A man accused of plotting an attack on Iran International journalists told a London court Wednesday that he met an alleged Revolutionary Guards contact at the Iranian embassy while he was gathering information on the journalists.
Mostafa Sepahvand told Woolwich Crown Court that he visited the embassy on February 15, 2025, where he met a man he identified as Navid Emami.
Sepahvand said he told Emami that addresses provided for the journalists were incorrect but that he was still pursuing the matter. According to Sepahvand, Emami asked whether his co-defendant Farhad Javadi Manesh was working with him.
Later in his testimony, Sepahvand said Emami had supplied addresses to people he described as connected to the Revolutionary Guards. He also alleged that Emami had threatened him.
Sepahvand, 41, is on trial alongside Manesh, 46, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 57. All three deny charges under Britain's National Security Act.
Prosecutors say the men gathered information for Iranian intelligence in preparation for serious violence against Iran International journalists Mojtaba Pourmohsen and Kambiz Hosseini.
Sepahvand accepts that he conducted surveillance but says he acted under duress and deliberately tried to undermine the operation.
The court was shown phone and vehicle location data placing Sepahvand near addresses linked to the alleged targets, as well as messages in which he passed Manesh information about Hosseini, including references to his dog and a blue Volkswagen Golf.
Sepahvand said he asked Manesh to make a video of the car. On one occasion, he said, he travelled to an address specifically so his phone's GPS would show his Iranian contacts that he had been there.
He said he was trying to convince the Revolutionary Guards that he was cooperating while actually frustrating the alleged operation.
“I played them,” Sepahvand told the court.
Sepahvand also testified that £30,000 had been sent to a money exchange in Finchley after an address linked to Pourmohsen was raised, but said he did not collect it because he did not want to carry out the task.
Asked who had sent the money and what it was for, Sepahvand named a man called Ruhollah and said it was to “go after the journalists.” Asked which journalists, he said that had not been specified.
Sepahvand said he had initially asked for £150,000. When he denied telling his Iranian contacts that he would attack a journalist if they paid him, his barrister, Tyrone Smith, pointed him to an earlier message in which he appeared to say he would carry out the attack if paid.
Sepahvand said he had no choice but to make such claims because he believed the Revolutionary Guards were monitoring his communications and waiting for him to say he would not carry out the attack.
He said he had been under duress from the beginning, citing the arrest of an associate and his younger brother, a raid on his mother's home and pressure over a criminal case against him in Iran.
“I didn't want anyone to be hurt,” Sepahvand said toward the end of his testimony. “I wanted to protect everyone.”
The trial continues.
Asking for a divorce, refusing a marriage, speaking to a man she did not know: in Iran, each has preceded the killing of a woman or girl by her own family, according to a Shargh daily investigation that counted at least 38 dead in two months.
The Shargh daily documented at least 38 women and children killed in 28 cases over a two-month period from late August to late October in an investigation published Wednesday. Thirteen of the victims were under 18.
In most cases, the perpetrators were men close to the victims, including husbands, fathers, brothers and other relatives. Some women were killed after seeking separation, while girls were murdered after resisting decisions imposed on them by their families.
Femicide is not confined to disadvantaged areas, less educated households or traditional communities, Pegah Banihashemi, a senior legal researcher at the University of Chicago, told Iran International.
Banihashemi pointed to cases involving educated couples and professional households, saying educational achievement alone does not necessarily eliminate attitudes that treat women as subject to male authority.
Figures compiled by rights organizations indicate the wider scale of the violence. The Norway-based rights group Hengaw documented at least 207 femicides in Iran in 2025 and another 45 during the first six months of 2026.
When personal choices become grounds for killing
One of the cases examined by Shargh involved a 16-year-old girl in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah whose father shot her dead while she slept.
The girl had resisted a forced marriage and had previously been prevented by her family from continuing her education beyond the fourth grade.
In another case, a man strangled his 70-year-old wife after she spoke to an unfamiliar man. A 26-year-old woman was killed by her 50-year-old husband over what was described as her failure to carry out household duties.
In a Tehran neighborhood, a woman who had requested a divorce died in a deliberately set house fire.
Two women were beheaded by their husbands in separate cases in Mashhad and Isfahan. In the Mashhad case, two young children were also killed before the perpetrator died by suicide.
Shargh found that four killings followed requests for divorce or separation, while five cases involved previous disputes or domestic violence.
Although the motives were not established in every case, several involved women resisting demands or attempting to make independent decisions about their lives.
