Venezuelan opposition leader stands with Iran, calls for Narges Mohammadi's release

UN Special Rapporteur on Iran Mai Sato said on Thursday she sent three urgent communications to Iranian authorities in December 2025 warning of grave human rights violations, weeks before nationwide protests erupted on December 28.

The alerts concerned death sentences imposed on student Ehsan Faridi for “corruption on earth” based solely on intelligence reports, and on 67-year-old Zahra Shahbaz Tabari for “armed rebellion” after a 10-minute trial over a protest slogan cloth, as well as widespread prison abuses including torture, unnotified executions, and deaths in facilities such as Qarchak, Ghezel-Hesar, Sheyban, and Lakan, Sato posted on X.

“The Iranian authorities responded to each, dismissing the sources as hostile or misinformed and asserting that all procedures were lawful,” she added.

“Today, we do not know how many people are detained, where they are held, or in what condition. We do not know how many have been sentenced to death or already executed. We do not even know how many people have been killed: the State’s own figure stands at over 3,000, while reports by civil society organizations far exceed that number,” Sato said.

Belgian Parliament member Darya Safai said on Thursday of plans to sue the Islamic Republic in international courts for the recent massacre of protesters.

In a video interview with Iran International, Safai called Iranians abroad an "exiled army" striking against the regime alongside those inside Iran until it collapses.

"We are all soldiers of the homeland and will take back our Iran," Safai said.

During state-organized rallies marking Iran’s 1979 revolution anniversary on Wednesday, demonstrators in several cities burned large statues of a horned, bull-headed figure identified by organizers as “Baal,” an ancient deity referenced in biblical and Islamic tradition.

A mourning ceremony was held for Amirhossein Safari, 26, who was shot by security forces on January 9 during protests in Tehran’s Yaftabad neighborhood. Safari, a mechanic, died in the arms of a relative after being shot.

The United States has condemned Iran over the reported imminent execution of two detainees prosecuted over their religious beliefs, calling for their immediate release.

“Two individuals are being scapegoated in Iran because of their faith and face imminent execution,” the US Mission to the United Nations said in a post on X.

The mission denounced what it described as Iran’s violations of religious freedom and called on Tehran to release Peyvand Naimi and Venus Hoseininejad, along with others it said were unjustly detained.