Paris weighs reducing embassy staff in Tehran, source says

The two were accused of acting against national security by sheltering protesters and of “waging war against God” through alleged arson and burning a Quran.

A source told the group that Dehbandi and Hamzehei had taken several wounded protesters into their shops for treatment. Security forces identified them through CCTV footage and arrested them eight days later.

The preliminary sentences were issued more than two months ago. Both men are being held in Shiraz Central Prison, also known as Adelabad.

Esfandiyari, 19, was executed on Sunday. He was among 12 defendants sentenced to death over unrest in Isfahan’s Ali Khani Square during nationwide protests in January.

Another defendant was Alireza Raisi, whose sentence had previously been overturned and reduced to 20 years in prison, but has now been reinstated and upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The sources could not be named for fear of retribution by Iranian authorities.

Secret burial after execution

A source close to Esfandiyari’s family said his relatives waited outside Dastgerd Prison in the central Iranian city of Isfahan until 5:30 a.m. after he was transferred to solitary confinement.

After waiting until dawn and returning home, Esfandiyari's father received another call ordering him back to the prison, accompanied by one other man, the source said.

Authorities forced the family to pledge that Esfandiyari’s body would not be buried in Isfahan and that they would not hold a funeral, sources told Iran International.

His body was buried in Buin Miandasht, a city in western Isfahan province, without his family present. His relatives were also barred from holding a memorial ceremony.

Iran’s judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency reported on Sunday that Esfandiyari had been executed alongside 24-year old Afghan citizen Gol-Mohammad Mohammadi, who was also detained during the January uprising in Isfahan.

Cousin of slain protester faces execution

Another source told Iran International that Raisi, who was born in 2004 and is his family’s only son, had been sentenced to death on the charge of “enmity against God.”

The death sentence was initially overturned on appeal and replaced with a 20-year prison term.

However, Raisi’s family was informed on July 5 that the death sentence had been reinstated and upheld by the Supreme Court, the source said.

He has since been transferred to solitary confinement at Dastgerd Prison and is considered at imminent risk of execution, the source said.

Raisi is the cousin of Ramin Raisi, a 28-year-old protester who disappeared on January 9 during demonstrations in Isfahan’s Baharestan neighborhood.

After searching for nine days, his family found his body at the Bagh-e Rezvan mortuary with four gunshot wounds to the chest.

Intelligence Ministry agents traveling in two vehicles arrested Alireza Raisi outside the entrance to Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery on January 19, one day after Ramin’s burial, people close to the family told Iran International.

Security agencies refused for several days to acknowledge holding him and sent his family between different state institutions before they eventually learned that he was in prison.

The family sought to appoint a lawyer but was told Raisi had no right to choose his own counsel and could only be represented by a court-appointed lawyer.

Sources told Iran International that one piece of evidence used against Raisi was a voice message in which he asked Ramin to take part in the protests.

After tracking Raisi’s mobile phone, agents linked him to the deaths of four law enforcement personnel in Ali Khani Square, an accusation his family denies.

Raisi’s mother has multiple sclerosis, and he has two sisters. His family had planned to hold his engagement celebration at the beginning of the year.

A dozen sent to death row

Iran’s judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency said indictments were issued against 16 people in the Ali Khani Square case and several defendants were sentenced to death.

Iran International reported on July 8 that 59 people were initially arrested during the January protests and the ensuing crackdown in Ali Khani Square. Of those, 23 were sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years.

Twelve defendants were sentenced to death: Abolfazl Ebrahimi, Amirhossein Ebrahimi-Analoucheh, Erfan Esfandiyari, Shervin Bagherian, Ghaem Hosseini, Ali Dashti, Alireza Raisi, Abolfazl Sepahi, Alireza Sepahi, Amirhossein Safari, Gol-Mohammad Mohammadi and Amirhossein Maleki.

The Ali Khani Square case forms part of a broader escalation in Iran's use of the death penalty against political prisoners since January's protests, the June war with Israel and the conflict with the United States that began on February 28.

