Iran pressures families of protest detainees to attend state-run rallies

Iranian security forces ran armored vehicles over protesters in at least three areas of the northwestern city of Ardabil on Jan. 9, killing one woman and seriously injuring three others, according to information received by Iran International.

Earlier this week, Iran International published a video showing an armored vehicle driving over protesters in Yahyavi Square.

The former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity and previously also served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said preparations dating back to 2022 included “marking and identifying elevated locations for sniper deployment” and “ideological theoretical training and psychological preparation to kill, including firing final shots at protesters.”

He said the planning also involved “training and educating criminal elements to play the role of leaders in gatherings, both to identify people and to steer street movements.”

Verified video of the protests showed security forces firing live ammunition from elevated positions, using pellet guns, raiding hospitals and shooting wounded protesters.

The former official said the Jan. 8-9 crackdown was not a short-term response but the result of long-term structural and operational preparation by security bodies.

Gholamreza Derikvand, Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Vienna, had broken with Tehran and is now in Switzerland. There was no immediate comment from Iran’s foreign ministry.

Sources told Iran International that officials at the ministry had avoided discussing the case, with some staff citing security concerns.

Derikvand previously served as charge d’affaires at Iran’s embassy in the Czech Republic from 2011 to 2014 and was viewed by colleagues as a career diplomat who could have risen to ambassador.

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  Iranian diplomat in Geneva seeks asylum in Switzerland, sources say

The move follows a similar case last month in which Alireza Jeyrani Hokmabad, a senior Iranian diplomat based at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, left his post and sought asylum in Switzerland with his family.

Diplomatic sources said fears linked to Iran’s political unrest and concerns over the stability of the governing system had prompted the decision.

The document, issued by the Strategic Center of Tasnim News Agency – an outlet linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), instructs that audiences should be led to view Pahlavi not as a political alternative, but as a Western-backed media instrument. It outlines three main lines of messaging.

First, it denies that Pahlavi has any meaningful social base inside Iran, saying recent protests were not the result of his calls but were planned on the ground by the United States and Israel. His statements, it argues, serve only as media coverage of unrest rather than leadership.

Second, the strategy seeks to separate broad social anger from support for Pahlavi, saying that many protesters were expressing accumulated frustration with the Islamic Republic rather than endorsing his political qualifications. Supportive slogans, it adds, reflect opposition to the system more than approval of Pahlavi himself.

Third, the document focuses on undermining Pahlavi’s political and personal credibility, portraying him as inconsistent, unwilling to take responsibility, lacking courage, and ultimately depicted as a “puppet” rather than a serious political actor.

Commenting on the document, political analyst Rouhollah Rahimpour, a freelance journalist, told Iran International that within the Islamic Republic’s broader media machinery, “nothing is random – neither words, nor terminology, nor narratives, nor timing.”

He described the approach as a classic narrative war designed to separate the public from political alternatives, allow anger to be released without enabling leadership to form, and keep society in a state of resentment.

“They tried to show that Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi is not a political actor but a tool,” Rahimpour said.

He added that the strategy also aims to prevent any perceived identity link between protesters inside Iran and Pahlavi, ensuring that “no identity connection is established between protesters inside Iran and Pahlavi.”

The closed-door meeting was held to brief senior government officials and local governors on the brutal crackdown on protesters, the source told Iran International.

The senior official said security forces were given “full authority and a blank check to attack, with the aim of creating maximum fear to deter the resurgence of protests," the source said.

The order, he added, made no distinction between civilians and others.

The senior official speaking at the meeting was presenting assessments by security bodies that sharply contradict the government’s official figures on the killings.

While the official death toll stands at nearly 3,000, classified documents and eyewitness reports reviewed by Iran International’s editorial board show that more than 36,500 people were killed during the targeted suppression of Iran’s national uprising on the orders of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Following Khamenei’s speech on January 9, briefing sessions and internal discussions among senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders used phrases such as “victory through terror” and “fight them until there is no more sedition," according to sources familiar with the discussions.

The same language later appeared on Telegram channels linked to pro-government groups.

Use of foreign forces

During the closed-door meeting, the senior government official confirmed earlier reports about the use of foreign forces in suppressing the protests, saying the Revolutionary Guards, its Basij militia, as well as Quds Force-linked units trained in Chechnya, Iraq, Pakistan, and Sudan were involved.

Iran International reported earlier this month that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias had begun recruiting and deploying fighters to assist Iranian forces in cracking down on protests.

That report said hundreds of Shiite militiamen from groups including Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada and the Badr Organization had been sent into Iran through multiple border crossings.

The fighters were transferred under the guise of pilgrimage trips and gathered at a base in Ahvaz before being dispatched to various regions, Iran International reported.