In Crackdown, 27 Fuel Smugglers Killed In Iran During Norouz

Masud Gharahkhani, an Iranian-born lawmaker, took to social media to express his support for Zeraati, describing him as a "skillful and courageous journalist."

He shared a photo of himself with Zeraati and wished him a speedy recovery, expressing hope that Zeraati would “continue to give a voice to all the young people fighting for freedom and democracy in Iran.”

Zeraati was discharged from the hospital on Sunday after sustaining injuries to his leg during the attack outside his London home on Friday afternoon.

According to eyewitnesses cited by The Standard newspaper, two young men stabbed the journalist multiple times before fleeing the scene.

The motive behind the attack remains unclear, but it comes amid heightened tensions following the revelation of a plot by the Iranian regime to assassinate two other Iran International journalists.

London's Metropolitan Police have launched an investigation into the incident, acknowledging Zeraati's profession as a reporter for a Persian-language media outlet based in Britain amid multiple death threats to Iranians living In the UK.

Given the numerous threats against Iran International journalists since the 2022 uprising began, including the recent assassination plot, the attack on Zeraati is being treated with utmost seriousness. Specialist counter-terrorism officers are leading the inquiry.

In response to the attack, several political figures and civil activists, including Masih Alinejad, Shirin Ebadi, and Alireza Akhondi, have condemned the assault on Zeraati, emphasizing the importance of press freedom and the safety of journalists worldwide.

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas political bureau and Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, met with the highest ranking officials in Iran, enjoying such pomp and circumstance as is reserved for heads of state.

And they were courteous enough to reciprocate with exclusive praise for the Iranian regime.

“Iran stands at the forefront of supporting the cause and people of Palestine,” Haniyeh said. “I extend special thanks to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the President of Iran, and the people of Iran.”

Nakhalah went even further. “Active diplomacy by the Islamic Republic of Iran has had a great role in defining the stance of Palestinian resistance,” he was quoted as saying by the Iranian government's official news agency IRNA.

Iran has so far avoided direct conflict with Israel, although it has unleashed it armed proxy forces in the region to attack Israel and international shipping. But it has had a major role in shaping and prolonging the war, not least by providing money and weapons and training to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose gains in Palestinian politics invariably means a loss for the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.

At 88, Abbas is far from an inspiring –or at least, authoritative– leader who would be able unite Palestinian factions. He is old and rather feeble. Allegations of corruption and secret security dealings with Israelis have dented his reputation among ordinary Palestinians, even in the West Bank where his Fatah movement rules.

The regime in Tehran knows this, and does everything it can to tilt the balance of power among Palestinian factions away from the Palestinian Authority and towards Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whom, unlike Fatah, Iran considers friends and allies.

The two Palestinian leaders even had a bilateral meeting in Tehran, of which no meaningful detail has emerged. It is hard to imagine that Haniyeh and al-Nakhalah could not have found other opportunities to coordinate their attacks against Israel. Their meeting in Tehran –choreographed and publicized by the hosts as a major event– may be better understood as a show of stature for the Iranian regime rather than a decisive occasion for the two parties involved.

This may also be true with regards to the timing of the visits. To host the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, just before the Iran-initiated International Quds Day, seems like yet another effort by the Iranian regime to underline its position as the one pulling the strings.

Quds Day, coined by the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1979, is the last Friday of Ramadan. Muslims of the world are invited to come together on that day in solidarity with Palestinians and in protests against Israel, holding rallies and marching after the Muslim Friday prayer in cities worldwide.

It is by definition an occasion to remember the Palestinian ‘cause’. But this year, it seems to be about showcasing Iran's Islamic regime's leadership and righteousness for 45 years, but at least as much as it is about supporting the Palestinian people.

But the visits came also at a time when Israel is threatening to go all the way in its attack on Hamas in Gaza. A full defeat for the Islamist group would be a great setback for Iran that has invested more than two decades of support to make life harder for Israel.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will not hesitate in supporting the cause of Palestine and the oppressed and resilient people of Gaza," Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said during his meeting with Haniyeh last week.

What he did not say was that the “cause of Palestine” is yet another means, albeit a potent one, towards the ultimate cause: advancing the interests of Iran’s ruling regime to the detriment of ordinary men, women and children in Iran and beyond.

The first notable incident occurred on July 22, 1980, with the assassination of Ali Akbar Tabataba’i, the press attaché of the Iranian embassy in Washington DC during the Pahlavi government.

Prior to the establishment of the Islamic regime in February 1979, Islamist terror targeted Iranian officials and Western citizens in Iran, resulting in the deaths of two prime ministers and historian Ahmad Kasravi. Following the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the pattern continued domestically to eliminate rivals and opponents, eventually extending to international operations.

Rather than treating these attacks as assaults on human rights and the rule of law, foreign governments, particularly Western ones, often viewed them as diplomatic tensions or standard law enforcement matters. This response, characterized by media coverage and condemnations, has inadvertently perpetuated acts of terror.

The same pattern unfolded in Zeraati's case: following media and professional associations' reactions, several lawmakers in Britain and other Western nations condemned the attack, while former officials pointed fingers at the government sponsoring terror. However, current officials opted to stay silent. While civil organizations also condemned the attack, they lacked the leverage to exert pressure on the government regarding this matter. For dissidents in Iran, particularly journalists, observing this process feels like watching the same movie on repeat.

