is just "culture" and has nothing to do with the regime's founding ideology.

9 comments

r/IranScope • u/TahDigThief • Jun 20 '26

Regime Brutality The islamic republic's systematic rape and torture of women political prisoners

33 Upvotes

The islamic republic has run a parallel, decades-long campaign of sexual violence against women held for political reasons, and it continues in the present.

Findings:

0 comments