Two former Iran youth taekwondo team members killed in protests

The United States is responsible for escalating tensions with Tehran, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said.

Esmail Baghaei further rejected claims that Iran has threatened the United States or interfered in its affairs.

“It is not Iran that has advanced from the Persian Gulf towards America’s borders or interfered in US internal affairs,” Baghaei said. “It is the United States that interferes in Iran’s affairs and in the region,” Baghaei said.

Plainclothes agents have insulted and verbally abused families collecting the bodies of protesters killed in recent unrest in Tehran and Karaj, according to information shared with Iran International.

An eyewitness said that at Kahrizak, when families arrived to identify bodies, plainclothes agents derided the dead and told relatives to “go find the bodies of Mossad mercenaries,” according to the account.

Another resident in Karaj said that at Behesht-e Sakineh cemetery, agents swore at grieving families and urged them to bury the bodies quickly, the report said.

Similar accounts of abusive treatment at Kahrizak have also circulated on social media in recent days.

Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Sunday that acts linked to the recent protests were “crimes” and warned of very severe punishments for cases deemed moharebeh (“enmity against God”), an offense that can carry the death penalty under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code.

Jahangir said security and intelligence bodies were completing detainees’ files to identify what he called domestic ringleaders and their alleged foreign links, adding that authorities would later publish a final tally of arrests after investigations were completed.

He also said the judiciary and the state-linked lawyers’ center were documenting what authorities describe as crimes and assessing financial damages, and warned that those he said encouraged protests or cooperated with “enemies” would face prosecution.

Earlier on Sunday, the head of the judiciary’s lawyers’ center said Iran planned legal complaints in domestic and foreign forums against US President Donald Trump and exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi.

At least 16,500 protesters have been killed and about 330,000 injured during Iran’s latest unrest, according to a report compiled by doctors inside the country and cited by The Sunday Times, as a near-total internet blackout has made independent verification increasingly difficult.

The report, based on information from a network of medical professionals across Iran, said the injuries included widespread gunshot wounds and severe eye trauma, with hundreds to thousands suffering permanent blindness.

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