Iran replaced my mother's voice with silence – Free speech advocacy group

French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy on Thursday urged President Donald Trump to use the US military buildup near Iran to strike the Islamic Republic and support Iranian protesters, arguing that diplomacy and containment have failed.

In a commentary published in The Wall Street Journal, Lévy questioned what Trump intends to do with the “colossal armada” deployed off Iran’s coast, including aircraft carriers, destroyers, submarines and Tomahawk missiles.

“Is any compromise possible with fanatics who proclaim that they prefer the apocalypse to defeat and who, if there were an apocalypse, wouldn’t hesitate to drag their near and distant neighbors into it?” Lévy said.

“I hope the American administration understands this. I hope it has grasped that the era of containment is over, that deterrence doesn’t work against a state that has made internal terror, regional destabilization and the end of the world both a mode of governance and a program,” he added.

Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado on Thursday expressed solidarity with Iran's people and Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi, condemning her "unjustly sentenced and brutalized" treatment.

"I stand with the brave people of Iran and with Narges Mohammadi, unjustly sentenced and brutalized for her courage and conviction," Machado posted on X. "Her violent detention and the repression she endure are unacceptable. Now more than ever, the world must raise its voice, loudly and firmly, for the freedom of Iran."

"In Venezuela, hundreds of innocent citizens still remain behind bars. This is the cruelty of regimes that fear free citizens, in Tehran, in Caracas, and all around the world,” she added. "Free Narges Mohammadi. Free all political prisoners."

UN Special Rapporteur on Iran Mai Sato said on Thursday she sent three urgent communications to Iranian authorities in December 2025 warning of grave human rights violations, weeks before nationwide protests erupted on December 28.

The alerts concerned death sentences imposed on student Ehsan Faridi for “corruption on earth” based solely on intelligence reports, and on 67-year-old Zahra Shahbaz Tabari for “armed rebellion” after a 10-minute trial over a protest slogan cloth, as well as widespread prison abuses including torture, unnotified executions, and deaths in facilities such as Qarchak, Ghezel-Hesar, Sheyban, and Lakan, Sato posted on X.

“The Iranian authorities responded to each, dismissing the sources as hostile or misinformed and asserting that all procedures were lawful,” she added.

“Today, we do not know how many people are detained, where they are held, or in what condition. We do not know how many have been sentenced to death or already executed. We do not even know how many people have been killed: the State’s own figure stands at over 3,000, while reports by civil society organizations far exceed that number,” Sato said.

Belgian Parliament member Darya Safai said on Thursday of plans to sue the Islamic Republic in international courts for the recent massacre of protesters.

In a video interview with Iran International, Safai called Iranians abroad an "exiled army" striking against the regime alongside those inside Iran until it collapses.

"We are all soldiers of the homeland and will take back our Iran," Safai said.

During state-organized rallies marking Iran’s 1979 revolution anniversary on Wednesday, demonstrators in several cities burned large statues of a horned, bull-headed figure identified by organizers as “Baal,” an ancient deity referenced in biblical and Islamic tradition.