Tehran prosecutor Ali Salehi said on July 14 that cases linked to the protests and the two wars had been handled by special judicial branches, which issued prison and death sentences.

Iran’s judiciary has executed at least 50 political prisoners since March 18 and issued death sentences, lengthy prison terms and asset-confiscation orders against hundreds of others.

The trend has heightened concerns over rushed trials and the swift imposition and execution of severe sentences, drawing condemnation from rights groups and prompting hunger strikes by prisoners.

Amini, a father of two, was detained during nationwide protests in January 2026.

His relatives and other sources who spoke to Iran International could not be named for fear of retribution by Iranian authorities.

Iran’s judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency announced on July 15 that Amini had been executed after being convicted of moharebeh, or “waging war against God,” and corruption on Earth over allegations that he set fire to the governor’s office and damaged public property in Dehaghan county, Isfahan province.

His family said authorities had earlier accused him of involvement in a separate arson attack on a Bank Mellat branch in Dehaghan. They rejected the allegation, saying he was at home when the fire occurred and played no role in it.

Amini, who was from Dehaghan, was the father of 13-year-old Raha and one-year-old Mahva. His relatives described him as quiet and someone who kept out of trouble, adding that his wife and two daughters were the focus of his life.

He was executed two weeks before his 38th birthday.

Arrested after IRGC summons, denied legal representation

Amini received a telephone call on the evening of January 19 asking him to report to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to provide an explanation, his relatives said.

“We have a video of you,” officers told him, sources told Iran International.

Amini was arrested after reporting to the IRGC and never returned home.

His family hired a private lawyer, but the lawyer was not allowed to meet Amini or given full access to the case file, his relatives said.

After the death sentence was issued, the family’s lawyer said he had appealed. But when relatives contacted the Supreme Court, they found that no appeal had been registered, the family said.

When the lawyer sought an explanation, the Dehaghan prosecutor told him: “There was no need for you to be informed about this.”

The family said it believed judicial authorities deliberately concealed the death sentence to deprive them of the opportunity to appeal or pursue other legal avenues.

Tortured into false confession

Amini was severely beaten during interrogations and tortured with an electric stun device to force him to make a false confession incriminating himself, his relatives said.

The family also said that he was given insufficient food and held in unhygienic and poor prison conditions.

During the first weeks of his detention, Amini was in poor physical and psychological condition and struggled to understand what was happening around him, his relatives said.

Several days before his execution, he was transferred to solitary confinement.

‘Tell everyone I am innocent’

During their final prison visit, his relatives said they saw him in a critical condition.

He was unable to walk, and officers had to hold him under his arms to bring him into the visiting room. His body was trembling, and he appeared to have almost no strength left.

“Tell everyone I am innocent,” Amini told his family during the visit.

After the execution, Iranian authorities refused to allow his body to be buried in his hometown of Dehaghan, his family said.

He was instead buried under government supervision at Isfahan’s Behesht-e Rezvan cemetery, with only a small number of close relatives permitted to attend the funeral.

Amini remained hopeful until the final days of his life that he would be released, sources told Iran International.

He had received a certificate recognizing his good conduct and called his wife from prison every day.

Amini asked her to record videos of their younger daughter, Mahva, so that after his release he could watch the moments of her childhood that he had missed.

American forces have been striking targets along Iran’s Persian Gulf coast for almost a week.

Iranian media reported that eight people were killed as bridges, communications infrastructure and a maritime surveillance tower were hit across Hormozgan and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces.

Rebeccah Heinrichs, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, says the concentration of attacks along Iran’s southern coastline—and increasingly farther inland—suggests the United States is moving beyond retaliation against individual strikes and targeting the infrastructure that allows Tehran to sustain and eventually rebuild the military capabilities underpinning its operations around the Strait of Hormuz.

“Up until very recently, the United States was primarily focused on doing retaliatory strikes exclusively along the coastline of Iran,” Heinrichs told Eye for Iran. . “

‘Protecting maritime traffic’

The attacks came after President Donald Trump warned that bridges and power infrastructure could become targets if Tehran refused to return to negotiations.

