Trump says Russia has ‘behaved quite well’ over Strait of Hormuz
“So far, I think Russia has behaved quite well, having to do with the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump told reporters.
He said the waterway was open and that “millions of barrels of oil are coming out of the strait every day.”
Asked which world leaders he had spoken to about cutting off ties with Iran, Trump said: “There is not a lot to speak to. We don’t want to speak to them.”
Asked separately why the United States had not sanctioned Chinese banks doing business with Iran, Trump said: “Who said I’m not? You don’t know if I’m doing it. I don’t have to announce everything, do I?”
A court in Iran has sentenced Leila Abolhassani, a 43-year-old mother of two teenage daughters detained during the January protests in the central city of Shahin Shahr, to death on charges of “waging war against God,” a source familiar with her case told Iran International.
The source said Abolhassani was only filming a supermarket fire when she was arrested on the evening of January 8. Branch 5 of Isfahan’s Revolutionary Court nevertheless sentenced her to death on charges of participating in setting fire to the store.
Abolhassani, who worked as a nail technician, was transferred following her arrest to Dowlatabad Prison in Isfahan, where she has been held for more than seven months.
Her case was referred to Iran’s Supreme Court following an appeal against the sentence and remains under review, the source said.
She faces execution if the Supreme Court upholds the ruling.
Abolhassani’s case follows reports of death sentences against two other men detained during January’s nationwide protests.
Earlier in the week, US-based rights group HRANA reported that Amir Mohammad Mojallal Choubari, 22, and Hossein Nazari, 25, were sentenced to death in separate cases.
Last Sunday, Iran executed Majid Adineh, another January protest detainee, after the Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.
Adineh was arrested on January 9 in Mohammadshahr, near Karaj. A Revolutionary Court sentenced him to death and ordered the confiscation of all his property over accusations of taking “operational action” for Israel, the United States and hostile groups.
Earlier this month, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said on that Iran was using capital punishment to “instill fear among the population and suppress dissent,” urging authorities to halt executions and move toward abolishing the death penalty.
He called the persistent lack of fair-trial and due-process guarantees “deeply troubling,” citing reports of confessions obtained under torture and cases in which executions followed within weeks of arrest.
The US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center said Wednesday it had documented 950 executions in Iran since the beginning of 2026, including at least 20 women and 30 protesters. It recorded 45 executions in August so far.
The rights group said Iran’s use of the death penalty took place within a judicial system marked by unfair proceedings, a lack of transparency and political interference, with fair-trial protections systematically violated.
Workers at a Digikala fulfillment center in Iran process and prepare orders for delivery.
Two years ago the editor of Iran's most hardline newspaper said management of the country's biggest online retailer would "fortunately" pass to those who serve the state. It is now chaired by a former spokesman for the supreme leader's business empire.
Hojjat Niki-Maleki identifies himself on LinkedIn as chairman of Digikala Group, having joined the board as a representative of Harakat Aval, the investment arm of the mobile operator MCI. An official company filing lists him as a board member without specifying the chairmanship.
The change dates to June 10 but became public only when the formal notice was published this week, according to the Iranian technology outlet Digiato.
Niki-Maleki previously headed communications for the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order, commonly known as Setad, a conglomerate built largely on property confiscated after the 1979 revolution, controlled by the office of the supreme leader and under US sanctions. He also spent more than four years on MCI's board.
Hojjat Niki-Maleki
His earlier work was in hardline media. He ran Afsaran, an online platform that promoted anti-Western messaging and the authorities' concept of a cultural "soft war."
His social media history also shows an affinity with the military establishment: in January 2020 he posted a photograph of himself seated beside Qasem Soleimani, then commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, on an aircraft.
"I told him I was the son of a martyr, and his respect for me doubled," he wrote, describing Soleimani embracing him at an airport. "The sweet taste of my conversation with Haj Qasem is still with me."
Hojjat’s father, Hossein Niki-Maleki, was a member of the security team aboard Iran Air Flight 655, which was shot down by the United States in 1988.
A social media post by Hojjat Niki-Maleki shows him seated next to Qassem Soleimani on a plane.
Boycott calls
The appointment prompted calls on Persian-language social media to stop shopping at Digikala, with critics pointing to his Setad connection, his politics and his role promoting Iran's domestic Covid-19 vaccine.
