Explosion heard near Zahedan boulevard – IRGC media

Sepahi, detained over protests in January and sentenced to death in Isfahan, now has his case before the sentence enforcement office, raising concerns over his execution.

“I personally saw the four places where the pellets had hit his legs,” the former prisoner told Iran International, adding that Sepahi told him his initial recovery took about two months.

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  Iran court sentences 10 protesters to death in Isfahan

Held in a security ward at Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan, Sepahi suffered a stroke on July 28, when two other prisoners were executed, including his cousin Abolfazl Sepahi. He was hospitalized before being returned to prison.

He was sentenced to death in the Alikhani Square case, a mass prosecution of protesters accused of involvement in unrest in Isfahan in which the Islamic Republic says four security personnel were killed.

Shot during arrest

Security forces arrested Sepahi at home following the January protests, ordering his family onto the floor before going upstairs to his room.

One officer restrained him before another said, “Hold him. I want to shoot him.”

The officers shot him in both lower legs, with two more pellets striking his thighs as he was taken away. One remained lodged in his thigh bone and required surgery.

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After two days in hospital, he was transferred to another detention facility. His mother, brother and teenage sister were also detained.

Torture during interrogation

Sepahi spent about 26 days undergoing interrogation and torture at the facility, according to the former prisoner.

His mother was at times brought into an adjoining room so she could hear or witness the torture. Interrogators struck him in the face and hit the wounds on his legs with a hose until they began bleeding again.

“I will sign whatever you tell me to,” Sepahi shouted during the torture, based on the account.

Civil rights activist Mehdi Mahmoudian said on September 12 that Sepahi and several other defendants in the case were tortured in detention.

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  Executions in Isfahan renew calls to end German city partnership

Several defendants told the court they had faced torture, sexual assault and threats of rape to extract statements against one another, Mahmoudian said, adding that a significant part of the case and resulting sentences rested on those statements.

Statements challenged in court

Sepahi told the judge during his trial that security forces had shot him during his arrest, his former cellmate said.

When the judge suggested the shots might have been fired as he tried to escape, Sepahi responded: “What escape? They shot me inside my own room.”

Other defendants who had previously made statements against him also told the court that their accounts had been extracted under torture.

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  Iran executes two protesters amid heavy security in Isfahan

Some were beaten and subjected to mock executions after returning from court and forced to write new statements against Sepahi and other defendants.

Sepahi’s mother, Somayeh, is serving a five-year sentence at Dowlatabad Prison on charges including “assembly and collusion,” “acting against national security” and “rebellion.”

Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk said it was alerted at 8:44 a.m. local time after air traffic control received a distress call from flydubai flight FZ1073 requesting an emergency landing.

The Boeing 737 landed safely at 9:45 a.m., the airport said. The captain and first officer were taken to hospital, while passengers were assisted at the terminal.

Flydubai was working to arrange a replacement aircraft, the airport said, adding that the relevant authorities were investigating the incident.

What happened in the cockpit?

Three Israeli officials said the co-pilot was believed to have stabbed the captain in what was being investigated as a possible attempted terror attack.

The officials said cabin crew entered the cockpit and took control of flydubai flight FZ1073 before it diverted to Saudi Arabia while flying over Jordanian airspace. One of the officials identified the co-pilot as an Omani national.

Israeli authorities were still investigating the circumstances and had not reached a final conclusion about the motive.

Flydubai said the aircraft had experienced an "incident" while flying to Tel Aviv and diverted to Tabuk. The airline said all passengers were safe and accounted for but gave no details about what had happened.

Neither Saudi authorities nor flydubai had publicly explained the cause of the incident.

Passenger reports screaming and knife

Yasmin Abu Kasis, whose daughter Miriam was among the passengers, told Reuters that her daughter had heard screaming and said a man holding a knife forced one of the pilots to the floor.

She also said there was blood inside the aircraft.

Israeli media published a photograph said to have been taken aboard the plane showing what appeared to be a passenger with blood on his shirt. Reuters could not independently verify the image or the passenger's account.

The airport statement confirmed that both pilots had been injured but did not say how they were hurt.

Emergency signals and sudden descent

The flight had been traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv when it diverted from Jordanian airspace toward Saudi Arabia, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.

The aircraft first transmitted a general emergency signal and several minutes later sent another signal indicating possible unlawful interference, Flightradar24 said. It later transmitted the general emergency signal again.

Flight data also appeared to show the plane dropping nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds before the first emergency alert, according to Flightradar24.

The signals prompted a major security response in Israel.

Israeli media said about 150 Israeli passengers were aboard the flight. The Israeli prime minister's office said the situation was "under control" and that authorities were taking steps to bring the passengers back to Israel.

According to a report published Tuesday by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC), the findings draw on 10 confidential interviews conducted between March 2024 and July 2026 with debtors and close relatives of people subjected to financial enforcement.

All requested anonymity because of the stigma and other risks associated with imprisonment for debt.

One case concerns a man identified by the pseudonym Borna, whose sister told IHRDC that he spent two years in hiding after falling behind on payments linked to a marital financial obligation of 300 gold coins. He attempted suicide by jumping from a fourth-floor building and later spent about three years in prison.