Iranian military officials, meanwhile, said the conflict would “spread to new areas” if US operations continued.

“I suspect that the United States has had these targets on their list,” she said. “President Trump has gone back to Admiral Cooper and said, ‘What else do we need to hit?’”

The likely focus, she added, was Iran’s ability to replenish the military capabilities it uses around the Strait of Hormuz.

Among the sites struck was a maritime surveillance tower in Chabahar. Iran described it as a facility monitoring commercial shipping, while US Central Command said it formed part of an IRGC network used to track vessels transiting the strait and coordinate attacks against them.

CENTCOM said destroying the tower would directly reduce the Revolutionary Guards’ ability to threaten maritime traffic.

The targeting of bridges in Hormozgan province also points to an expanding set of military objectives.

Heinrichs said Washington had sought to limit civilian harm, but argued that some dual-use infrastructure could become a legitimate military target if it substantially enabled IRGC operations.

“There are some targets that the United States could legitimately hit,” she said. “They may create some harm, of course, to the civilian population, but they also primarily enable and facilitate the IRGC to repress their people and to continue their war effort.”

A limited ground role?

The widening campaign has also fuelled speculation about whether Washington could eventually deploy ground forces inside Iran.

Heinrichs dismissed the prospect of a large-scale invasion, saying any deployment would more likely involve special operations forces tasked with securing or removing nuclear material rather than occupying territory.

“If President Trump were to go with any contingency that would entail some element of US ground forces, it would almost certainly be because the United States wants to remove any nuclear material that is still inside Iran,” she said.

For now, however, Heinrichs believes the campaign remains centred on the Strait of Hormuz.

The initial phase significantly weakened Iran’s military leadership and its capacity to project power beyond its borders, she said. Washington has now moved into what she described as “the battle over the Strait of Hormuz.”

Taken together, the latest strikes point to a campaign that is evolving beyond retaliation. Rather than simply responding to Iranian attacks, Washington appears increasingly focused on preventing Tehran from regenerating the military infrastructure underpinning its operations around the Strait of Hormuz.

“All visa applicants, regardless of nationality, must meet the eligibility requirements set out in Australia’s migration legislation before a visa can be granted,” a Department of Home Affairs spokesperson told Iran International on Friday.

The processing times, the spokesperson said, depend on factors including application complexity, completeness, demand, ministerial priorities and migration planning levels.

“Processing times can also be affected by application processing requirements, including verification of applicant information ... and the time taken to receive clearances from external agencies, particularly for health, character and national security assessments,” the spokesperson said.

The department did not directly address the question on whether Iranian citizens undergo broader or different security screening than applicants from other countries.

The response came after images emerged of protests by Iranian applicants outside the Australian embassy in Tehran, alongside letters, official correspondence with the Department of Home Affairs, documents related to pending cases and messages from applicants inside and outside Australia.

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Documents and correspondence show some applications have remained unresolved for more than two years, and in some cases more than 30 months, despite applicants completing key requirements including skills assessments, medical examinations and biometric checks.

Protests and travel restrictions

The department also did not provide a specific explanation for delays affecting Iranian skilled visa applicants who were already inside Australia when they lodged their applications.

Officials said some applicants have faced conflict-related obstacles inside Iran, including internet disruptions that hinder access to biometric appointments, medical examinations and documents such as police certificates and passports. The extensions, the department said, may be granted in such cases but applicants must still satisfy all legal visa requirements.

In recent months, groups of Iranian applicants have staged two protests outside the Australian embassy in Tehran, calling for greater transparency over prolonged processing delays and requesting decisions on their applications.

The department also referred to temporary travel restrictions affecting holders of Australian Visitor visas linked to Iranian passports. It said the Arrival Control Determination, introduced on March 26, 2026, remains in force for six months and prevents affected visa holders outside Australia from entering the country.

Any extension beyond the initial six-month period, according to the department, would require a new legal determination and a finding that continuing the restrictions serves Australia’s national interest. The government has said the measure is intended to provide time to assess conditions in Iran and associated migration risks, leaving the future of both the travel restrictions and many pending visa applications uncert