US court sentences two men to 25 years for plot to kill Iranian dissident

The veteran theocrat had referenced the “No Kings” protests across the United States on Oct. 18 in a recent speech, calling on US President Donald Trump to listen to demonstrators and refrain from interfering in other countries.

“If you’re that capable, calm them down, send them back to their residences, and don’t interfere in the affairs of other countries,” Khamenei had said.

Ghadyani, 80, who is serving a prison sentence for “propaganda against the regime,” including a 2019 sentence for insulting Khamenei, said the 86-year-old ruler was in no place to lecture Trump.

“Sooner or later, the Iranian people will rise and dismantle the oppressive, authoritarian and anti-national system of Ali Khamenei,” Ghadyani wrote.

“The most peaceful path forward is for him to relinquish his grip on power, seek forgiveness from the Iranian people, and allow a referendum to establish a government of the people’s choosing.”

Insulting Khamenei, considered by Iran's theocratic establishment to be a holy figure, is a crime and Ghadyani has few peers among prominent critics in leveling direct attacks on him.

A former revolutionary turned outspoken dissident, he has faced multiple convictions for his political writings and public statements.

Ghadyani said Khamenei reveals his own hypocrisy and authoritarianism by urging the US president, in his interpretation, to suppress dissent as he does in Iran.

“This criminal autocrat unwittingly exposes his own nature by urging the US president to suppress dissent as he and his anti-people allies do in Iran,” he wrote.

Ghadyani challenged Khamenei’s concept of national security, arguing that it focuses solely on preserving power rather than protecting the Iranian people.

“For tyrants like him, national security and the safety of the people are meaningless. True security lies in the absence of authoritarian rule,” he wrote.

‘Let the public vote’

Authorities in Iran, where Khamenei is that ultimate decision maker, have suppressed with deadly force recurring rounds of anti-government protests in recent decades but have long bashed the rights records of Israel and the United States.

A long-time critic of Khamenei, Ghadyani dared the Iranian leader to test his popularity through a public vote.

“Khamenei dares not admit that over 95 percent of Iranians oppose him and the Islamic Republic. If he denies this, let him, just once, submit himself to a public vote and show the world how deeply the Iranian people reject him,” Ghadyani said.

His latest imprisonment follows a series of letters and speeches in which he has openly called for Khamenei’s resignation and the dismantling of Iran’s ruling system.

Iran continues to grapple with the aftermath of a punishing 12-day war in June against Israel and the United States and the the reimposition last month of UN sanctions triggered by Britain, France and the United Kingdom.

Iran's arsenal was badly depleted by Israeli attacks and retaliatory salvos during a 12-day war in June, but Iran may be seeking to replenish its stocks despite European-triggered UN sanctions which resumed last month and aim to bar arms transfers.

But sodium perchlorate appears to fall beyond the ban, even as Russian and Iran opposed the renewed curbs and argue against any fresh hostilities in the region.

Ten to twelve shipments of the material began arriving from China in Iran on September 29, the European intelligence sources cited by CNN said, and contain around 2,000 tons of the material which can be turned into solid propellant for mid-range conventional missiles.

Iran has rejected reported US demands that it curb the range of its missiles to achieve any peace deal, calling the requests a non-starter which curbs its defense.

Several of the vessels are already subject to US sanctions for earlier transfers, the sources added, but there was no indication of Chinese state involvement.

Beijing reaction

Reached for comment by CNN, China's foreign ministry said it was not familiar with the situation but that Beijing has “consistently implemented export controls on dual-use items in accordance with its international obligations and domestic laws and regulations.”

It further called for the lingering standoff between Iran and the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear program to be resolved through dialogue, calling the latest sanctions “unconstructive” and a “serious setback”.

Unofficial accounts pointed to sodium perchlorate and other compounds imported from China for Iran’s missile program as the cause of an April 26 blast at the Bandar Abbas port which killed 57 people. Authorities have denied any military link.

Under a new law Iranians will be able to enter their details on a Foreign Ministry’s portal called Porseman to check whether they are “problem-free” to travel to Iran, top envoy Abbas Araghchi said according to state media.

Those cleared receive a green tick indicating they have no outstanding legal or security issues. Araghchi went further, saying that if a person with a green tick is arrested, “those who arrested them will be prosecuted.”

He described the plan as part of an effort to “decriminalize the mindset” of Iranians abroad and encourage smoother travel home.

The statement immediately drew ridicule online.

Iranian journalist Hossein Bastani wrote on X that the idea was absurd, asking where the Foreign Ministry could “take action” against more powerful armed organs of state power like the Intelligence Ministry or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Competing state bodies staffed variously by clerics, security men, spies and conservative bureaucrats vie hotly for influence in the Islamic theocracy.

US diplomats have frequently criticized the foreign ministry as beholden to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the IRGC.

Authorities are not the authorities

Analysts interviewed by Iran International said the Porseman portal may be subject to the vagaries of Iran's divided system.

Patrick Clawson, director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the initiative ignores the fundamental problem: that “the authorities are not the authorities.”

Different agencies in Iran, he said, often act without coordination or oversight, meaning a traveler could be cleared by one branch of government and still detained by another.

That lack of hierarchy, Clawson added, has long frustrated both diplomats and negotiators dealing with Tehran.

“You could have eight agencies saying you’re fine,” he said, “and the ninth one arrests you.” Clawson dismissed Araghchi’s claim of prosecuting the Revolutionary Guard as political theater, calling it another example of how little power the foreign minister actually holds in Iran’s decision-making structure.