His sister said a trial court found that Borna lacked the means to pay and ordered his release, but an appellate court required him to first pay 14 gold coins in arrears. IHRDC cited the case as evidence that people recognized as unable to pay can nevertheless remain exposed to detention.

The report also recounts the case of a young woman who was arrested at about 16 for theft and remained imprisoned for nearly three years after completing her sentence because she could not repay 400,000 tomans, which the report put at about $400 at the time. According to testimony cited by IHRDC, she attempted suicide in prison by swallowing depilatory powder and suffered lasting internal injuries.

The individual accounts are set against official figures showing that an average of 10,087 people were held in “imprisonment until payment” for civil financial judgments on any given day in 2022-23, representing 4.3% of Iran’s average prison population. The figure excludes people held over blood money and those on day release.

IHRDC’s open-source database separately recorded at least 88,078 releases of imprisoned debtors across all 31 provinces between 2016 and 2026. The organization said available figures represent minimums and do not capture everyone affected by financial detention.

Under Article 3 of Iran’s Law on the Enforcement of Financial Judgments, a debtor can be imprisoned at a creditor’s request until the judgment is satisfied, a court accepts an insolvency claim or the creditor consents to release. IHRDC said people genuinely unable to pay can still face detention because of procedural and evidentiary barriers, including missed deadlines and difficulties securing witnesses, collateral or legal assistance.

Iran told the United Nations during its 2025 Universal Periodic Review that no one is imprisoned merely for failing to fulfill a contractual obligation and that detention is reserved for people who have the means to pay but refuse. IHRDC said its examination of the law, statistics and witness accounts found that assurance “does not hold.”

IHRDC called for abolishing imprisonment for genuine inability to pay and replacing it with measures including asset tracing, wage attachment and installment plans based on a debtor’s ability to pay, while retaining sanctions for proven fraud, concealment or deliberate refusal to pay despite having the means.

Rasaei said during an online parliamentary session on Sunday that Ghalibaf, former president Hassan Rouhani, President Masoud Pezeshkian and the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council had filed complaints against several lawmakers.

He said one of those complaints had resulted in a 10-month prison sentence against him. Rasaei described the ruling as “non-legal” and “political,” but said he would report to prison to serve the sentence.

Rasaei was elected third in Tehran in the parliamentary election three years ago, when around 80 percent of eligible voters in the capital boycotted the election.

He is the first sitting lawmaker to be sent to prison during his term in office.

The complaint dates to before Rasaei was elected to parliament and concerns a case brought by Ghalibaf against the weekly 9 Dey, where Rasaei was managing director. The complaint followed an article published in January 2024 under the headline “Ghalibaf’s Manipulation of Parliamentary Documents.”

The judiciary announced on Monday that Rasaei had appeared at Tehran’s Special Clerical Court and was sent to the clerics’ section of Evin Prison the same day to begin serving his sentence. According to the judiciary’s statement, Rasaei had more than 18 months to resolve the case by apologizing to Ghalibaf.

Rasaei’s positions are closely aligned with those of the Paydari Party and former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

Hardliners react to the sentence

Rasaei’s supporters have accused Ghalibaf of “silencing the voices of critics” and criticized him for pursuing the complaint against Rasaei rather than focusing on the country’s economic and security problems.

Figures associated with these groups and their media outlets also attacked Mohseni-Ejei. The criticism has spilled over into some recent nightly pro-government gatherings.

Mohammad-Manan Raeisi, a Qom lawmaker who headed Saeed Jalili’s presidential campaign in the city two years ago, sharply criticized Ghalibaf and other officials and warned of a possible popular backlash against them.

“I doubt that, under these circumstances, people will allow you to appear in any mosque, gathering, public square or religious ceremony, and you may face a popular backlash,” he wrote.

Meysam Nili, managing director of the Raja News website and a figure associated with the Paydari Party, accused the judiciary of injustice and political bias, claiming that a “coup” was being organized against media and political figures belonging to the faction.

Hardline social media user Mohsen Maghsoudi, referring to arguments in favour of negotiations with the United States, wrote: “When it is possible to negotiate with the killer of the martyred Imam (Ali Khamenei) in the national interests and still talk about negotiations despite receiving insult, humiliation and aggression, why can’t we, in order to preserve unity, drop a three-year-old complaint over the headline of a weekly newspaper so that a revolutionary representative does not go to prison and hundreds of thousands of people’s votes do not become ineffective for 10 months?”

Other conservatives push back

Other conservative figures have sharply criticized the controversy generated by Rasaei’s supporters and the hardline groups.

The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency published an article headlined “On Mr Rasaei’s Strange Fallacies!” and described his objections to the ruling as “slander against a judicial ruling.”

Tasnim said Rasaei had effectively challenged the validity of the ruling by describing it as “strange” and “contrary to procedure,” while accusing the judiciary of political conduct by calling the ruling “political and non-legal.” The agency characterized his statements as criminal.

