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When Hossein Mahmoudi, 36, was killed during the anti-government protests in Iran, it only marked the start of the trauma for his family.Mahmoudi was shot dead by security forces on January 8 in Falavarjan outside the central city of Isfahan, but it was only on January 16, over a week later, that his family were able to recover his body, according to Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), which has investigated the case.Authorities were initially unwilling to hand over his body and only did so after warning the family not to speak publicly about the case and forcing them to pay a fee equivalent to 2,400 euros, according to IHR, which quoted a family source.Rights groups say the family’s experience is typical for many seeking to recover the bodies of loved ones from morgues which, according to videos posted on social media, have been overwhelmed by the numbers of corpses arriving.After the crackdown on protests earlier this month left thousands dead, authorities are now using tactics not just of intimidation but also extortion against families who are already in deep grief, activists say.Relatives are pressed for large sums of money, forced to falsely claim dead protesters were members of the security forces such as youth militia the Basij, and prevented from holding proper funerals, they charge.- ‘Compound grief with extortion’ -“Authorities have relentlessly and cruelly harassed and intimidated bereaved families of killed protesters,” said Amnesty International, denouncing a “systematic campaign of intimidation and coercion”.”Relatives were told that the bodies of their loved ones would be withheld unless they paid extortionate sums of money, signed pledges or made public statements falsely declaring that their deceased relatives were members” of the Basij, it said.The group said it was aware of at least one case where a family “has not been able to recover their relative’s body more than two weeks after his death because they are unable to afford the sum demanded by the authorities”.The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, said on Friday she had received reports that “authorities are coercing families to falsely claim deceased relatives were Basij members allegedly killed by protesters, as well as forcing payments for body retrieval”.These are “cruel practices that compound grief with extortion”, she added.Iranian authorities acknowledge that thousands were killed during the protests, giving a toll of over 3,000, but say the majority were members of the security forces or bystanders killed by “rioters”.Rights groups dispute this, saying the toll is far higher and potentially in the tens of thousands, and saying protesters were killed by security forces directly firing on them.- ‘Large numbers of corpses’ -The Hengaw rights group highlighted the case of Ali Taherkhani, 31, who it said was shot and then clubbed by security forces in the town of Takestan northwest of Tehran.Authorities released Taherkhani’s body to his family only after they were compelled to pay the equivalent of 18,000 euros and remove condolence banners. His burial was conducted under heavy security, with only four family members permitted to attend amid a large presence of armed security forces, the rights group said.”Many families were only able to identify the bodies of their loved ones after days of searching among large numbers of corpses in morgue cold-storage facilities,” Hengaw added.”In order to retrieve the bodies, most families were forced to either pay sums, sign coerced confessions stating that their child had been a member of the Basij, or falsely declare that the individual had been killed by protesters,” it said.Authorities have been eager to ensure that funerals — which under Islam should take place as soon as possible — do not themselves turn into protests.Footage widely shared on January 11 from Behesht-e Zahra, Tehran’s main cemetery, showed angry mourners chanting slogans against supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”Authorities have pressured relatives into holding burials in the middle of the night in the presence of security forces,” said Amnesty, adding it had also received reports of mass burials to prevent individual funerals from taking place.

Hundreds of tearful mourners packed a stadium in southern Israel on Wednesday for the funeral of Ran Gvili, the last Gaza hostage whose burial marks the end of a painful national saga triggered by Hamas’s 2023 attack.Israeli forces on Monday brought home the remains of Gvili, who was killed in action and whose body Palestinian militants took into Gaza during their October 7 attack, which triggered a devastating two-year war.A large banner bearing the portrait of Gvili hung in a stadium in the town of Meitar, the 24-year-old police officer’s hometown and where he will be laid to rest.In front of the sombre crowd, which included tearful family members, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, Gvili’s coffin lay draped in an Israeli flag.”I hoped you would come back on your own two feet, and that gave me strength,” said his mother Talik Gvili, who described her son as “the first to leave, last to return.””For two years and four months, we talked about you constantly, and you became everyone’s child,” she added. “Rani, you are with me all the time.” Herzog hailed the return of his remains but said he could only regret not having known Gvili while he was alive.”Gvili family, I ask you, as president, for forgiveness that we were not there for him… an entire nation mourns with you today,” he said during the ceremony.An officer in the elite Yassam unit, Gvili was on medical leave ahead of shoulder surgery when Hamas launched its deadly attack in southern Israel, but grabbed his gun and raced towards the area.Of the 251 hostages taken by militants on that day, Gvili’s were the last remains held in the Palestinian territory.”Know this, you cowards: Rani and the martyrs give us the strength to erase you from the world, to erase evil, to wipe out the seed of Hamas and (Islamic) Jihad,” Talik Gvili told the crowd of mourners, referring to the two Palestinian militant groups.- ‘Hero of Israel’ -During a speech at the funeral ceremony, Netanyahu described Gvili as a “hero of Israel” and announced the creation of a new village in his honour.He also warned Israel’s enemies that they would pay a heavy price of they attack Israel.”We are determined to complete our missions: to disarm Hamas and demilitarise Gaza, and we will succeed. Let our enemies know that anyone who raises a hand against Israel will pay an exorbitant price,” he said.The return of the hostages held in Gaza dragged on over the course of the war between Israel and Hamas in a series of ceasefire and prisoner-swap deals as well as efforts to rescue them militarily.The most recent set of hostage handovers was part of the US-backed Gaza ceasefire deal that took effect on October 10.The first phase of the deal stipulated the return of every hostage, and Gvili’s family had opposed moving on to the second phase before they had received his remains.Nicknamed the “Defender of Alumim” by his family and the kibbutz of that name, Gvili was killed in combat during the October attack.Earlier, a hush had fallen over the stadium as a large screen broadcast the arrival of the coffin carrying his body. As some in the crowd began to cry, only muffled sobs broke the silence.Hundreds of onlookers clutching Israeli flags had lined the roads as a convoy carrying Gvili’s body headed from the military base Camp Shura in central Israel towards Meitar under an overcast sky.