"Do not buy from Digikala. This is something you can do," one user wrote on X, arguing that purchases would ultimately help finance Revolutionary Guards missiles and drones.
Another framed the appointment as part of a wider expansion of state-linked influence over the company.
Workers handle packages at a Digikala warehouse in Iran.
Much of the criticism returned to the vaccine. Niki-Maleki worked for Setad when its pharmaceutical arm developed CovIran Barekat, the domestically produced Covid-19 vaccine that authorities promoted during the pandemic, and he repeatedly used his own accounts to publicize its production and effectiveness.
That program became politically charged after the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei barred imports of American and British vaccines in January 2021. Critics argued that relying on domestic production delayed access to sufficient doses while Iran struggled to vaccinate its population, and some hold the officials who promoted it responsible for deaths that followed, a charge they have never accepted.
"He used to come here every day two years ago and hashtag that there would soon be good news and we would make a coronavirus vaccine," one user wrote.
About 150,000 people died from the pandemic across Iran, one of the heaviest official tolls in the region. Turkey, with a population of similar size, recorded roughly 100,000. Saudi Arabia reported fewer than 10,000 and the United Arab Emirates around 2,400. What each of those countries did have was early access to Western vaccines, the ones Iran's Supreme Leader had ruled out.
Hojjat Niki-Maleki receives a COVID-19 vaccine during a clinical trial in Iran.
A pattern, not an appointment
The reaction reflects something larger than one board seat: a sequence of events that has moved Iran's most prominent private technology company steadily closer to the state.
Digikala was founded in 2006 by the brothers Hamid and Saeid Mohammadi and grew into the country's dominant online marketplace, the most recognizable business to emerge from Iran's private technology sector.
The pressure began in the summer of 2023, when police sealed its offices after photographs circulated of female employees without compulsory hijab.
In February 2024, the judiciary filed charges over products it said insulted Islamic sanctities, after users circulated images of mugs sold on the site bearing the name Fatemeh Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet Mohammad. The company's chief executive, Masoud Tabatabai, was arrested on the order of the security prosecutor's office and released hours later pending further appearances. Pro-government vigilantes painted threatening messages on the company's building.
That same month, Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of Kayhan and Khamenei's representative at the newspaper, said management of digital companies such as Digikala and the ride-hailing platform Snapp would "fortunately" be transferred to those "who serve the state."
Negotiations over a stake in Digikala also began in that period. They concluded this spring, when Harakat Aval, MCI's venture capital arm, bought 40 percent of Digikala Group in cash, taking over the holding of the venture firm Sarava Pars along with parts of other shareholdings.
The agreed valuation was 300 trillion rials, about $146 million at current market rates, in what the company called the largest investment in the history of Iran's digital economy.
Digikala said the founders would retain 22 percent and two of five board seats, along with executive management, business strategy and the selection of senior managers, and that no single shareholder would control the company.
MCI's own ownership is the point critics return to. Iran's largest mobile operator is a subsidiary of the Telecommunication Company of Iran, privatized in 2009 in a sale to a consortium widely reported to be linked to the Revolutionary Guards.
Niki-Maleki's appointment points to a wider shift in Iran's digital economy: the steady expansion of state-linked institutions into businesses built as private enterprises – which is also why a prediction made in a hardline newspaper in 2024 reads today less like a threat than a schedule.
Bank Melli Iran's branch in Hamburg remains open despite EU sanctions that Germany says apply to the Iranian state-owned bank's German operation, as Washington steps up pressure for its foreign branches to be closed.
The German Foreign Ministry, responding to questions from Iran International, said Bank Melli and its Hamburg branch were already covered by wide-ranging EU restrictions.
“Bank Melli Iran is already subject to far-reaching sanctions at EU level, and this of course also applies to Bank Melli's branch in Germany,” the ministry said.
The ministry did not say whether Germany was considering closing the Hamburg branch or whether Washington had formally asked Berlin to do so.
US pressure
The questions follow US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's launch earlier this week of “Operation Economic Outcast,” a campaign aimed at cutting Iran's financial and commercial links abroad.
Bessent specifically targeted Bank Melli, saying “every Bank Melli branch must be shuttered.”
The German Foreign Ministry said Berlin had taken note of Bessent's announcement and remained in talks with Washington and other partners.
“The federal government has taken note of US Treasury Secretary Bessent's announcement and is in constant contact with the US as well as other partners in the EU and in the region regarding further measures against Iran,” it told Iran International.
