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The European Parliament has adopted a resolution expressing “outrage at the repression and mass murders being perpetrated by the Iranian regime against protesters in Iran.”

The resolution adopted on January 22 demands that Iran’s leadership under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “immediately end violence against peaceful protesters, halt all executions, and cease the murder and repression of civilians,” while declaring full solidarity with what it called Iran’s “brave and legitimate protest movement.”

Adopted by 562 votes in favor, nine against and 57 abstentions, the resolution warns that the killing of thousands of protesters signals a "chilling shift" in repression “from deterrence to strategic elimination.”

European lawmakers called for the “immediate and unconditional release of all protesters, human rights defenders, and journalists,” currently in custody, urged the EU to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, and condemned efforts to censor protests through Internet shutdowns.

They also welcomed the assembly's president Roberta Metsola’s decision to bar Iranian regime representatives from European Parliament premises.

Fars News Agency, which is closely affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has released a video asserting that Iranian celebrities and public figures who supported the recent protests should be held financially responsible for the resulting "damages."

Titled Will the Treatment of Celebrities Be Different This Time?, the video centers on a statement from the Tehran prosecutor's office announcing that "cases have been filed against certain celebrities and groups accused of inciting unrest, and the property of some defendants has already been seized."

The video does not specify individuals by name, but it opens with images of female artists and filmmakers who publicly opposed mandatory hijab rules during the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom protests.

It highlights the case of Voria Ghafouri, the former captain of Tehran's Esteghlal FC soccer team, whose chain of cafes was closed on January 8 and January 9, days when exiled former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi had called for Iranians to demonstrate. According to the video, this "led to the martyrdom of security forces and extensive damage to public and private property."

Without providing further evidence or details, the video claims that "preliminary judicial reviews have concluded some riot supporters must compensate for a portion of the damages."

The video comes shortly after several state-affiliated outlets --including the Hamshahri newspaper -- reported that the assets of Mohammad Saedinia, owner and manager of the popular Saedinia cafe chain, were valued at approximately the same amount as the "losses suffered by the capital" during the unrest. Both Fars and Hamshahri suggested seizing Saedinia's assets as compensation for the alleged damages to the city.

The narrative carries clear historical echoes: it recalls the Iranian government's post-1979 Islamic Revolution treatment of entrepreneurs who were prominent during the Pahlavi era.

Neutral Point of View (NPOV), a UK-based investigative outlet focusing on the coordinated manipulation of digital knowledge platforms, says that as Iran's authorities violently suppress nationwide protests, a group of editors supporting the Islamic republic have been simultaneously engaged in efforts "to control how these events, and Iranian history more broadly, are recorded on Wikipedia."

"The dual strategy is deliberate," the watchdog says in its report. "Kinetic violence silences dissent at home. Digital propaganda shapes the narrative abroad. Together, they form what Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calls “vindication jihad” -- a soft war in the information space designed to rewrite reality itself."

NPOV says that Wikipedia's page for the latest protests in Iran, which erupted last month, "remains well-sourced" but the pattern established in previous cases is clear: once protests fade from headlines -- once internet blackouts prevent real-time documentation and bodies are quietly buried—coordinated editors move in to reshape the historical record."

"This is what authoritarian information warfare looks like in 2026," the organization warns, adding that the Islamic republic "isn't just killing protesters. It's erasing the evidence that they existed at all."

NPOV also noted that in a previous investigation it identified editing patterns on Wikipedia consistent with a coordinated, multiyear campaign to whitewash the Islamic republic’s human-rights record.

A Wikipedia editor RFE/RL's Radio Farda spoke to said that they had not observed such activity on the Persian-language edition of the online encyclopedia, suggesting instead that the effort was likely focused on English-language or other foreign-language Wikipedia pages.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has included Iran on its list of the "world's worst jailers of journalists" in a special report published on January 21.

The media rights watchdog also said that "nearly one-third of imprisoned journalists’ profiles included reports of mistreatment, including 20% with claims of torture or beatings" and that the "greatest number of torture and beating claims since 1992 have occurred in Iran."

Elsewhere, the NetBlocks digital rights watchdog says the Internet blackout in Iran had now passed the two-week mark.

It also had this point to make about The Wall Street Journal's decision to publish an op-ed from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi on Tuesday, defending Iran's crackdown on protesters.

Read more on Iran's ongoing nationwide blackout here.

Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with the news that the US-based rights organization HRANA says the death toll in the Iranian protests has now passed 4,900 and that there are more than 9,000 more cases under review.

We are now closing the live blog for today. We'll be back again tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. Central European time to follow the latest developments in Iran.

In an interview with CNBC after his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 21, US President Donald Trump addressed the situation in Iran, saying he hoped further action by the United States would not be necessary following the recent protests.

“We hope there’s not going to be further action,” he said. “But you know they are shooting people indiscriminately on the streets…”

Trump went on to reiterate that he had intervened to prevent the execution of hundreds of protesters.

“They were going to hang 837 people on Thursday [January 15],” he said. “I told them you can’t do that. If you do that, it’s going to be bad. I don’t want to go with exactly what I said, but nasty… and they canceled it, hopefully permanently.”

Turning to economic pressure, Trump reaffirmed that he would still be "going forward" with plans to impose a 25 percent tariff as well as sanctions on countries doing business with Iran.

He then returned to the question of Iran’s nuclear program.

Referring to US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June, Trump suggested Washington would be prepared to take similar action again if he believed Iran was continuing to pursue a nuclear weapon.

“They’ve got to stop with the nuclear,” he said. “They keep experimenting with nuclear and at some point they’re going to get the idea that they can’t do that. They’re just not going to be able to do that. Can’t let them have it.”

Eight hundred filmmakers from various countries -- including well-known figures such as French actresses Juliette Binoche and Marion Cotillard, Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, and French writer and filmmaker Florian Zeller -- have issued a statement condemning the Islamic republic’s harsh crackdown during recent anti-government demonstrations.

Instead of “listening to the people’s voices” after “widespread and peaceful protests…against repression, poverty, discrimination, and structural injustice,” the filmmakers said, the Islamic republic “has chosen to respond with live ammunition, mass killings, widespread arrests, torture, enforced disappearances, and a nationwide internet shutdown.”

The statement also said Tehran’s actions “represent a blatant and systematic violation of all fundamental human rights, including the right to life, liberty, human dignity, and security, and constitute a clear case of crimes against humanity.”

Internationally recognized Iranian filmmakers who signed the statement include Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Goldshifteh Farahani, Sepideh Farsi, and Shirin Neshat.

Iran's former empress, Farah Pahlavi, says she is declaring a "National Day of Mourning " on January 23 "to be observed by all freedom loving Iranians throughout the world, and request that we all join in one minute of silence at 12:00 noon, local time, to honor our fallen children."

"The blood that has been shed by thousands of our compatriots in Iran cannot be ignored nor be trampled on," the widow of Iran's last shah said, referencing the recent wave of protests that was brutally suppressed by Iranian authorities. "The brave children of Iran have sacrificed their lives and poured their blood at the roots of the saplings of freedom."

Pahlavi, 87, added that "light will prevail over darkness" and urged Iranians not to rest until their "homeland regains its freedom."