Erfan Soltani reportedly facing imminent execution
Erfan Soltani is reportedly facing execution in Iran on Wednesday after he was tried, convicted and sentenced, following his arrest on Thursday.
The 26-year-old was arrested in Karaj, a city on the north-west outskirts of Tehran, at the peak of the protests before the internet black-out. Soltani is one of the many thousands of protesters arrested last week.
Amnesty International has highlighted his case, warning of concerns that Iranian authorities might “once again resort to swift trials and arbitrary executions to crush and deter dissent”.
According to information gathered by Amnesty, the group said an informed sourced learned on 11 January that officials had told Soltani’s family he was sentenced to death. Soltani had lost contact with loved ones on 8 January amid mass protests and the regime’s internet shutdown, the group said.
Iran is the world’s most prolific executioner after China, according to monitors. Last year, it hanged at least 1,500 people, Norway-based Iran Human Rights group said.
Erfan Soltani, 26, is reportedly facing imminent execution in Iran. Photograph: HENGAW ORGANIZATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTSShare
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Starlink offers free service in Iran, activists say
Satellite internet provider Starlink now offers free service in Iran, activists said on Wednesday.
Mehdi Yahyanejad, a Los Angeles-based activist who has helped get the units into Iran, told the Associated Press that the free service had started. Other activists also confirmed in messages online that the service was free. Starlink have not immediately commented.
Starlink has been the only way for Iranians to communicate with the outside world since authorities shut down the internet on Thursday night.
The Guardian has previously reported on the Iranians who have risked their lives to send information out of the country during the protests.
Global rallies to support protesters in Iran
People around the world have been rallying over the last week in support of the protests in Iran. One of our picture editors has curated this selection.
Police hold back protesters at Place de la Trocadéro in Paris on 11 January. Photograph: Kiran Ridley/AFP/Getty ImagesProtesters gather outside the US consulate in Milan, Italy. Photograph: Claudia Greco/ReutersDemonstrators hold flags outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPAPolice line up in front of demonstrators outside the Iranian embassy in Berlin on 11 January. Photograph: Rouzbeh Fouladi/ZUMA Press Wire/ShutterstockPeople in Zurich, Switzerland rally on 13 January in support of the mass demonstrations in Iran. Photograph: Michael Buholzer/EPAA man lights a cigarette with a flame from a burning picture of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside the Iranian embassy in London. Photograph: Toby Melville/ReutersShare
There’s been plenty of Iran news in the past 12 hours. All eyes are on the White House to see what action Trump might decide to take against Iran. It has also just ticked past 6am on Wednesday in Tehran, and there are reports Erfan Soltani will be executed in Iran today.
Here’s a summary to bring you up to speed:
Donald Trump has said the US “will take very strong action” against Iran if the regime starts to execute people as part of their crackdown on the spiralling protests.
Erfan Soltani, a 26-year-old man arrested in connection with protests in the city of Karaj is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, according to the Iranian Kurdish rights group, Hengaw. Authorities had told the family that the death sentence was final, Hengaw reported, citing a source close to the family.
The US president has urged the protests to continue, and again suggested US military action could follow. “Iranian Patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!! … help is on its way,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, a day after the White House press secretary said airstrikes were among “many, many options” the US president was considering.
More than 2,500 people have been killed in the protests – more than 90% of whom were demonstrators – and over 18,000 people have been arrested, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said.
Doctors in Iran have described overwhelmed hospitals and emergency wings overflowing with protesters who had been shot. One ophthalmologist in Tehran has documented more than 400 eye injuries from gunshots in a single hospital.
The US state department has said US citizens should leave Iran now and “if safe to do so, consider departing Iran by land to Armenia or Türkiye”.
Trump announced that he was cancelling meetings with Iranian officials “until the senseless killing” stops, signalling a possible breakdown in de-escalation efforts. Trump was expected to receive a briefing on Tuesday night on the scale of casualties in Iran.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is offering people in Iran free internet through Starlink’s satellite service, according to Bloomberg News, as the internet blackout in the country surpassed the five-day mark.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met in secret with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled former Iranian crown prince, last weekend, Axios reported. A senior US official told the outlet the pair discussed the protests. In previous messages that have been blocked by the Iranian government internet shutdown, he has said that he is ready to lead a transition.
In response to Trump’s social media post that “help is on the way,” Iran’s UN ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said the US president was inciting violence, threatening the country’s sovereignty and security and seeking to destabilise the government. “The United States and the Israeli regime bear direct and undeniable legal responsibility for the resulting loss of innocent civilian lives, particularly among the youth,” he wrote in a letter to the UN security council.
Russia on Tuesday condemned “subversive external interference” in Iran’s internal politics, saying any repeat of last year’s US strikes would have “disastrous consequences” for the Middle East and international security.
Britain, France, Germany and Italy all summoned Iranian ambassadors in protest over the crackdown. “The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen posted on X.
Updated at 22.16 EST
Trump warns Iran ‘it’s not going to work out good’ if hangings begin
Just coming back to some of Donald Trump’s comments during an interview with CBS on Tuesday night (US time).
The CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil asked Trump about hangings reportedly set to begin taking place in Iran on Wednesday.
Trump replied: “We will take very strong action. If they do such a thing, we will take very strong action.”
