Live Blog: Report: Iranian Doctors Targeted By Security Forces, Rights Group Says

An X post today from Fox News's chief national security correspondent.

Ali Ansari, an Iranian banker and businessman recently sanctioned by Britain, has built a European property empire worth about 400 million euros (around $435 million) over recent years, according to the Financial Times.

The London-based daily reports that Ansari, whose family founded the collapsed Ayandeh Bank, is accused by UK authorities of using this financial institution to channel funds to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

After the bank’s collapse late last year, Britain sanctioned Ansari for financing what it called “hostile activity” by the IRGC and froze London assets valued at more than £150 million (around $204 million).

The FT said the collapse of Ayandeh Bank exacerbated Iran’s economic downturn, helping fuel protests this month that culminated in the deadliest violence since the 1979 revolution, with thousands of people killed, according to human rights groups.

According to the newspaper, Ansari controls a portfolio of luxury properties through a network of shell companies spanning Luxembourg, St. Kitts and Nevis, Germany, Austria, and Spain.

The holdings include a 164-room hotel and golf resort in Mallorca valued at about 22 million euros (roughly $26 million), a stake in a hotel in the Austrian Alps, two Hilton hotels in Frankfurt each valued at about 80 million euros (around $94 million), and a shopping center in Germany worth roughly 68 million euros (about $80 million).

The report said Ansari holds Iranian, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Cypriot passports and is not currently under EU sanctions, though European officials say the bloc is considering further measures against Iran.

Ansari’s lawyer denied any financial links to the IRGC and said his client intends to challenge the UK sanctions.

Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani says the losses suffered by Iran's civilian population in the protest crackdown "demand a clear response."

Consequently, in coordination with others at the upcoming meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on January 29, he says he will propose "the inclusion of the Revolutionary Guards on the list of terrorist organizations as well as individual sanctions against those responsible for these heinous acts."

Members of Iran’s sports community have published a letter addressed to FIFA and international soccer bodies, calling on them to respond to the bloody crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran and urging football’s world governing body to suspend the Iranian football federation.

The letter, which was also published on social media on January 26, is signed by a number of current and former players, coaches, referees, and sports journalists who are based abroad. It expresses deep concern over what it describes as “widespread and unprecedented crimes against civilians” during Iran’s recent peaceful protests.

The signatories say several members of Iran’s football community were among those killed and list a number of confirmed victims, including former and current players, coaches, and referees. They say all were killed during the violent suppression of peaceful protests.

The letter also warns that Amirhossein Qaderzadeh -- a 19-year-old player with Iranian top flight soccer club Sepahan S.C -- faces an imminent risk of execution for participating in the protests.

It adds that several other football figures have been detained upon entering Iran, interrogated, and had their travel documents confiscated for expressing personal views -- actions the signatories describe as violations of fundamental freedoms.

Citing FIFA’s human rights commitments, the signatories call on the organization to condemn the killing of civilians and to recognize what they describe as the Iranian soccer federation’s complicity.

They also urge the organization to suspend the federation from FIFA competitions until it provides verifiable guarantees it will respect human rights.

Iran’s soccer federation is due to take part in this year’s men’s FIFA World Cup in the United States after the national team qualified for the tournament in March.

Netblocks, the digital rights watchdog and web connectivity monitor, says that Iran's Internet blackout has now passed the 18-day mark, while gaps in the system "are being tightened to limit circumvention while whitelisted regime accounts promote the Islamic Republic's narrative."

Iran's near-total nationwide digital shutdown -- ongoing since January 8 -- is thought to be one of the longest in history. Only Sudan's complete blackout following its October 2021 coup, which persisted for about 25 days, is known to have lasted longer.

Reporting in Turkish media says the country’s Foreign Ministry told members of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee that in the event of any intervention in Iran or instability there, the creation of a “buffer zone” along the Iran–Turkey border would be necessary to prevent migrants from entering Turkish territory.

According to Turkiye Today, a Turkey-based English news site that often cites official sources, the Turkish Foreign Ministry briefed lawmakers behind closed doors on the latest developments in the Middle East, particularly the situations in Iran and Syria, and said Ankara has prepared a Plan A, B, and C “for every situation.”

The report, published over the weekend, said officials stressed during the meeting that Turkey “does not view favorably any intervention in regional countries or destabilization of the region” but at the same time is preparing itself for all scenarios.

"In the event of migration, we believe there needs to be a buffer zone to ensure those coming stay on the Iranian side," officials were quoted as saying

Turkish Foreign Ministry officials also presented casualty figures in Iran’s recent protests, telling lawmakers that more than 4,000 people have been killed and around 20,000 injured during the unrest. Other sources have indicated that the actual death toll could be much higher.

Turkey has previously established buffer zones along its southern border with Syria -- a move that at the time was aimed at controlling the security and migration fallout from Syria’s civil war.

Singer-songwriter and former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters has posted a message on X seeking to clarify controversial comments he made last week to British TV presenter and media personality Piers Morgan in which he said that "Iranians do not want regime change."

Waters apologized and stated that he "misspoke" when he said "I support the regime."

"What I support is the country of Iran and I support its people's right to self-determination," he said.

You can watch his full statement here:

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based defense and security think tank, says the fact that some Iranian officials have continued to leak "damning information" about Tehran's brutal suppression of the recent anti-government protests "indicates that some regime personnel may oppose the regime’s crackdown."

The ISW also said in its January 25 update on the situation in Iran that the government has still not reestablished international Internet access in the country and that there "continues to be an internal debate within the regime about restoring it."

"The debate primarily seems to be between regime factions that assess that restoring the internet could cause a resumption of protests and factions that assess that the economic toll of the internet shutdown could cause internal unrest," the institute said.

The son of Iran's last shah, former crown prince Reza Pahlavi, who lives abroad, has posted a message on X for health-care workers in Iran, expressing "heartfelt gratitude" to them for playing a "vital role" in treating those wounded in the protest crackdown "beyond the reach and sight of the regime’s unclean hands."

His post on January 25 came on the same day that the Iran Human Rights group said that Iranian security forces have unleashed a new wave of repression by "violently arresting" doctors and volunteers who were helping injured protesters.

Good morning. The US-based rights organization HRANA, whose figures RFE/RL has been regularly citing since the violent crackdown began in Iran, says its confirmed death toll as of Day 29 of the protests is now 5,848 and the number of fatalities still under investigation is 17,091.