Iran

Two years after Mahsa Amini's death in the custody of Iran's morality police, her father says the Islamic Republic's judiciary has yet to respond to the family's inquiries about the case.

"Despite two years having passed since my daughter's tragic death, and despite persistent follow-ups and numerous visits by the case lawyers to the prosecutor's office, our family has yet to receive any response regarding Mahsa's case," Amjad Amini told Voice of America's Persian Service on Thursday.

Saleh Nikbakht, the attorney representing the family, said earlier that Mahsa Amini's case "remains pending with the prosecutor's office. The requested investigations have yet to be carried out, and no court proceedings have been initiated thus far."

In an audio message to Voice of America, Amjad Amini said he wanted to hold a commemorative ceremony if the government would allow it.

He said if the Islamic Republic does not impose the same restrictions as last year, the anniversary ceremony for his daughter will be held on Sunday "in response to public calls and requests."

Mahsa (Jina) Amini died on Sept. 16, 2022, just days after being detained by the morality police, in custody at Kasra Hospital in Tehran. Amini had initially been arrested for allegedly violating Iran's law requiring women to wear a hijab.

Her death ignited widespread protests throughout Iran, with demonstrations erupting in the streets, universities and schools that persisted for months.

During the government crackdown on the 2022 nationwide protests, hundreds of citizens were killed, and thousands more were injured or arrested.

Leading up to the second anniversary of Amini's death and the onset of the subsequent nationwide protests, the Islamic Republic authorities have not only escalated pressure on grieving families, civil rights advocates and political activists but also have detained numerous citizens in various cities across Iran.

Aida Shakarami, sister of Nika Shakarami, a 16-year-old who was killed during the 2022 nationwide protests, recently said that "the extent of the crimes committed by the Islamic Republic during the 2022 protests is far greater than what has been disclosed to date."

As the second anniversary of the 2022 nationwide protests approaches, several student organizations and students in Iran issued a statement reaffirming their stance against "this inhumane regime." They pledged to "constantly challenge" and "overthrow" it.

In their statement, the students declared: "We neither forgive nor forget, express regret, nor fear, nor will we retreat. Sooner or later, the Islamic Republic will be dismantled by the revolutionary movement coursing through the veins of society."

The Washington Post is reporting that the Iranian government has increased its ties with criminal networks overseas to carry out attacks on its critics in the United States and Europe.

In recent years, the report says, Iran has outsourced deadly operations and kidnappings to criminal gangs such as Hell's Angels, a notorious Russian mob network known as the "Thieves of Law," a heroin distribution syndicate led by an Iranian drug trafficker and violent criminal groups from Scandinavia to South America.

The report refers to one attack that targeted Pouria Zeraati, a journalist for the Persian-language network Iran International. She was stabbed and wounded in front of her London home in April.

The attack was attributed to Iran, but none of the attackers were Iranian, and they didn’t have significant ties to Iranian security services.

According to officials, Iran recruited criminals in Eastern Europe who arrived in the U.K. through Heathrow Airport without any problems and had been monitoring Zeraati for a long time.

VOA has reported previously on other alleged Iran plots to target critics in the U.S.

Last month, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed charges against a 46-year-old Pakistani man, Asif Merchant, in connection with an Iranian plot to kill a politician or U.S. government official.

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Earlier this year, the U.S. charged three men, one of whom was based in Iran, in a plot to murder two U.S. residents in the state of Maryland.

Last year, the U.S. Justice Department announced three members of an Eastern European criminal gang with ties to the Iranian government were indicted in a plot to kill Masih Alinejad, an Iranian American human rights activist and VOA Persian TV host.

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3 Gang Members Indicted in 2nd Plot to Kill Iranian American Journalist

Although the indictment did not say whether Iranian officials orchestrated the plot, U.S. law enforcement officials accused Tehran of direct involvement.

According to The Washington Post, Iran’s cooperation with criminal groups, rather than using its covert agents, represents a worrying shift in governance methods that U.S. and other Western security officials consider one of the most dangerous acts of "transnational repression" in the world.

The Post said the report is based on interviews with senior officials in more than a dozen countries, a review of hundreds of pages of criminal court records in the United States and Europe, as well as investigative documents obtained from the security services.