'No green tick will protect you'

Alex Vatanka, head of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute, said the Islamic Republic has spent years trying to convince Iranians abroad to visit and invest, but trust is almost nonexistent. The foreign ministry can make assurances, he said, but “if another branch of the system decides you’re a target, no green tick will protect you.”

That fear is not unfounded. Lebanese academic Nizar Zakka and Australian researcher Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who both described their ordeals in interviews with Iran International's podcast Eye for Iran— were invited to Iran by senior officials for conferences and academic exchanges, only to be later arrested and imprisoned on spurious charges.

Their cases remain emblematic of how one arm of the state can extend invitations while another turns those same visitors into hostages.

Vatanka believes the initiative stems from desperation to attract tourism and foreign currency as Iran’s economy falters.

“They look at Turkey, the UAE, even Saudi Arabia making billions from tourism, while Iran—with all its history and culture—gets almost nothing,” he said.

“But Iran treats people as currency. Hostage-taking has been part of its political toolbox since 1979, and that’s not something a website can fix.”

Former US diplomat Alan Eyre said the timing of the Porseman rollout also reflects President Masoud Pezeshkian’s attempt to project normalcy after a bruising year marked by snapback sanctions, a 12-day war, and deepening isolation.

“They’re trying to show Iran is open for tourism and investment,” Eyre told Iran International, “but the executive branch is weak and can’t control the security forces that actually run things.”

Eyre said the effort fits a familiar pattern: after international crises, the clerical establishment launches cosmetic outreach to soften its image abroad. But, he added, “beneath that surface message of safety, you still have a system that arrests its own citizens and uses them as bargaining chips.”

The US State Department has long advised US citizens not to travel to Iran, citing risks of arbitrary arrest, detention, and hostage-taking, and the current Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory remains in place.

For now, Porseman offers reassurance only on paper. In practice, the same system that issues a green tick cannot resolve the uncertainty that defines travel to Iran — a country where returning home still carries unpredictable risk.

The judiciary said the case was launched hours after the interview appeared online and that Hashemi has been summoned to court to explain her remarks.

In the interview, Hashemi alleged that her father, one of the founders of the Islamic Republic and a central figure in its early leadership, was deliberately killed because he had become a “thorn in the eye” of Iran’s rulers. She said he was removed for siding with the people and speaking out against the country’s direction.

Rafsanjani, who served as president from 1989 to 1997, died in January 2017 while swimming at a government facility in Tehran. Authorities said at the time that he had suffered a heart attack, but members of his family have repeatedly voiced doubts about that explanation. They have cited missing CCTV footage, the disappearance of his diaries, and the lack of a post-mortem examination as reasons for their concern.

Rafsanjani was a powerful figure in Iran’s post-revolution politics and a key backer of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s rise to power in 1989. But the two men later fell out, particularly after the disputed 2009 election, when Rafsanjani supported opposition candidates and called for political openness. His children have said that pressures on him increased in his final years.

Witnesses said police, Basij militia and Revolutionary Guards manned checkpoints and turned people back from access routes in Fars province.

Iran has long declined to recognize Cyrus Day in its official calendar, and has in past years restricted access to Pasargadae and, at times, Persepolis to discourage large gatherings around the Achaemenid-era sites.

Security curbs around the October 28-31 anniversary -- linked by some accounts to Cyrus’s entry into Babylon in 539 BCE -- have become routine since large crowds rallied at the tomb in 2016.

The latest closures came amid renewed public debate inside Iran over how to commemorate pre-Islamic heritage.

Ghader Ashna, secretary of the Public Culture Council at the culture ministry, told the ISNA news agency that over the past year no formal request had reached his body to add “Cyrus Day” to the national calendar, but said any proposal would be reviewed by a dedicated working group and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.

Separately, ISNA quoted cultural scholar Bahman Namvar-Motlagh as saying that honoring Cyrus did not contradict Iran’s Islamic identity and could help bolster social cohesion if handled without “excess or confrontation.”

He framed interest in Cyrus among younger Iranians as part of a broader search for common symbols of national unity in a tense regional environment.

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  Authorities block Iranians from ancient sites ahead of Cyrus the Great day

Rights activist and Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi marked the day with a message on Instagram describing Cyrus as a “cultural symbol” associated with tolerance and justice, and contrasted that legacy with Iran’s record on political freedoms and capital punishment.

Exiled opposition figure Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, told supporters at a Toronto event earlier this month that a future post-Islamic Republic order should elevate the 2020 Abraham Accords into what he called “Cyrus Accords,” recasting Iran as a promoter of regional peace rather than conflict.

Cyrus the Great, who founded the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE, is widely cited in Iran’s schools and popular culture as a touchstone of nationhood. The Pasargadae site and Persepolis -- both UNESCO-listed -- draw steady domestic and foreign tourism, though access has at times been restricted on sensitive dates.

In 2024, heritage outlets connected to the state reported fencing and concrete barriers on the road to Pasargadae ahead of the October commemorations.

Iranian scientists and officials have separately warned that land subsidence from groundwater over-extraction is emerging as a long-term threat to several heritage sites, including areas around Persepolis and the Tomb of Cyrus.

Geologists cited this month reported cracks and surface fissures in Fars and other provinces, saying cumulative deformation could damage historic fabric over years if water withdrawals are not curbed.

Cyrus Day is not an official holiday, but diaspora communities and some Iranians at home mark it annually with cultural events and online campaigns.

The Islamic Republic’s leadership has historically promoted an Islamic “ummah” identity and has sometimes viewed mass gatherings at pre-Islamic monuments as politically sensitive, especially amid periodic anti-government protests.

Iranian state bodies did not immediately issue a statement on Wednesday’s access limits in Fars.