THIS PAGE WILL BE UPDATED WITH THE LATEST NEWS
UPDATE: 12:30 PM CEST
Statement By the High Representative on Behalf of the EU The Alignment of Certain Countries Concerning Restrictive Measures against Iran
Following the re-imposition of all nuclear-related UN sanctions and restrictions related to Iran on 28 September 2025, the Council decided to reintroduce EU nuclear-related sanctions towards Iran that have been suspended or terminated under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). The Council notably decided to reintroduce restrictive measures against 11 persons and 101 entities listed in Annex II to Decision 2010/413/CFSP whose names were previously mentioned in Annex VI to that Decision, and to update the corresponding entries. The entries concerning the other persons and entities whose names were previously mentioned in Annex VI, and for which the Council decided not to re-impose restrictive measures, are deleted from Annex II. Annex VI is deleted.
Iran Extends Internet Clampdown Beyond Wartime
Throughout its 12 days of war with Israel in June, Iran enforced a near-total internet blackout on its people, saying that it was a necessary security measure to stop Israeli infiltration. Though the authorities have since technically lifted the blackout, internet activists, tech entrepreneurs and rights monitors say that a wartime chokehold on the web remains, leaving many Iranians still in the dark.
Digital rights experts say that internet speeds have been slowed, online traffic has been curtailed and geolocation positioning services, or GPS, are jammed. The use of satellite internet tools like Starlink, which could allow users to bypass such blocks, has been criminalized.
Why Has the World Not Woken Up to Iran’s Execution Spree?
Once again, Iran’s death machine is operating at full throttle, and once again, the West looks away. Is no one paying attention because the world’s focus is fixed on Gaza and Ukraine? While the global headlines are dominated by those conflicts, Iran’s rulers are quietly carrying out one of the most barbaric killing sprees in modern history and getting away with it.
In just 14 and a half months, under President Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian regime has executed over 2,000 people. Let that sink in. Over two thousand lives snuffed out by hanging, often in secret, always without fair trial, and sometimes for nothing more than political dissent. That’s an average of nearly five executions a day. Yet the world, seemingly numbed or distracted, offers little more than murmurs of disapproval. Where is the outrage? Where are the resolutions? Where are the sanctions? Where is the moral backbone?
UPDATE: 8:00 AM CEST
Iran’s Rebellious Youth Target Regime Centers of Repression, Support Striking Prisoners in Ghezel Hesar
On Tuesday, October 14, Iran’s rebellious youth launched 15 fiery responses against regime targets in support of a strike by 1,500 death-row prisoners in Ghezel Hesar Prison. These prisoners are crying out: “Every day, many of our fellow inmates are sent to the gallows. We need support. Genocide and mass killings are taking place in Ghezel Hesar Prison.”
With a warning to every executioner, judge, death-penalty agent, and regime official, the defiant rebellious youth, in a series of operations across various cities of Iran, attacked the regime’s organs and symbols of repression as follows:
- Three incendiary attacks on the headquarters of the Execution of Khomeini’s Order (EIKO) in Karaj, an organization controlled by the Supreme Leader known for plundering public wealth
- Two incendiary attacks on IRGC Basij bases in Isfahan
- Setting fire to a corrupt regime building in District 5 of Tehran
- Attacking an IRGC Basij base in Kermanshah
Captain Of Arms-Carrying Boat Involved in Fatal Raid by Navy Seals Gets 40-Year Prison Term
A Pakistani man will spend four decades in prison for his role in an arms smuggling scheme that turned deadly when two Navy SEALs drowned during a nighttime raid on the boat he was captaining. Muhammad Pahlawan received a 40-year sentence Thursday from a federal judge in Virginia on various charges related to transportation of Iranian weapons to Houthi militants in Yemen, according to court records. In January 2024, U.S. Navy forces intercepted the dhow off the coast of Somalia. While trying to board, Chief Petty Officer Christopher Chambers lost his grip and fell into the sea. Petty Officer 1st Class Nathan Gage Ingram jumped into the water to save him but the two were weighed down by equipment and drowned.
NZ Reimposes UN Sanctions on Iran
New Zealand is reimposing sanctions on Iran, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced.
“This reimposition of UN-mandated sanctions reflects the international community’s deep concerns about Iran’s non-compliance with its nuclear obligations and unjustifiable levels of uranium enrichment activity,” Mr Peters says.
“New Zealand has consistently supported diplomatic efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons from any source. We strongly encourage Iran to re-engage in negotiations and resume full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”
The United Nations Sanctions (Iran) Regulations 2025, which take effect on 18 October, are being imposed as a result of Iran not complying with the terms of the internationally-recognised Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was signed in 2015.
MI5 Director General Ken Mccallum Gives Threat Update
MI5 Director General Ken McCallum gave his annual threat update at our headquarters in Thames House, London today. He explained to an invited audience how a more hostile world is forcing the biggest shifts in MI5’s mission since 9/11, with near record volumes of terrorism investigations alongside fast-rising state threats. Read the speech below:
“Now, to Iran. Iran’s autocratic regime is likewise frantically trying to silence its opponents around the world, including in the UK. 2025 has required MI5 to grow our counter-Iran effort once again. MI5 has tracked more than twenty potentially lethal Iran-backed plots in just the one year since I last stood at this podium.