When pressed further about what “strong action” means, Trump mentioned the recent US strikes on Venezuela and the 2019 killing of then Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The president then turned to Iran:
We don’t want to see what’s happening in Iran happen. And, you know, if they want to have protests, that’s one thing. When they start killing thousands of people. And now you’re telling me about hanging. We’ll see how that works out for them. It’s not going to work out good.
Donald Trump interviewed by Tony Dokoupil on CBS news. Photograph: CBS NewsShare
Updated at 21.29 EST
Iranian authorities insist they have regained control of the country after successive nights of mass protests since Thursday.
Rights groups accuse the government of fatally shooting protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an internet blackout that has now surpassed the five-day mark.
International phone links were restored on Tuesday, but only for outgoing calls, according to some reports, and the quality remained spotty, with frequent interruptions.
Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed during the protests, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies.
Authorities in Tehran have announced a mass funeral ceremony in the capital on Wednesday for the “martyrs” of recent days.
Updated at 21.59 EST
Protester death toll jumps to at least 2,571, says activist group
The death toll from a crackdown on protests in Iran has jumped to at least 2,571, including 12 children, activists said early on Wednesday.
The figure came from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in multiple rounds of unrest in Iran in recent years.
The activist group said 2,403 of the dead were protesters and 147 were government-affiliated. Twelve children were killed, along with nine civilians it said were not taking part in protests. More than 18,100 people have been detained, the group said.
With the internet down in Iran, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
That death toll dwarfs the death toll from any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Cars burn in a street on 8 January during a protest in Tehran. After days of protests, the Iranian regime imposed a deadly crackdown on nationwide anti-government movements. Photograph: ReutersShare
Updated at 20.47 EST
Erfan Soltani reportedly facing imminent execution
Erfan Soltani is reportedly facing execution in Iran on Wednesday after he was tried, convicted and sentenced, following his arrest on Thursday.
The 26-year-old was arrested in Karaj, a city on the north-west outskirts of Tehran, at the peak of the protests before the internet black-out. Soltani is one of the many thousands of protesters arrested last week.
Amnesty International has highlighted his case, warning of concerns that Iranian authorities might “once again resort to swift trials and arbitrary executions to crush and deter dissent”.
According to information gathered by Amnesty, the group said an informed sourced learned on 11 January that officials had told Soltani’s family he was sentenced to death. Soltani had lost contact with loved ones on 8 January amid mass protests and the regime’s internet shutdown, the group said.
Iran is the world’s most prolific executioner after China, according to monitors. Last year, it hanged at least 1,500 people, Norway-based Iran Human Rights group said.
Erfan Soltani, 26, is reportedly facing imminent execution in Iran. Photograph: HENGAW ORGANIZATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTSShare
Donald Trump flew back to Washington DC on Tuesday evening, to be briefed on potential US action in Iran. It is just after 8pm in DC, and 4.30am on Wednesday in Iran.
President Trump returns to the White House on Tuesday after visiting Detroit. Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPADonald Trump walks across the South Lawn. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/ReutersDonald Trump pictured in the Oval Office at the White House on Tuesday evening. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/ReutersShareOpening summary
Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the Iran crisis. Donald Trump has said the US “will take very strong action” against Iran if the regime starts to execute people as part of their crackdown on the spiralling protests inside the country.
Trump told CBS News: “When they start killing thousands of people – and now you’re telling me about hanging. We’ll see how that’s going to work out for them.”
Hengaw, an Iranian Kurdish rights group, has reported that Erfan Soltani, a 26-year-old man arrested in connection with protests in the city of Karaj, will be executed on Wednesday. Authorities had told the family that the death sentence was final, Hengaw reported, citing a source close to the family.
The US president has urged the protests to continue, and again suggested US military action could follow. “Iranian Patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!! … help is on its way,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, a day after the White House press secretary said airstrikes were among “many, many options” the US president was considering.
Increasingly credible reports have emerged that thousands of people had been killed in the protests. The reports range from 2,000 to as many as 20,000, according to two CBS sources citing medical records from hospitals. The Iranian regime has not provided any official numbers.
In other developments:
The US state department has said US citizens should leave Iran now and “if safe to do so, consider departing Iran by land to Armenia or Türkiye”. The US virtual embassy for Iran says citizens should “plan alternative means of communication” due to “continued internet outages” and “have a plan for departing that does not rely on US government help”.
Donald Trump announced that he was cancelling meetings with Iranian officials “until the senseless killing” stops, signalling a possible breakdown in de-escalation efforts. Trump is expected to receive a briefing on Tuesday night on the scale of casualties in Iran. His vice-president JD Vance, who had reportedly been urging Trump to try diplomacy first, is chairing a a National Security Council principals meeting on Iran.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is offering people in Iran free internet through Starlink’s satellite service, according to Bloomberg News, as the internet blackout in the country surpassed the five-day mark. The subscription fee has been waived so that people with receivers in Iran can access service without paying, according to Bloomberg’s report.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met in secret with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled former Iranian crown prince, last weekend, Axios reported. A senior US official told the outlet the pair discussed the protests. In previous messages that have been blocked by the Iranian government internet shutdown, he has said that he is ready to lead a transition. He has also pushed for a referendum and nonviolent change in the country.