May 3 – Nika Shakarami, a 16-year-old girl who went missing while taking part in anti-government protests in 2022 and whose body was found days later, may have been sexually assaulted and killed by Iran’s security forces, according to a confidential document seen by the BBC.
The report, which the BBC said it had verified, included details about the sexual assault, and an attack by officers who beat the teenager with batons.
Nika became a symbol of the protests alongside Mahsa Amini and more than 500 other protesters including at least 60 children killed by security forces.
Former hostages held in Iran called on the Swedish government to do more to secure the release and safe return of a Swedish-Iranian doctor sentenced to death in the Islamic Republic.
Ahmadreza Djalali, who has been on death row for more than six years, was found guilty of espionage on behalf of Israel in 2017 after a trial by Iran’s judiciary which was called “grossly unfair” by human rights organizations.
The request was made in a public letter, signed by 15 former hostages including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori and Jason Rezaian.
And UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said there was no need to proscribe the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization because sanctions already in place had effectively targeted the military unit in its entirety.
Cameron, who was UK Prime Minister from 2010 to 2016, made the remarks in the House of Lords during a session with its International Relations and Defence Committee.
The IRGC has been accused by the West of carrying out destabilizing activities in the Middle East, including mobilizing proxy militia groups in the region to increase the Iranian regime’s sphere of influence and power.
