EU’s von der Leyen says more sanctions on Iran to be proposed 'swiftly'

Spain on Tuesday summoned Iran’s ambassador to Madrid to protest a crackdown on demonstrations, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said, according to AFP.

"The right of Iranian men and women to peaceful protest, their freedom of expression, must be respected," Albares told Catalunya Radio, adding that what he described as arbitrary arrests must stop.

"Iran must return to the dialogue tables and to the negotiating tables," he said, adding that Spain would put special emphasis on the rights of women.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi criticized Germany on Tuesday after Chancellor Friedrich Merz commented on the uprising in Iran, accusing Berlin of lacking credibility on human rights and "unlawful interference" in the region.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pointed earlier to “the final days and weeks of this regime” and said “The population is now rising up against this regime.

Addressing the German government, Araghchi wrote on X, “Do us all a favor: have some shame. Better yet, Germany should end its unlawful interference in our region—including its support for Genocide and Terrorism.”

As nationwide protests continue, authorities have taken steps including staging government-organized countermarches, shutting down the internet, and tightening controls on the media to shape the narrative.

One clip aired by state media and presented as aerial helicopter footage of pro-government rallies in Tehran drew fresh questions after viewers pointed to anomalies, including wind visibly blowing the reporter’s hair while leaving his clothing and microphone seemingly unaffected.

IRIB News shared the video on X on Monday, writing: “Breaking | The first aerial video of the people of Tehran, the capital of Iran, marching in support of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been released.”

Readers added context on X saying the video appears to have been altered using chroma key (green screen), citing what they described as “unnatural subject edges, mismatched lighting and shadows, wind affecting only the reporter’s hair and not his clothing, a lack of realistic depth of field, and the absence of a seatbelt and headset," calling it a crude propaganda edit.

Multiple users also suggested the post showing large crowds appeared to recycle older material rather than depict new footage from the ongoing protests.

In a follow-up video, the reporter featured in the clip defended the broadcast footage as authentic. Some users, however, said they also saw inconsistencies in the new recording, and continued to question the original video’s provenance and how it was produced.

Separately, another image that circulated widely from the Monday rally showed demonstrators carrying a large Islamic Republic flag. In the photo, one person appears to be visibly inside the cloth, and some users pointed to irregularities in the flag’s details, including inconsistencies in the Arabic takbir rendered in white Kufic script along the edges of the green and red bands.

In another state-rally video, social media users focused on the color of trees in the background, arguing that the foliage appeared unusually vivid for mid-winter and did not match how Tehran’s street trees typically look at this time of year.

The government has a track record of recycling old footage and using AI-generated visuals, tactics that can help dominate the news cycle quickly.

In mid-2025, during a period of heightened regional conflict, state-run IRIB TV1 was shown in fact-check reports to have reused 2022 footage of Russian missile launches and presented it as Iranian strikes. State-run PressTV also published recycled images, including photos linked to a downed drone from the India-Pakistan border, which it labeled as an Israeli drone shot down over Iran.

State-affiliated social media accounts and some news broadcasts went further during the 12-day war with Israel, using high-fidelity graphics from the military simulator Arma 3 to claim “confirmed kills” of advanced fighter jets such as the F-35.

• 

  Iran revives loyalty rallies after deadly crackdown on protesters

Such measures are framed by Iranian officials within the concept of soft war, an information and influence campaign in which the aim is not necessarily to persuade everyone indefinitely, but to create a temporary sense of superiority or confusion.

Iran has been under an almost complete internet blackout since January 8, when authorities largely cut off access amid nationwide protests, reducing connectivity to around 1 % of normal levels, according to internet monitoring group NetBlocks.

The UN human rights chief said on Tuesday he was "horrified" by rising violence by Iran’s security forces against peaceful protesters and condemned what he described as efforts to label demonstrators as terrorists to justify the crackdown.

"The killing of peaceful demonstrators must stop, and the labelling of protesters as ‘terrorists’ to justify violence against them is unacceptable," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement read out by UN rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.

"As we saw most recently in 2022, broad sections of the Iranian population have taken to the streets, demanding fundamental changes in the governance of their country," Turk said. "And once again, the authorities’ reaction is to inflict brutal force to repress legitimate demands for change."

"This cycle of horrific violence cannot continue," he said. "The Iranian people and their demands for fairness, equality and justice must be heard."

Turk said all killings, violence against protesters and other rights violations must be investigated under international standards and that those responsible should be held to account.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Tuesday that Iran’s ruling system appears to be nearing its end, adding that reliance on violence shows a loss of legitimacy.

“I assume that we are now witnessing the final days and weeks of this regime,” Merz said during a trip to India. “When a regime can only maintain power through violence, then it is effectively at its end. The population is now rising up against this regime.”