The Islamic Republic has never faced consequences for its assassinations abroad over the past 45 years. During Hossein Mousavian's tenure as ambassador in Germany, 23 assassinations were orchestrated under his supervision, with the third floor of the Iranian Embassy in Germany serving as the main operational hub. Despite this, Mousavian was later recruited by Princeton University, effectively rewarding a perpetrator of such crimes. Furthermore, even when perpetrators have been apprehended, tried, and convicted, the Islamic Republic has often released them through hostage swaps, symbolically welcoming them with wreaths upon their return to Tehran airports.

The Iranian authorities have not only failed to learn from cases like the Mykonos restaurant group assassination in Germany, where regime leaders were convicted, but they have also openly defended such actions. In a 1992 report by Reuters, it was revealed that Hossein Mousavian implicitly supported Khomeini's fatwa to kill Salman Rushdie, and in a radio interview, he advocated for issuing a fatwa to execute individuals for apostasy. Additionally, Mousavian criticized Germany for jeopardizing business interests with Iran by calling for the withdrawal of the fatwa.

According to a report by the US State Department, since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, “Iran’s global campaign of terror has included as many as 360 targeted assassinations in other countries and mass bombing attacks that killed and maimed hundreds.” “The Iranian regime has been implicated in assassinations, terrorist plots, and terrorist attacks in more than 40 countries,” the report says. Senior Iranian officials have not been shy of these actions and “declared that Iran follows and constantly surveils Iranian dissidents in other countries to crack down on them and strike decisive blows.”

In the last 45 years, Iranian state agents have kidnapped, forcibly disappeared, and killed a significant number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable outside of the country. The actual number of victims of extra-territorial extrajudicial executions by the government of Iran is not known. Nonetheless, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran has so far identified over 500, suggesting a much higher figure for instances in Iran. The perpetrators of these crimes have continued to repeat their crimes due to immunity. There is a “special department” in Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence to guide and carry out this operation.

A Written Testimony by Michael J. Abramowitz, President of the Freedom House to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing states that IRI is among the top ten countries responsible for 80 percent of the transnational repression cases.

Assassinations abroad began with the targeting of officials from the Pahlavi era. Over time, they expanded to include opponents of the Islamist regime from various backgrounds, including singers and human rights activists. In recent years, with the rise of Persian-language media abroad, these assassinations have extended to network managers and journalists. Examples include Saeed Karimian, director of Gem Network in 2017, and Masoud Mowlavi, a Telegram channel administrator in 2019, both in Turkey, as well as Ruhollah Zam in 2020 and Pouria Zeraati in 2024.

The court based its verdict on social media posts attributed to Bayat as evidence before ordering his public execution by hanging for the alleged offense of "insulting the Prophet".

Bayat was arrested on October 25, 2022 amid the protests which followed the death in morality-police custody of Mahsa Amini. Initially detained for involvement in protests and accused of “propaganda against the regime, insulting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and spreading falsehoods on social media,” Bayat faced additional charges of “social unrest and conspiracy against national security.”

His sentence is the latest in a killing spree of hundreds by the Iranian government which last year executed over 800 Iranians. However, to be hanged in public suggests the regime is doing its utmost to deter dissent as the uprising continues over 18 months after it was sparked.

On similar charges, Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli-Zare were hanged last May in Arak Prison for "insulting the Prophet and sacred values."

The judiciary has executed at least nine protesters in connection with the uprising, including Mohsen Shekari, Majidreza Rahnavard, Mohammad Hosseini, Mohammad Mehdi Karami, Majid Kazemi, Saeed Yaghoubi, Saleh Mirhashemi, Milad Zohrevand, and Mohammad Ghobadloo.

While the government does its best to downplay the impact of sanctions for Iran's nuclear program, and more recently, its support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and human rights abuses, the deputy head of the Joint Chamber of Commerce of Iran and India, admitted that "following the intensification of sanctions, trade relations between Iran and India have diminished".

It was an understatement however, with Iran reporting that trade in 2023 was down 26 percent from 2022, from $2.5b to $1.8. India's exports to Iran for the period of January to December 2023 decreased by 35 percent to $1.2b, down from $1.8b.

Rice emerged as the primary export product from India to Iran in 2023. However, rice exports from India to Iran experienced a decline of 34 percent in 2023, dropping from $2b in 2022 to $723m.

In a statement released by India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry, it was reported that the total trade volume between Iran and India reached $1.8 billion in 2023. This marked a decrease of 26 percent from the previous year, which recorded a trade volume of $2.5 billion in 2022.

China, the UAE, Iraq, Turkey, and India are Iran's primary trade partners. Except for the UAE which primarily re-exports Iranian goods, the remaining four partners significantly reduced their imports of Iranian goods in 2023. China, for example, decreased its imports of Iranian non-oil products by 28 percent to $4.6b, while its exports to Iran increased by 8.6 percent to over $10b, according to China's Customs statistics.

China hasn’t taken any direct Iranian oil since 2020 and doesn’t acknowledge any Iranian oil imports in its customs statistics. But according to Kpler’s data, seen by Iran International, Chinese independent small refineries, called teapots, imported about 1.2 million barrels per day of Iran’s crude oil and gas condensate, re-branded mostly as Malaysian oil.

Turkey's Statistics Center also reported a 33 percent decline in imports from Iran last year, largely due to a reduction in natural gas imports. Turkey has drastically reduced its Iranian gas imports since July 2023, with average daily imports declining by 67 percent year-on-year to 10 million cubic meters.