“The UK was among the first to call out this wave of Iranian transnational aggression. But we are far from alone. A few weeks ago my Australian counterpart exposed the Iranian hand behind a series of antisemitic attacks there, including against a café and a synagogue. Dutch colleagues revealed a failed assassination attempt in the Netherlands – and an earlier one in Spain.
“In a collective public response to this shared threat, fourteen nations, including the UK, together condemned Iran’s efforts to kill, kidnap and harass in Europe and North America.
“We will continue to call out this activity, and we will confront it together. Behind the scenes, MI5 and our police partners continue to catch those who are reckless enough to become Iranian pawns.”
International Day for the Eradication of Poverty: Women Heads of Households, the Voiceless Pillars of Poor Families
While the world, on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (October 17), emphasizes social justice, human dignity, and the right to a decent life, Iran, under the shadow of a predatory and discriminatory regime, has become a stage for pervasive poverty and human deprivation. A country endowed with vast oil, gas, mineral, and human resources, Iran nonetheless finds the majority of its citizens struggling to meet their most basic needs. Poverty in Iran is not the result of resource scarcity, but the outcome of dysfunctional structures, institutionalized corruption, and economic and political policies that withhold national wealth from the people and channel it instead toward repression and military projects.
Although poverty has spread across the whole of Iran, its feminine face is catastrophic: women who are the breadwinners of their households face economic, social, and governmental discrimination more than any other group. They live in a society where job opportunities, financial resources, and social support are systematically withheld from them. These women must fight not only economic pressures but also daily walls of discrimination, legal inequality, and a lack of social security.
Female Political Prisoners in Evin Prison Express Solidarity with Qezel Hesar Hunger Strike Against Executions
Following widespread protests and a hunger strike by death-row prisoners in Qezel Hesar Prison, a group of female political prisoners held in Tehran’s Evin Prison have issued a statement declaring their support for the movement and calling for the nationwide abolition of the death penalty. In their statement, released recently from the ward of female political prisoners in Evin, the prisoners emphasize that “the spread of poverty, corruption, and inequality not only fuels crime, but also serves as a pretext for the regime to perpetuate the cycle of executions and social repression.”
The statement continues: “A hand stretched out to feed oneself or one’s child is sent to the guillotine, and a head that rises in protest against hunger and destitution is put to the noose… Instead of acknowledging its political and economic bankruptcy, the system seeks to justify executions by manipulating public sentiment.”
Why Khamenei Has Been the Biggest Loser in the Gaza Crisis
The two-year Gaza war, which began with the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, has become one of the costliest conflicts in the Middle East in recent decades. The war not only claimed thousands of lives but also fundamentally shifted the regional balance of power against Iran’s regime. Even state-affiliated analysts admit that one of the actors most severely harmed by the outcome of this war has been Tehran. The Iranian regime’s extensive interference in the Gaza conflict—under the guise of supporting the so-called “Axis of Resistance” but in reality, to divert attention from domestic uprisings—brought no achievement. Instead, it eroded Iran’s regional influence and further weakened its international standing.
The state-run Jomhouri Eslami newspaper, one of the regime’s most official outlets, affliated to Khamenei, unusually admitted in an editorial that Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 was a “strategic mistake” that not only failed to achieve victory but also led to Gaza’s devastation and weakened Tehran’s proxy forces. Such an admission within a government publication indicates that even within the power structure, this crisis is being recognized as a strategic defeat.
Stop Executions in Iran: Preventing Another Massacre in Silence
The Islamic Republic has intensified its use of the death penalty to silence dissent and instill fear across society. Since early 2025, Iran HRM has documented over 1,200 executions – including political prisoners, protesters, and ordinary citizens convicted after grossly unfair trials. Among them, 17 political prisoners affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) face imminent execution following unfair trials and years of torture. Meanwhile, more than 1,500 prisoners in Qezel Hesar Prison are on hunger strike protesting mass executions and chanting “No to Executions” in defiance of the regime’s killing spree.
These alarming developments echo the pattern that preceded the 1988 mass killings of political prisoners, when up to 30,000 political prisoners, mostly MEK supporters were executed in a matter of weeks following summary trials.
Today, amid a surge in executions, hate-filled rhetoric from state media, and the systematic destruction of mass graves in places like Behesht Zahra Cemetery, Iran is showing every sign of preparing for another atrocity. The Fars News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC, has even published articles glorifying the 1988 massacre as a “successful historical experience” that should be “repeated.”
MEK Supporters in Gothenburg Mark 90th Week of ‘No to Execution Tuesdays’ Campaign
Gothenburg, Sweden – October 14, 2025 – Supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) gathered in Gothenburg to mark the 55th consecutive week of local participation in the global “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign. The movement protests the Iranian regime’s escalating wave of executions and systematic repression.
Rally in Houston Urges End to Iran’s Executions and Freedom for Political Prisoners
Houston, Texas – October 12, 2025 — Supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) gathered in front of Houston City Hall to mark the World Day Against the Death Penalty. The demonstrators condemned the Iranian regime’s ongoing executions and called for the immediate abolition of the death penalty, the release of all political prisoners, and urgent international action to prevent imminent executions.