Iran arrests 35 accused of links to US and Israel

“Thirty-five terrorist elements, separatists, war weapons traffickers and people linked to the American-Zionist enemy services were identified and detained in six provinces of the country,” said the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, in a statement published by the Tasnim news agency.

In moments of crisis, such as the protests held between the end of December and January and the current war against the United States and Israel (started on February 28, but currently in a two-week ceasefire), the Iranian regime tends to carry out arbitrary arrests and accuse targets of links with geopolitical enemies.

At the end of March, the NGO Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) released a report that found that in the first month of war, Iranian security forces arrested at least 1,500 people, according to regime data, but the real number could be much higher.

“The Iranian authorities are taking advantage of the war as a pretext to launch a broad campaign of repression,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the NGO, in a statement. “These arrests are not about security — they are about silencing dissent, punishing critics, and instilling fear in society.”

“With more than a thousand new detainees, the risk of torture, forced confessions and executions is alarmingly high. This regime demonstrated that it would kill thousands in a matter of days during the recent protests in January. The international community must act before this turns into yet another mass atrocity,” Ghaemi said.

Among the detainees whose arrests were announced this Wednesday is the alleged founder and leader of a separatist group linked to Israel, which promoted the secession of the western province of Khuzestan.

According to the ministry, this group was involved in several attacks and murders in this region, including attacks that caused the death of an intelligence agent.

Furthermore, the ministry reported the dismantling of two cells dedicated to arms trafficking from Iraqi Kurdistan, in an operation in which four people were detained and a total of 42 firearms were seized.

The ministry also announced the arrest of another 30 people accused of belonging to armed groups or collaborating with them in the provinces of Gilan (north), Kerman (south), Hamadan (west) and Hormozgan (south), who, according to authorities, planned attacks with firearms and homemade explosives, in addition to collaborating with media outlets linked to Israel and providing information to foreign actors.