Man With Loaded AK-47 Caught Outside Iranian Activist's Home In NYC

Videos and photos shared on social media on Sunday showed pensioners protesting in numerous cities including Tehran, Rasht, Tabriz, Orumiyeh (Urmia), Kermanshah, Sanandaj and Bojnourd. 

According to the telegram channel of the Free Union of Iranian Workers, several workers of the National Telecommunication Company were arrested during their rally in capital Tehran. 

In 2009, Mobin Trust Consortium – whose main shareholders are the Cooperative Foundation of the Revolutionary Guards and the Executive Headquarters of Imam's Imam Khomeini's Order (Setad), bought 50 percent of the shares in the National Telecommunication Company from the government in a controversial acquisition.

Protesters chanted slogans against the government’s policy of spending huge amounts of money to garner support among the Lebanese and Palestinians -- especially in Gaza -- but do not increase the retirees’ payments enough amid a 55-percent inflation rate in Iran. 

Similar to previous rounds of protests, which have become more frequent, retireess called on the government to increase pensions by 38 percent, as stipulated by the Supreme Labor Council. They are demanding pension increases more on par with rising prices of essential foods.

With food prices rising faster after four years of United States’ ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, Iranian workers and retirees have been holding regular protests or strikes to demand higher salaries. Last month, Iran’s currency fell to a historic low of 333,000 rials to the US dollar in June.

According to reports, the skirmish is still ongoing in the Shaghalak village in Doust Mohammad Rural District in central Hirmand in Sistan and Baluchestan province. It is not clear what prompted the incident.

Confirming the reports, Meysam Barazandeh, the governor of the border town said that there is no immediate estimate of the number of casualties. 

Unconfirmed reports in social media say at least 10 people were killed during the firefight. Some social media users say most of the casualties are members of the Baluchi ethnicity, a minority people living in Iran’s south-east bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Late in June, at least one Iranian soldier was killed during clashes in the same area. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani identified the victim as Mohammad Sayyad, saying that he died in line of duty by unknown gunmen at the Milak border crossing and urged the Taliban to punish those behind the incident.

In April, the border crossing Dogharoon was temporarily shut down following a “dispute” between Iranian and Afghan border guards.

There have been some incidents at the border since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan last year. An Iranian foreign ministry official in January said that the reason for clashes between Iranian forces and the Taliban was lack of professional conduct by the latter.

Hamidreza Naghashian (Naqqashian) said in an interview that Khomeini was admitted to hospital with a heart problem, but later it was found that his stomach had upper gastrointestinal bleeding.

Naghashian claimed that medications to treat Khomeini were bought through several connections from a pharmacy in London, which had not existed before and was only established for providing Khomeini’s drugs and immediately shut down afterwards.

He did not elaborate on who had prescribed the medicines and who had provided them, but said the intelligence ministry has the script of the buyers’ interrogation, adding that former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani did not allow the ministry to follow up the case.

The former bodyguard also called on the authorities to increase measures to protect the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei because of the suspected infiltration in his office.

Since mid-2020 a series of high-profile mysterious attacks have hit Iran’s nuclear and military installations around the country, widely believed to have been Israeli sabotage operations.

In May, several IRGC officials were killed or died in suspicious circumstances, prompting Tehran to blame Israel -- which has never officially taken credit for these operations – and a major reshuffling of IRGC intelligence and counter-intelligence leadership in the following month.

In a statement, the ministry said the Swedish national, whose identity remains unknown, had contact with "European and non-European suspects" in Iran.

It claimed that the detained Swede had made several trips to Iran and visited different cities which are not typical tourist destinations.

The ministry alleged that in all his/her trips, the arrested person had communicated with "European and non-European suspects who were under surveillance in Iran" and observed all “professional principles of communication, protection and concealment". It said the Swedish person had also travelled to Israel before visiting Iran.

The arrest was announced as Iran has “strongly condemned” a Swedish court’s sentencing of former Iranian jailor Hamid Nouri to life imprisonment over executions of political prisoners in 1988.

Late in June, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs advised its citizens against traveling to the Islamic Republic due to security risks to foreigners.

Tehran is already holding hostage Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who is on death row.

Iran has been accused of wrongfully detaining foreign and dual nationals on trumped up charges, effectively as hostages to extract concessions from Western governments.

Confirming the report of the amputations, the rights watchdog said on Friday that Iranian authorities used a guillotine machine to cut off the fingers of a man convicted of theft on July 27.

“Pouya Torabi, who is in his late thirties, was transferred on an emergency basis to a hospital immediately after his fingers were cut off in the presence of several officials and a doctor at Tehran’s Evin prison,” Amnesty said in a statement.

It claimed that less than two months ago, on May 31, Iranian authorities also amputated the fingers of Sayed Barat Hosseini, without giving him anesthetic, adding that he has since been imprisoned in isolation in Evin prison and denied adequate mental and physical health care for infections and trauma suffered after the amputation.

“These amputations are particularly harrowing displays of the Iranian authorities’ contempt for human rights and dignity. Amputation is judicially-sanctioned torture and, therefore, a crime under international law, and all those who were involved in ordering or implementing these corporal punishments should be prosecuted in fair trials,” said Diana Eltahawy, the group's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

According to Islamic Sharia law, punishment for theft can be amputation of fingers or hands.

Iran’s judicial system is repeatedly criticized for ignoring standard human rights while right groups say the country has embarked on an execution spree at a “horrifying pace” with at least 251 deaths since the beginning of 2022.