Congress Launches Probe Over Meta Censoring Iranian Dissidents

The head of the country’s emergency services said 15 injured passengers are in critical condition in hospitals in southern Khorassan province, according to ISNA. Other officials have put the number at around five people.

The train with 430 passengers and crew travelling to the city of Yazd collided at 5:30 am local time with an excavator before going off the rails 50 km (30 miles) from the city of Tabas, where it began its journey, a railway official told state news agency IRNA.

"Ten ambulances are at the accident scene and another 12 are on their way," the crisis management chief of the province of South Khorasan told the agency.

One reporter from Tehran tweeted that Iran has invested very little in maintaining and modernizing its rail system in the past 15 years.

Mehrabian made the remarks from the Qatari capital Doha on Monday, adding that the Iran Trade Center will be launched in a prestigious building in one of Doha’s top neighborhoods.

“The permit for this center was issued today and one of the best buildings in central Doha, in a very good location, was allocated to the center,” he said. 

An Iranian delegation headed by Mehrabian attended the eighth meeting of the Joint Commission for Economic Cooperation between Iran and Qatar in Doha on Monday, where the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding to increase bilateral economic and trade cooperation. 

The document was signed by Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim Al Thani, the chairman of Qatar’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and his Iranian counterpart Gholam Hossein Shafeie. 

Head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization Alireza Peyman-Pak said during a meeting with Iranian businessmen in Doha on Tuesday that an exhibition will also be held in Iran to showcase Qatar's trade capabilities. 

In May, The Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, expressed hope that an agreement between the United States and Iran could be achieved, saying Doha is ready to help resolve the conflict.

Qatar’s ruler visited Tehran a week earlier and held meetings with President Ebrahim Raisi and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Videos and reports published on social media show hundreds of retired protesters marching in Ahvaz, capital of the oil-rich Khuzestan province, in Ilam, Qazvin, the port of Bandar Abbas, Esfahan in central Iran, Mashhad in the northeast and other towns and cities.

Retirees who depend on monthly payments from the Social Security Organization say their pensions have increased at a much slower rate than current inflation and they simply cannot make ends meet.

In most cities protesters were chanting slogans against the government calling it a cheat and a liar. They also repeated the chant, “Death to Raisi” that has been ringing out in other protests since early May.

Just a few days ago the government announced that pensions for most retirees will increase by just 10 percent, while the official inflation rate is at least 40 percent.

At the same time videos show the bazaar in the northwestern city of Tabriz was on strike on Tuesday with merchants shutting down their stores and businesses in protest to a sudden increase in sales tax.

Bazaar or traditional retail market strikes have a deep historical root in Iran and signal a serios political and economic crisis. The bazaar strikes played a major role both in the Constitutional Revolution of the early 20th century and the 1979 revolution against the monarchy.

Tabriz was the scene of another remarkable event on Monday when a few hundred marching retirees reached a police cordon in a street, hesitated for a moment, and then kept on marching, breaking through the police lines. Security forces did not react as they were overwhelmed.

Since early May when the government of President Ebrahim Raisi stopped a food import subsidy and prices soared, Iran has witnessed protests and instability.

The subsidy started in 2018 when former President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement and began imposing tough sanctions on Iran. Two months before his decision, the Iranian currency had already begun to fall against the US dollar making imported food and other necessities more expensive for consumers. The government decided to provide import subsidies to prevent political discontent, but it eventually decided that the scheme was too expensive and scrapped it.

According to widely varying figures, the subsidy annually cost the state anywhere between $9 to $15 billion, while US sanctions have reduced its main source of income, oil exports.

The Iranian currency reached as low as 320,000 rials for one US dollar on Tuesday, falling by more than 25 percent in two months and almost tenfold in four years.

This immediately translates into higher prices for food, as more than half of Iran’s wheat and most of its animal feed are imported from other countries, amid high global inflation.

According to a number of groups that monitor the human rights violations of ethnic minorities in Iran, all of the executed people were Baluchi, a minority people living in Iran’s south-east bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

Sistan-Baluchestan is the country’s second largest but least developed province. Sunni Muslim Baluchis, who make up the majority of the province’s population, allege discrimination, especially in government employment.

Late in May, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) said Iran’s judiciary has hanged at least 26 prisoners in various cities in 10 days amid a wave of popular protests across the country. 

Calling for the abolition of the death penalty, Iran Human Rights Director, Mahmoud Amiri-Moghaddam said, “While most of those executed were charged with crimes such as murder and drug offences, the authorities use the death penalty as a political tool. The executions are carried out with the aim of suppressing dissent.”

Earlier in the month, Amnesty International’s annual report on worldwide use of the death penalty showed Iran as a country with a “disturbing spike” in executions.

The 66-page report found Iran executed at least 314 people in 2021, a 28 percent jump from at least 246 in 2020 and the highest figure since 2017. Amnesty said that in Iran “death sentences were disproportionately used against members of ethnic minorities.”

Mehdi Chamran made the remarks on Tuesday in reference to the Thursday attack that deactivated over 5,000 surveillance cameras and 150 websites and online services of Tehran Municipality. An Iranian hacktivist group named ‘Uprising till Overthrow' took responsibilty.

“Detailed planning was carried out by the Mossad and the “hypocrites” and the cooperation of the two with all the counterrevolutionaries and those who oppose the Islamic Republic,” he said. Iranian officials always refer to the exiled MEK as 'hypocrites'.

His comments came as most of the services are still offline and the authorities have warned all municipal employees against turning on their systems, suggesting that the municipality has not yet figured out how their systems were breached. 

During the same session, Asghar Ghaemi, a member of the Council, said, "We should apologize to the people of Tehran for this cyberattack,” expressing hope that the damages to the municipality will be compensated and services will be back online. 

The hacktivist group, reportedly affiliated with the MEK, put photos of the leaders of the group Massoud and Maryam Rajavi as well as insults at Khomeini, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and President Ebrahim Raisi on the websites of Tehran Municipality. The MEK released a video clip showing the websites defaced with a graphic with an image of Khamenei with a red 'X' over his face, while calling for an “uprising until overthrow.”