Education alone does not prevent violence
Whether higher levels of education and economic independence can protect women from violence remains an important question.
A 2025 review published in BMC Women's Health examined 81 Iranian studies involving more than 42,000 participants and identified a range of economic, social, psychological and cultural factors associated with domestic violence.
The review considered education and employment alongside family relationships and patriarchal attitudes, indicating that violence cannot be explained by poverty or limited schooling alone.
Another study of women who had experienced domestic violence in Ardebil, northwestern Iran, included participants whose education extended to postgraduate qualifications, while their husbands' education reached the doctoral level.
The findings do not mean that violence occurs equally across all social groups, but they show that university education does not necessarily prevent abusive relationships.
Beliefs surrounding male honor, authority and the right to control women's decisions can persist even in highly educated households, Banihashemi said.
Changing those attitudes requires public education alongside social support and effective mechanisms to prevent violence, she added.
Children among the victims
Children accounted for a substantial share of those killed in Shargh's investigation, sometimes alongside their mothers and sometimes directly at the hands of fathers or brothers.
In Dehloran, a city in western Iran's Ilam province, a 57-year-old man killed his second wife and three children, including nine-year-old twins and a 13-year-old boy, before taking his own life.
In Tabriz, a man killed his wife and their two children. Other cases included a two-year-old girl beaten to death by her father and a 13-year-old girl shot by her brother.
An October 2026 study published in Children and Youth Services Review examined the experiences of 10 Iranian girls aged 12 to 18 who had suffered domestic violence and were living in shelters.
The researchers identified patterns of parental humiliation, coercion and control, with the girls responding through silence, seeking assistance or running away from home.
Although the study did not directly examine femicide, it highlighted how unequal power relationships and limited access to support can expose girls to continuing abuse.
Violence that begins before the killing
Repeated death threats, restrictions on communication, confinement at home and isolation from relatives can signal an escalating risk of violence, women's rights lawyer Fatemeh Babakhani told Shargh.
Babakhani emphasized the importance of establishing networks of trusted people and arranging discreet emergency signals to seek help.
Social worker Leila Arshad called for expanded access to shelters, social workers in schools and earlier intervention to prevent violence.
Femicide should not be attributed solely to psychiatric illness, Amirhossein Jalali, spokesperson for the Iranian Psychiatric Association, told Shargh.
Jalali identified previous threats, coercive control, stalking and escalating violence during separation as factors that deserve attention when examining such killings.
The problem extends beyond Iran. Around 50,000 women and girls worldwide were killed by intimate partners or other family members in 2024, according to a joint report by UN Women and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
That represented approximately 60 percent of all women and girls intentionally killed worldwide that year.
Legal deterrence and demands for protection
Insufficient legal deterrence and difficulties accessing effective protection leave women in Iran particularly vulnerable when threatened by men close to them, Banihashemi said.
"If there is no deterrence, and people are certain that the cost to them will not be high, they will commit these crimes again," Banihashemi told Iran International.
Legislation intended to strengthen protections for women against violence has remained unresolved despite more than a decade of debate.
Public demands for action have continued. Sixty-three campaigns addressing femicide, domestic violence and related issues have collected more than 360,000 signatures, Hamed Bidi, chief executive of the petition platform Karzar, told Shargh.
Reports of femicide, research into domestic violence and warnings from specialists show that violence against women is neither confined to a particular social class or educational background nor simply the result of personal disputes. In many cases, it is linked to patriarchal attitudes, attempts to control women's lives and inadequate protection, factors that continue to threaten the safety and autonomy of women and girls in Iran.
At least 15 women and girls have been reported killed across Iran over the past month, many allegedly by husbands, brothers or other male relatives, Iranian news outlet Rokna reported, as legislation aimed at protecting women from violence remains stalled.
The killings come amid renewed calls to pass legislation aimed at protecting women from violence, which has remained stalled for more than a decade.
Rokna documented cases in Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, Kermanshah and Qeshm, among other locations, with victims ranging from teenage girls to elderly women.
The cases included suspected so-called “honor” killings and killings reportedly linked to disputes over separation and family finances. The motives behind several deaths remain unclear, and investigations are ongoing.
Among the victims was 16-year-old Yeganeh Hosseinzai, who died on October 9 in Bakharz, in northeastern Iran's Razavi Khorasan province, with signs of severe physical assault.
Hosseinzai had been married to a relative at the age of 10 and began living with him at 14. Her husband was arrested on suspicion of her murder.