Berlin gave no indication in its response that a decision had been made on the future of the Hamburg branch.
EU sanctions
The European Union reimposed nuclear-related sanctions against Iran in September last year after France, Germany and Britain triggered the snapback mechanism the previous month.
The measures restored asset freezes on listed Iranian entities and broader restrictions on trade and financial activity.
Bank Melli is explicitly listed under the EU measures along with all its branches and subsidiaries.
EU documents describe Bank Melli as Iran's largest bank, owned and controlled by the Iranian government, and say it provides services to the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.
Under the sanctions, funds and economic resources belonging to or controlled by listed entities must be frozen, and funds or economic resources generally cannot be made available to them directly or indirectly.
EU rules also restrict transfers involving Iranian banks and their branches, while providing exemptions and procedures under which competent authorities can authorize certain transactions.
German oversight
The German Foreign Ministry said the Bundesbank was responsible for implementing EU and UN financial sanctions under Germany's foreign trade framework and referred questions about banking supervision to BaFin.
The Bundesbank says its Financial Sanctions Service Center is Germany's authority for implementing restrictions on capital and payments.
BaFin declined to comment to Iran International on possible measures involving Bank Melli, citing legal confidentiality requirements concerning individual financial institutions.
The regulator told Iran International that Bank Melli remained in its official database and said any final measure that could legally be made public would be published on its website.
BaFin has previously acted against the Hamburg branch.
The regulator said in October 2021 that it had imposed a credit ban on the branch on September 7 of that year after finding that it had breached the four-eyes principle required under German banking rules.
Iran International has also asked the Bundesbank how the restored EU sanctions are being implemented in relation to Bank Melli's Hamburg branch. The central bank had not responded by the time of publication.
For now, Germany has confirmed that EU sanctions apply to the branch but has not said it plans to close it, even as Washington presses foreign governments to shut Bank Melli operations abroad.
Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, speaks at an event in Tehran.
The Iranian general who has threatened Persian-language journalists abroad as potential military targets has a history of incendiary attacks on critics and was among officials who initially dismissed reports that Iran had shot down Flight PS752.
Abolfazl Shekarchi, a brigadier general and senior spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, said on Wednesday journalists working for Persian-language media abroad could be placed on a list of military targets.
“Media outlets such as Iran International, BBC Persian and Radio Farda are directly connected to Mossad, the US Central Intelligence Agency and other foreign intelligence services and receive support from them,” he said.
He called the employees of the Persian-language outlets “soldiers of Israel and the United States,” adding: “They can be included in the bank of military targets because, from our perspective, these are not media outlets.”
He provided no evidence for the accusations.
The remarks extend years of military and ideological rhetoric from Shekarchi against people and organizations Iranian authorities consider hostile, from protesters and opponents of compulsory hijab to foreign officials and media organizations.
PS752 reports called ‘absolute lies’
Iran's Revolutionary Guards shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 shortly after takeoff on January 8, 2020, killing all 176 people aboard.
Reports that an Iranian surface-to-air missile had brought down the Boeing 737 were “absolute lies” and “ridiculous,” Shekarchi said as evidence pointing to a missile strike emerged.
Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, speaks on a program about the 12-day war, with centrifuge replicas forming the backdrop, September 24, 2026.
Shekarchi portrayed the reports as psychological warfare against Iran, while Iranian authorities initially attributed the crash to a technical problem.
Iran's armed forces acknowledged three days after the disaster that its air defenses had shot down the passenger plane, saying it had been mistakenly identified as a hostile target during a period of heightened confrontation with the United States.
The admission triggered protests in Iran and abroad and accusations that authorities had sought to conceal responsibility for the disaster.
Shekarchi's categorical denial became one of the most prominent official responses to early reporting on PS752 before the armed forces acknowledged that an Iranian missile had brought down the aircraft.
His latest accusations against foreign-based Persian-language media employ a similar framework, casting journalism and information as components of an enemy operation.
Protesters and hijab opponents
Shekarchi has also directed security and military rhetoric at domestic dissent.
During nationwide protests in 2022, Shekarchi described demonstrators as deceived and accused the United States of seeking to manufacture deaths to sustain the unrest.
The protests spread across Iran following the death in morality-police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman detained over compulsory hijab rules.
His rhetoric had already extended to opponents of compulsory hijab.