- ‘Suffering is immense’ -“Today, my brother, this hero, has come home… you are the pride of the entire nation,” said Gvili’s brother, Omri Gvili, during the ceremony.”Our suffering is immense, but the pride we feel for you is even greater,” he added.On Tuesday, Netanyahu said that Israel had “fully completed the sacred mission of returning all of our hostages”.”Many generations will draw inspiration from Ran Gvili, a hero of Israel, and from all our other heroes… This is the generation of heroism. This is the generation of victory,” he said at a televised press conference.Hundreds gathered at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square late on Tuesday as a clock counting the time hostages had been held in Gaza finally stopped.Herzog said on Monday it was the first time since 2014 that no Israeli citizens were held hostage in Gaza.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, as the Kremlin seeks to secure the future of its military bases in the country.Putin and Sharaa struck a conciliatory tone at their previous meeting in October, their first since Sharaa’s rebel forces toppled Moscow-ally Bashar al-Assad in 2024.But Russia’s continued sheltering of Assad and his wife since their ouster remains a thorny issue. Sharaa has repeatedly pushed Russia for their extradition. Sharaa has also embraced US President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday praised the Syrian leader as “highly respected” and said things were “working out very well.””I have no doubt that all issues related to the presence of our soldiers in Syria will also be discussed during today’s talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday ahead of the meeting, while declining to comment on Assad.The Kremlin withdrew its forces from the Qamishli airport in Kurdish-held northeast Syria earlier this week, leaving it with only the Hmeimim airbase and Tartus naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast — its only military outposts outside the former Soviet Union.Russia was a key ally of Assad during the bloody 14-year Syrian civil war, launching air strikes on rebel-held areas of Syria controlled by Sharaa’s Islamist forces.His toppling dealt a major blow to Russia’s influence in the region and laid bare the limits of Moscow’s military reach amid the Ukraine war.The United States, which cheered Assad’s demise, has fostered ever-warmer ties with Sharaa — even as Damascus launched a recent offensive against Kurdish forces long backed by the West.

Iran on Wednesday rejected holding negotiations with the United States if it makes threats against the Islamic republic, after President Donald Trump refused to rule out military intervention over its deadly crackdown on protests.With a US naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier lurking in Middle East waters, top Iranian officials also reached out to key Arab states in behind-the-scenes diplomacy to rally support.A rights group said that it has verified over 6,200 deaths, mostly of protesters killed by security forces, in the wave of demonstrations that rocked the clerical leadership since late December but peaked on January 8-9.Activists say that the actual toll could be many times higher with an internet shutdown still complicating efforts to confirm information about the scale of the killings.Trump has not ruled out military action against Iran in response to the crackdown, while appearing to keep his options open. A strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln has now arrived in Middle Eastern waters, US Central Command said, without revealing its precise location.Analysts say options include strikes on military facilities or targeted hits against the leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a full-scale bid to bring down the system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah.- ‘Reducing escalation’ -But Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said “conducting diplomacy through military threat cannot be effective or useful”.”If they want negotiations to take shape, they must certainly set aside threats, excessive demands and raising illogical issues,” he said in televised comments.Araghchi said he in recent days he had “no contact” with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and that “Iran has not sought negotiations”.Following a call on Tuesday between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and de facto Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Iran reached out to other Arab states allied to the United States in an apparent bid to rally support.The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani spoke with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who is also foreign minister, both sides said.Sheikh Mohammed emphasised Qatar’s support for “all efforts aimed at reducing escalation and achieving peaceful solutions in a manner that enhances security and stability in the region”, the Qatari foreign ministry said.Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty meanwhile held separate calls with both Araghchi and Witkoff, Cairo said.Abdelatty stressed the need to intensify efforts to “ease tensions and work towards deescalation” and create the “necessary conditions to resume dialogue between the US and Iran”, the Egyptian foreign ministry said.New billboards have meanwhile appeared in Tehran showing Iran striking an American aircraft carrier and also slogans of Khamenei denouncing the US, according to AFP journalists.- ‘New dimensions of crackdown’ -In an updated toll, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it had confirmed that 6,221 people had been killed, including 5,856 protesters, 100 minors, 214 members of the security forces and 49 bystanders.But the group, which has an extensive network of sources inside Iran and has tracked the protests on a daily basis since they began, added it was still investigating another 17,091 possible fatalities. At least 42,324 people have been arrested, it said.HRANA warned that the crackdown was continuing with security forces searching hospitals for wounded protesters, doctors who helped protesters arrested, and “forced confessions” broadcast on state television.These developments “highlight new dimensions of the continued security crackdown in the aftermath of the protests”.Meanwhile, Iran on Wednesday executed a man arrested in April 2025 on charges of spying for Israel’s espionage agency Mossad, the judiciary said.Rights groups have previously said 12 people have been hanged on similar charges in the wake of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June.They have expressed concern that protesters could also face execution. The judiciary has already indicated some of those arrested could face charges of capital crimes.