In the central city of Isfahan, 40-year-old Mina Soltani, a mother of two, was killed by her husband on October 8. Before the killing, the man reportedly sent their 21-year-old son out of the house and locked their younger child, aged 10, in a room.
On Qeshm island in southern Iran's Hormozgan province, 28-year-old Maryam Yarmohammadi, a mother of two, was stabbed to death by her brother on October 5. Reports cited a suspected so-called "honor" motive.
An 18-year-old woman was shot dead in Shahroud, in north-central Semnan province, on October 4. Her 19-year-old brother confessed to killing her the following day, with financial and family disputes cited as possible motives.
In Tehran's Majidiyeh neighborhood, a man confessed to strangling his 70-year-old wife, citing suspicions about her as the motive.
In another incident in the capital's Khak-e Sefid neighborhood, a 47-year-old man set fire to a building where his mother-in-law lived after his wife refused to resume their marriage. The September 30 attack killed four people, including two women. The perpetrator also died.
In Dehloran, in western Iran's Ilam province, 38-year-old Fereshteh Yousefzadeh and her three children, aged nine and 14, were shot dead by her husband, Mohammad Mohammadi, who subsequently died by suicide.
In the western city of Kermanshah, 46-year-old Fatemeh Lotfi and her 26-year-old daughter, Zahra Shahbazi, were shot dead. The family's 18-year-old son was identified as the main suspect.
In Tabriz, northwestern Iran, a 45-year-old man killed his wife and two children before dying by suicide. The children's genders were not disclosed.
In a separate case in the same city, a man killed his wife and moved her body onto a street in an attempt to make her death appear to have resulted from a traffic accident.
In Bam, in southeastern Kerman province, the husband of Fatemeh-Sadat Tabatabaei was arrested in connection with her killing. Investigators were also reportedly examining the possible involvement of her father-in-law.
Not all the reported killings involved relatives.
In Tehran, a 27-year-old woman was shot dead at her workplace on October 10 by a man with whom she had previously been in a romantic relationship.
In Saravan, in southeastern Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province, Mahsa Bozorgzadeh, a young mother, died on October 11 after unidentified assailants poured gasoline over her and set her on fire. The perpetrators and their motive remain unknown.
Rokna said it had excluded additional reported killings because investigations were ongoing or details about the victims and circumstances could not be confirmed. The exact dates of some of the killings it documented were also unavailable.
Separate report highlights wider toll
Separately, the Iranian newspaper Sazandegi reported Friday that at least nine women and girls had been killed by family members or people close to them since September 23.
The newspaper warned that the true scale of femicide in Iran remained unknown because of the lack of comprehensive and transparent official statistics.
The two reports should not be treated as separate tallies, as the extent of overlap between them is unclear
The human rights organization Hengaw documented at least 207 femicides across Iran in 2025, including 31 involving suspected so-called "honor" motives.
According to Hengaw, at least 13 women were killed after rejecting marriage proposals, 10 after seeking divorce, and 10 victims of child marriage were killed by their husbands during the year.
The organization said many of the killings were committed by people close to the victims, including husbands, former husbands, fathers, brothers and other family members.
Lawmaker urges action on stalled protection bill
The reported killings come as legislation intended to protect women against violence remains stalled after more than a decade of disagreements between the government and parliament.
Iranian lawmaker Ahmad Bigdeli, a member of parliament's Social Affairs Committee, called for the bill's passage on October 14, saying it could help prevent killings of women by family members.
"We should not wait for an incident to occur before thinking about legislation or amending the law," Bigdeli told Iranian news outlet Jamaran.
He said the legislation had been moving between parliament and the government for 12 years, with disagreements over its name and wording, including the use of terms such as "violence" and "crime," contributing to delays.
Bigdeli said the proposed law included measures aimed at prevention, criminalization and punishment, arguing that disputes over wording should not stand in the way of its passage.
Iran has no comprehensive domestic violence law to prevent abuse and protect survivors, according to Human Rights Watch, which has criticized discriminatory legal provisions affecting women.
Under Iranian law, fathers and paternal grandfathers who kill their children or grandchildren are exempt from qisas, or retaliatory punishment, although other penalties may apply.
An 18-year-old mechanic was killed by a gunshot to his right eye after being wounded and detained on January 9, according to information obtained by Iran International from a source close to his family.
The family of Amirmohammad Hatami spent 20 days searching prisons, morgues and security facilities before identifying his badly injured body through an old scar on his right shoulder.
Hatami, a young man of Bakhtiari origin, lived in Shahin Shahr in the central province of Isfahan, the source said.
