Human rights activists are sounding the alarm over reports of secret and extrajudicial executions in Iran, warning that the authorities may be moving toward retaliating against detainees after the deadly crackdown on protests in January.

Tehran’s frequently invoked threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz may be far easier to signal than to carry out, not least because it would harm allied China more than the hostile West.

A group of scholars in Iranian studies issued a public statement expressing solidarity with people in Iran, describing the protests as a defining historical moment and warning that silence or misplaced neutrality carries consequences.

Australian Senator Raff Ciccone, Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and a co-sponsor of a bipartisan Senate motion condemning Iran’s crackdown on protests, said Australia was standing firmly with the people of Iran.

State-backed celebrations of Shiite Imam Mahdi’s birthday this week have angered many Iranians mourning tens of thousands killed in recent protests, highlighting a widening divide over grief, faith and public displays of joy.

Newly released documents from the Jeffrey Epstein case include multiple references to Iran, ranging from claims of a meeting with a former Iranian president to allegations of arms trading, financial networks, and property links connected to Tehran.

The Islamic Republic was bad news in 1979 and it is bad news in 2026, sending security forces to beat and murder peaceful protesters. Deporting Iranians to a country gripped by violent repression is hardly the ‘help’ the United States promised.