The Tabnak website published a video showing hardliners chanting in support of Rasaei and against Ghalibaf at one of the nightly gatherings. It called them “infiltrators” and said a small number of people were using the gatherings to “advance factional objectives.”

The conservative Khorasan newspaper said Rasaei’s refusal to apologize had led the court to conclude that he was not only unrepentant about the allegations he had made against Ghalibaf, but was also refusing to resolve the case and defying a judicial order.

Mojtaba Zarei, a member of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, wrote that turning a judicial case into a political and media confrontation during wartime would only deepen divisions among political forces.

Deepening confrontation

Hardliners have stepped up attacks in recent days against political rivals who support resolving the dispute with the United States through negotiations and returning to the Islamabad understanding.

They have gathered outside the home of former President Hassan Rouhani, whom they accuse of being subservient to the West, and called for him and his former foreign minister, Mohammad-Javad Zarif, to be prosecuted.

They also chanted against President Masoud Pezeshkian and called him an “infiltrator” as he returned from New York, where he attended the UN General Assembly. Hardliners have also registered an impeachment motion against Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi over his meeting with Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Iran, and launched an online campaign calling for Pezeshkian’s removal.

Serkan Eren, the 42-year-old founder of STELP, was convicted over alleged contacts with a country Iran considers hostile, according to the organization. STELP has not identified the country or disclosed further details, citing concerns for Eren and others involved.

Eren, a Turkish citizen and longtime resident of Germany, has been in Iranian custody for more than a year.

He entered Iran in late June 2025 as the 12-day war was drawing to a close. Five days later, after a ceasefire had taken effect, he headed toward the Iraqi border to leave the country. He never made it out.

STELP called the verdict unjustified and said the sentence did not reflect the circumstances of his case.

“The ten-year prison sentence given to Serkan Eren is not about what he has done. It is about what the Islamic Republic wants,” Shahin Milani, executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, told Iran International.

Milani said Eren's charitable work offered little protection from what he described as Tehran's established practice of using foreign detainees as political leverage.

“Even working for a charitable organization does not protect foreign nationals,” he said.

Contemporaneous German reporting provides a detailed account of why Eren went to Iran and the precautions he took before entering.

German-Iranians had approached STELP seeking help for relatives inside the country, according to the Stuttgarter Zeitung. Eren said he was in contact with seven elderly Iranians, some of them ill, whom he hoped to help reach Turkey. He also intended to bring food into Tehran.

The risks were apparent before he crossed the border.

Eren deliberately left behind a satellite phone, bulletproof vest and helmet, fearing such equipment could cause Iranian authorities to mistake him for an agent or saboteur. Instead, he crossed from Turkey into Iran on foot with little more than a backpack.

Once inside, those concerns intensified. Eren later described armed checkpoints on his route to Tehran where he was forced to strip naked during searches.

More than a year later, an Islamic Republic court convicted him over alleged contacts with a hostile country.

Human rights lawyer Gissou Nia said humanitarian status has not historically insulated either foreign aid workers or Iranian charities from pressure by the authorities.

“Unfortunately, being a humanitarian aid worker is not a shield when it comes to the Islamic Republic detaining and arbitrarily imprisoning individuals,” Nia told Iran International.

She cited the case of Belgian humanitarian worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who was detained in Iran in 2022 and later sentenced to a lengthy prison term before being released in 2023 in a prisoner exchange involving Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat imprisoned in Belgium over a foiled bomb plot.

“This is a pattern that we've seen before,” Nia said.

Nia also pointed to the treatment of humanitarian organizations operating inside Iran. The Imam Ali Popular Students Relief Society, a prominent independent charity that worked with impoverished families and vulnerable children, was dissolved following years of pressure from Iranian authorities.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran reported in 2022 that an appeals court upheld an order dissolving the organization after authorities arrested several of its members and accused its founder of offenses including insulting Iran's leadership and acting against national security.

The case, Nia said, illustrates how work designed to remain outside politics can itself become politically charged in Iran.

“Even the sort of non-politicized work of humanitarian aid organizations has been politicized in some ways,” she said.

Eren's Turkish citizenship adds another layer to efforts to secure his release.

Despite living in Germany and running a Stuttgart-based organization, Eren does not hold German citizenship. Germany's Foreign Office has said it is aware of his case but that responsibility rests with Turkish authorities because he is a Turkish national. STELP says it has been working closely with Ankara since his detention.

Nia said his ties to Germany nevertheless give Berlin reason to remain engaged.

“I anticipate that Germany will raise the case, especially because he was working for a German-based organization,” she said. “And the Turkish government will probably be involved as well, because he is a Turkish citizen.”

The sentence has already drawn calls for Eren's release in Germany. Baden-Württemberg Minister-President Cem Özdemir said he would continue pushing for Eren to be freed immediately.

Eren has spent years working in humanitarian crises. He began aid work during Europe's 2015 refugee crisis and received Germany's Federal Order of Merit in 2023 for his humanitarian service.

Before entering Iran, he openly questioned whether authorities would allow him into the country at all.

“It’s arbitrary,” Eren told the Stuttgarter Zeitung at the time.

He nevertheless hoped his status as a humanitarian worker would help protect him.

It did not.