His relatives initially had no information about his detention or where he had been taken after being wounded.
Family's 20-day search
Hatami's relatives began searching for him after his disappearance, visiting intelligence offices, police stations, facilities affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, forensic medicine centers, prisons and morgues in Shahin Shahr and surrounding areas.
None of the authorities provided information about his whereabouts, according to the family source.
During the search, relatives opened around 100 black body bags each day, hoping to find Hatami among those killed.
After 20 days, the family received a phone call asking one of its members to come and identify a body.
Signs of torture on body
Hatami's body was inside a black bag when relatives were finally allowed to examine it.
"When we went to identify Amirmohammad, his body was inside a black bag. The blood had dried on his body, and he was unrecognizable. His body and face were completely bruised," the source told Iran International.
The account described severe injuries to Hatami's ears, damage to his eyes and multiple wounds across his body.
Marks from beatings with chains were also visible, according to the source, who said the family believed Hatami had been severely tortured before his death.
His injuries were so extensive that relatives could not identify him by his face and instead recognized an old scar on his right shoulder.
A young mechanic known as 'Oosta'
Hatami worked as a mechanic and was known locally as "Oosta," a Persian term for a skilled craftsman or master of a trade.
Despite his young age, he had developed considerable mechanical skills, according to people close to him.
Friends and relatives described Hatami as hardworking, kind and responsible, saying he helped support his family financially and cared about helping working children.
Iran's police intelligence agency has sent threatening text messages warning citizens of possible prosecution over online activity, including people who do not use social media, according to accounts shared with Iran International.
Several citizens told the messages appeared designed to spread fear, with some reporting receiving the warnings multiple times a day.
One message cited several articles of Iran's Islamic Penal Code and warned the recipient that their involvement in approving and sharing "criminal content" online was under investigation.
"They send us 20 of these messages a day," one person told.
Another said they regularly received similar warnings but paid no attention to them.
Warnings reach people without social media accounts
Several said the messages were being sent to people who had no social media presence, raising questions about whether authorities were targeting specific online activities or distributing warnings more broadly.
"They send these messages in bulk. My father received one too, even though he doesn't have a social media account at all," one person wrote.
Another citizen said a security guard at their workplace had received a similar message despite using a basic mobile phone and not having Instagram.
One recipient suggested the warnings were being sent randomly because authorities knew large numbers of Iranians were active on social media.
The messages follow previous efforts by Iranian authorities to monitor online activity and warn citizens against publishing content deemed unlawful.
Citizens reject attempts to intimidate social media users
Some recipients responded defiantly, describing the warnings as another attempt by security agencies to discourage public criticism.
"They want to create fear. How are you going to frighten people with text messages when they are not afraid of bullets and executions?" one citizen wrote.
Another complained about restrictions on freedom of expression, saying: "We even need permission to breathe. We have no right to protest."
In October 2024, Tehran's prosecutor's office announced legal action against several individuals following online monitoring, citing the publication of "false news" and content allegedly intended to undermine public psychological security.
"If we speak out, our pages are shut down, we are imprisoned, tortured and executed," another wrote.
One citizen pointed to authorities' treatment of memorials for people killed during protests, arguing that a government fearful of the graves of protest victims would also fear social media posts.
Other recipients responded with the phrase "Last days, last desperate measures," expressing their belief that the warnings reflected the authorities' weakening position.
SIM card blocks and security cases add to pressure
Beyond warning messages, some described restrictions on mobile phone services and involvement by security and judicial authorities.
One said their mother's SIM card had been blocked without explanation, and attempts to restore service had resulted in the family's case being referred to the Revolutionary Guards.
"The country's prosecutor's office blocked my mother's phone line for no reason. We tried to get it unblocked, but the matter ended up with the Revolutionary Guards, and they opened a case against us," the person told Iran International.
The citizen said officials had not explained why the SIM card was blocked or identified any alleged offense.
Further attempts to resolve the matter had created serious difficulties for the family, the person added.
Iran International reported on September 24 that SIM cards were being blocked over political Instagram stories and likes, with restrictions previously directed mainly at political activists and journalists increasingly affecting ordinary social media users.
Information received by Iran International on September 12 also pointed to a new wave of SIM card suspensions targeting political and civil activists in several Iranian cities without prior notice.
Iran's security forces deployed snipers on the rooftops of the provincial Friday prayer leader's office and a women's student dormitory to fire on protesters during January's deadly crackdown in Semnan, east of Tehran, an Iran International investigation found.