Participants in a campaign encouraging women to appear in public without mandatory head coverings, along with artists supporting them, were “forces of Satan,” Shekarchi said.
Thousands detained over coronavirus information
Shekarchi also played a public role in the authorities' response to information circulating during the coronavirus pandemic.
Around 3,600 people had been detained by police and the Basij over what authorities characterized as rumors or false information about the outbreak, with more than 1,100 judicial cases opened, Shekarchi said in April 2020.
The figures showed the scale of the authorities' effort to police information about the pandemic as questions mounted over infection and death figures.
Shekarchi also drew criticism after minimizing coronavirus deaths among military personnel and healthcare workers.
The deaths of four doctors, nurses and paramedics were “not a number” of significance, Shekarchi said during the early months of the pandemic.
The coronavirus outbreak became another period in which Iranian authorities treated the dissemination of information as a security matter, with people detained or prosecuted over online material about the disease.
Threats beyond Iran
Shekarchi's rhetoric has also targeted Israeli and US officials and personnel abroad.
Israel's destruction was Iran's “greatest aspiration,” Shekarchi said in 2021, presenting it as an objective from which the Islamic Republic would not retreat.
Even tourist and recreational locations around the world would not necessarily provide safety for American and Israeli officials targeted by Iran, Shekarchi warned in March.
“From now on, based on the information we have on you, tourist destinations, resorts, and recreational and leisure venues around the world will no longer be safe for you.”
Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, visits a news agency in Tehran.
Earlier, responding to threats by US President Donald Trump against Iran's leadership, Shekarchi said an attack on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would prompt Iran to “set their world on fire” and leave its adversaries without a safe haven.
“Trump knows that if a hand is raised against our leader, not only will we decisively and courageously cut off that hand, but we will set their world on fire, give them no respite and leave them no safe haven.”
His latest remarks extend such language explicitly to journalists working outside Iran.
A former senior Iranian official living in Toronto played a “critical” role in generating government revenue that helped fund Iran's military, weapons production and armed groups in the Middle East, Global News reported, citing Canadian government documents.
The documents, released in redacted form by Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board at the request of Global News, include a Canada Border Services Agency assessment that said Abbas Omidi's senior role in Iran's mining sector benefited the government's ability to finance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and armed groups abroad.
“As a result of his power and influence, the subject directly benefited the Iranian economy and the government’s ability to continue to fund terrorism and human rights abuses throughout the world,” the CBSA said.
The agency said Omidi was “critical in the Iranian government’s continued ability to draw in mining revenue and fund the military, weapons manufacturing, and terrorism, both foreign and domestic.”
The assessment was written in 2024 and formed part of hundreds of pages disclosed in Omidi's deportation case, Global News reported.
Omidi's lawyer did not respond to requests for comment from Global News. At his deportation hearing, Omidi acknowledged serving as a deputy director general in Iran's Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade but said his role was mainly technical.
CBSA links mining revenue to IRGC funding
The CBSA said Iran's mining sector was closely tied to the military and the IRGC and provided revenue that helped Tehran support armed groups in the region.
“The abundant amount of wealth generated from the mining industry allows the Iranian regime and specifically, the IRGC, to continue to be a state sponsor of terrorism,” the CBSA report said.
The agency said the IRGC provided financing, training, weapons, technology and other support to groups including Lebanon's Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Iraqi group Kata'ib Hezbollah.
Canada lists the IRGC as a terrorist entity.
The CBSA said Omidi “directly and significantly impacted and benefited the Iranian economy and the government’s ability to continue to fund its military, weapons production, and terrorism and human rights abuses throughout the world.”
Global News said the allegations about Omidi's role in revenue used to support armed groups were contained in the CBSA assessment but were not raised during his deportation hearing.
Deportation case centers on senior government role
The CBSA is seeking to deport Omidi on the grounds that he was a senior official in Iran's government, Global News reported.
Canada moved in 2022 to bar senior Iranian government officials from entering or remaining in the country after Tehran's crackdown on anti-government protests.
Omidi arrived in Canada as a visitor in 2022 after serving in Iran's mining and trade ministry. The CBSA said he had “exerted significant influence on the exercise of government power,” according to Global News.
His deportation hearing began in March. The Immigration and Refugee Board said on Wednesday that the hearing had concluded and that a decision was expected in the fall.
Omidi had sought to keep the proceedings closed to the press, but the board rejected the request after Global News challenged the move.
