Category World News

Iran’s judiciary chief has pledged to fast-track trials for those arrested over a wave of protests that the authorities have dismissed as “riots” as rights groups warn the judiciary will make extensive use of capital punishment.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei told state television on Wednesday that those “who beheaded people or burned people in the streets” should be “tried and punished as soon as possible”.

Iranian news agencies also quoted him as saying he had spent five hours in a prison in Tehran to examine the cases and the trials should be held “in public”.

Tehran prosecutors said they would press capital charges of “moharebeh”, or “waging war against God”, against “rioters and saboteurs” arrested over the deadly demonstrations.

Iran has released no official death toll, but authorities said more than 100 members of the security forces have been killed. Opposition activists said the toll is much higher and includes more than 1,000 protesters.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said the number of dead climbed to at least 2,571.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify any of those figures.

On Wednesday, Iranian state TV said mass funerals were taking place in Tehran that would include 300 bodies of security force members and civilians.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from the capital, said the state was trying to draw a line between protesters and “rioters”, or as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called them, “saboteurs”.

“The judicial system says it will rapidly conduct trials for those who killed people, carried weapons or destabilised the country,” Asadi said. “When it comes to peaceful protesters, there is no such statement from Iranian officials.”

Hengaw, an Iranian Kurdish rights group, has reported that a 26-year-old man, Erfan Soltani, arrested in connection with protests in the city of Karaj, was to be executed on Wednesday.

Amnesty International has called on Iran to immediately halt all executions, including Soltani’s.

The protests, which began on December 28 in response to soaring inflation and the plummeting rial currency, have spiralled into one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s clerical establishment since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

President Masoud Pezeshkian conceded that the economic grievances of Iranians who have taken to the streets were real.

“Before we hear the voice of merchants, bazaaris and different strata of society on the streets, we must be following up on their demands and concerns so as to find solutions for them,” he said.

Authorities have also blamed “foreign elements” for instigating attacks on security officers.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the unrest as the result of “incitement” backed by Israel and the United States.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, has accused Israel of treating Palestinian lives as “expendable”, linking the “hellish” impact of a deadly winter storm in Gaza directly to the deliberate destruction of the enclave’s infrastructure.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic on Tuesday as a deep weather depression pummelled the Gaza Strip, killing at least seven children, Albanese said the weather disaster had exposed the depth of Israel’s disregard for civilian survival.

“It is shocking even for me sitting far away. … Their lives seem like hell,” Albanese said, reacting to testimonies of families sitting in mud and darkness as their makeshift shelters collapsed.

“We hear of family members … searching for relatives buried under rubble because damaged buildings collapsed on top of them due to the intensity of the rain.”

A ‘man-made’ vulnerability

While the storm is a natural event, humanitarian officials argued its lethality is political.

James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF currently in Gaza City, confirmed that seven children had died as a result of cold temperatures. He stressed that these children did not die merely from the cold but also because a “man-made shortage” of food and medicine has left them with zero resilience.

“Children aged two or three have severely weakened immune systems,” Elder told Al Jazeera, describing the situation as “extreme misery”.

“We are talking about layers upon layers of rejection [of aid],” he added, noting that Israel continues to block the entry of cooking gas and fuel needed for heating, leaving families defenceless against winds that weather experts said exceeded 100 kilometres per hour (60 miles per hour).

‘Expendable lives’

When asked about the lack of humanitarian response and Israel’s move to cut ties with UN agencies during such a crisis, Albanese was blunt.

“Israel generally does not care about Palestinian lives. On the contrary, it finds them expendable and [believes they] can be destroyed,” she said.

She argued that the international community is complicit by focusing on other global conflicts while ignoring the “genocide” that has left Gaza’s population exposed to the elements without homes, electricity or drainage systems.

“What more do we need to see? What have we not seen yet?” she asked.

Call for arms embargo

Albanese insisted that sending aid, which is often blocked, is no longer a sufficient response to such catastrophes. She called for immediate punitive measures against Israel to force a change in its policy.

“States must cut trade ties, impose an embargo on arms exports and stop normal dealings with Israel,” she told Al Jazeera.

She emphasised that the “starting point” for any solution must be the International Court of Justice advisory opinion ordering the dismantling of the occupation rather than political plans that ignore the reality on the ground.

‘Winds like a tropical storm’

The vulnerability of the population was highlighted by Khaled Saleh, a senior weather presenter at Al Jazeera.

He explained that the depression brought polar winds reaching speeds typically associated with tropical storms.

An international court case accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority is “flawed and unfounded”, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says.

In a statement published by state media on Wednesday, Myanmar’s military government hit out at the genocide case, which has been brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, by The Gambia.

“The allegations made by The Gambia are flawed and unfounded in fact and law,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“Biased reports, based on unreliable evidence, cannot make up for truth,” it said.

Myanmar’s military rulers, who seized power in 2021, are cooperating with the ICJ case “in good faith” in a sign of respect for international law, the statement added.

The Gambia filed the case against Myanmar at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, in 2019, two years after the country’s military launched an offensive that forced about 750,000 Rohingya from their homes, mostly into neighbouring Bangladesh.

Survivors of the military operation recounted mass killings, rapes and arson attacks. Today, about 1.17 million Rohingya live crammed into dilapidated refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

On the opening day of the trial on Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow told the court the Rohingya “have been targeted for destruction” in Myanmar.

Lawyers for military-ruled Myanmar will begin their court response on Friday.

Included ‘genocidal acts’

The trial is the first genocide case the ICJ has taken up in full in more than a decade, and its outcome will have repercussions beyond Myanmar, likely affecting South Africa’s petition against Israel over its genocidal war in Gaza. The hearings will span three weeks.

The human rights chief of the United Nations at the time of the crackdown in Myanmar called it a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, and a UN fact-finding mission concluded that the military’s 2017 offensive had included “genocidal acts”. But authorities in Myanmar rejected the report, claiming its military offensive was a legitimate counterterrorism campaign in response to attacks by Rohingya armed groups.

Wednesday’s statement by Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry did not use the word Rohingya, instead referring to “persons from Rakhine state”.

The Rohingya are not recognised as an official minority in Myanmar, which denies them citizenship despite many having roots in the country stretching back centuries.

A final decision in the Rohingya genocide case could take months or even years, and while the ICJ has no means of enforcing its decisions, a ruling in favour of The Gambia would likely place more political pressure on Myanmar.