The investigation draws on eyewitness accounts and footage geolocated and verified by Iran International. The identities of the sources are being withheld for fear of reprisals by Iranian authorities.
It also found that hospital officials in Semnan province cooperated with security agencies to identify and arrest wounded protesters, in some cases before they could receive medical treatment.
The findings shed light on the methods used by authorities to suppress protests across the province during January's nationwide uprising.
Snipers stationed on government buildings
On January 8, as demonstrations intensified in Semnan, security forces deployed snipers and military-grade weapons on the rooftops of several prominent buildings.
The locations included the office of the provincial Friday prayer leader, the Maryam women's student dormitory and the provincial headquarters of Iran's state broadcaster, IRIB.
Witnesses described security personnel firing live ammunition at protesters from the elevated positions.
A machine gun was also deployed at the broadcasting building, where forces fired directly at protesters' heads and eyes in an attempt to suppress the crowds, according to the accounts.
On January 9, security forces raided the Kowsar student dormitory in Semnan, beating students with batons, using tear gas and arresting several people.
In the nearby city of Shahroud, witnesses described armed personnel patrolling residential streets on motorcycles and opening fire on residents.
Witnesses also said protesters detained at bases run by the Basij, a paramilitary force affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were shot with pellets in the backs of their legs from about one meter away, causing severe injuries, including torn tendons.
Security forces also used drones to identify demonstrators, armored vehicles to block roads and pepper spray against occupants of private vehicles, while widespread internet restrictions disrupted communications.
Hospitals used to identify wounded protesters
Kowsar Hospital in Semnan and other medical facilities were used to identify and arrest protesters during the January 8–12 crackdown, according to the investigation.
Hospital administrators and staff linked to security agencies systematically recorded the identities of patients arriving with pellet wounds or injuries from live ammunition and passed the information to security authorities.
Some wounded protesters were arrested immediately upon arrival, before receiving treatment.
In other cases, security personnel prevented emergency surgery on injured demonstrators, while medical resources were prioritized for government forces, according to accounts obtained by Iran International.
A Kowsar Hospital official who helped security forces identify protesters had previously served on a government election supervisory board.
The hospital also had close ties with IRGC officials and commanders and had hosted religious ceremonies and election-related gatherings.
Detainees subjected to torture, protestors killed
Witness accounts described protesters being transported to IRGC intelligence detention facilities and prisons with sacks covering their heads.
According to witness accounts, some detainees were held overnight alongside bloodied bodies, while others faced severe beatings, torture and verbal abuse targeting their ethnicity or gender.
Eyewitnesses previously told Iran International that at least 200 people were killed by security forces in Shahroud on January 8 and 9, although the figure could not be independently verified.
Iran International identified several of those killed, including Matin Montazerzohur, 31, who was shot in the chest on January 8, and Mahmoud Bijani, 24, who was shot dead outside the city's governor's office the following day.
Soleyman Norouzi, 31, was killed by live ammunition while returning from work on January 9. Hossein Gharib, 32, an electricity department employee and athlete, was also shot dead that day.
In another case documented by Iran International, security forces shot dead Saeed Golsorkhi, a 31-year-old powerlifter, outside his family home on January 11, two days after he was wounded during protests. Sources close to his family said he was killed in front of his mother and young niece.
Iranian authorities also executed Javad Zamani and Abolfazl Saedi, two protesters arrested during January's demonstrations in Shahroud, Semnan province, on June 16, according to the judiciary's Mizan news agency.
Protests spread across Semnan province
The January demonstrations extended across Semnan, Shahroud, Garmsar and Damghan, four counties accounting for more than 83 percent of the province's population and roughly half its territory.
The unrest spread across administrative centers, industrial districts, university communities and agricultural areas, showing that protests were not confined to a single city or social group.
Semnan province, home to approximately 700,000 people, has faced mounting economic and environmental pressures, including severe drought, declining groundwater supplies, land subsidence, industrial stagnation and rising living costs.
Despite numerous industrial estates along the Tehran-Mashhad corridor, the province has struggled with widening economic inequality and housing pressures.
Semnan also witnessed protests during nationwide uprisings in the Iranian calendar years beginning in March 2017 and March 2019, as well as the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising.
The province has also experienced labor and trade strikes, including those involving railway workers and merchants in Shahroud.
A sharp decline in voter turnout and growing political disillusionment reflect deep dissatisfaction with the continued rule of the Islamic Republic.
Official election figures show turnout in Semnan province fell from 87.82 percent in the 2009 presidential election to 49.11 percent in the first round of the 2024 vote.
