Iran detained 21,000 people during 12-day war with Israel
Iran has not previously acknowledged the scale of the mass arrests, which came amid fears that Iranian society had been infiltrated by Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.
Gen Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi, a spokesman for the Iranian police, said the suspects were reported via tip-offs to authorities after a near nationwide internet blackout was imposed during the war.
He told state television: 'The arrest of 21,000 suspects during the 12-day war indicated high awareness and participation of people in providing security.'
While he did not elaborate on what charges the suspects might face, he said more than 261 were suspected of spying and another 172 were arrested on suspicion of illegal filming.
He also revealed police established more than 1,000 checkpoints and deployed 40,000 police officers for round-the-clock security during the war, which began after Israel's pre-emptive attacks on the morning of June 13.
The wave of air strikes killed nearly 1,100 people in Iran, including the army's chief of staff and several high-level military commanders and top nuclear scientists. Retaliatory Iranian strikes killed 32 people in Israel.
The latest arrest figures contradict those released by the country's top legal authority.
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Iran's judiciary chief, recently claimed around '2,000 people' were arrested during and after the conflict, some of whom face the death penalty on charges of 'organisational collaboration with the enemy'.
Speaking to state TV last month, he said: 'In our law, anyone who co-operates with a hostile state during wartime must be arrested and prosecuted.'
Some have since been released, including dozens from the country's Jewish community and minorities regularly persecuted such as the Kurd and Bahai populations.
The judiciary chief said some detainees remain on bail and trials are being fast-tracked.
The mass detentions have sparked alarm among human rights experts who fear Iran will use the war as the chance to continue its execution spree.
Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights said 21 people were executed during the June conflict, including six accused of spying for Israel.
The Islamic Republic has one of the world's highest execution rates.
In April, human rights group Amnesty International said Iran accounted for 64 per cent of all known global executions last year, with at least 972 people executed, branding it part of an ongoing campaign of mass suppression of dissent.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
29 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Israel's prime minister dismisses accusations that his regime is starving Gazans
Israel 's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 'if we had wanted to commit genocide, it would have taken exactly one afternoon' amid a growing war of words over starvation in Gaza. In a press conference, he rebutted accusations of deliberately starving civilians. Netanyahu has consistently denied claims that his forces are committing genocide in the Gaza strip, or imposing a policy of starvation, and has said that Israel tries to avoid civilians who are put in harm's way by Hamas. The remarks came during press conferences in Jerusalem as he defended his government's latest military push into Gaza City. The planned offensive, he said, is aimed at defeating Hamas, but it has drawn condemnation from some of Israel's closest allies and the United Nations, who say it 'will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza'. Netanyahu also rejected accusations that Israel had pursued a starvation policy, insisting on Sunday: 'There is no starvation. There hasn't been starvation. There was a shortage. And certainly, there was no policy of starvation. 'If we had wanted starvation, if that had been our policy, two million Gazans wouldn't be living today after 20 months.' However, humanitarian organizations have warned of 'imminent famine' in the region. Reports from Gaza of civilians starving to death has inflamed tensions with Israel's partners around the world and inspired backlash at home and abroad. Speaking on Sunday, Netanyahu also challenged claims that humanitarian aid had been fully cut off. At the press conference, he said: 'We never said we were stopping all entry of humanitarian aid. 'What we said was that, alongside halting the trucks that Hamas was seizing - taking the vast majority of their contents for itself, then selling the leftovers at extortionate prices to the Palestinian population… we would stop this.' Netanyahu also laid out his vision of victory in Gaza following 22 months of war, with the military ordered to attack the last remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza City and the central camps further south. With a pre-war population of some 760,000, according to official figures, Gaza City was the biggest of any municipal area in the Palestinian territories. But following the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel in 2023 that sparked the war, its population has only swelled, with thousands of displaced people fleeing intensive military operations to the north. Gaza City itself has come under intense aerial bombardment, and its remaining apartment buildings now rub shoulders with tents and other makeshift shelters. Amir Avivi, a former Israeli general and head of the Israeli Defense and Security Forum think tank, described the city as the 'heart of Hamas's rule in Gaza'. 'Gaza City has always been the center of government and also has the strongest brigade of Hamas,' he said. The first challenge for Israeli troops relates to Netanyahu's call for the evacuation of civilians - how such a feat will be carried out remains unclear. Unlike the rest of the Strip, where most of the population has been displaced at least once, around 300,000 residents of Gaza City have not moved since the outbreak of the conflict, according to Avivi. Israel has already tried to push civilians further south to so-called humanitarian zones established by the military, but there is likely little space to accommodate more arrivals. 'You cannot put another one million people over there. It will be a horrible humanitarian crisis,' said Michael Milshtein, an Israeli former military intelligence officer. Israel continues to face major backlash over the burgeoning humanitarian crisis in the strip. Dozens of people are reported to have died from starvation in recent weeks. The Israeli government claims the reports are unfounded, and says Hamas is harnessing a famine narrative for leverage in ceasefire talks. In July, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it would open humanitarian corridors to let in aid convoys into Gaza to deliver food and medicine. It also said there would be a 'local tactical pause in military activity' for humanitarian purposes. But international groups and journalists on the ground continue to report dire conditions inside the beleaguered Gaza Strip. Last week, it was reported that the Israeli prime minister and the U.S. president Donald Trump, had a heated phone call after Netanyahu denied that there was widespread starvation in Gaza. According to people familiar with the conversation, Trump cut him off and shouted at him. He also told him his aids had presented evidence that many children were starving. However, Netanyahu's office denied the reports and said it was 'fake news'. While Gaza's population continues to bear the brunt of the war, Israel is gearing up for a major push into Gaza City and continues to pound the strip. An Israeli airstrike killed Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, 28, and several of his colleagues outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on August 10. The network said the journalists were in a tent set up for media crews when it was hit. The Israel Defence Forces said al-Sharif was a Hamas operative who 'posed as a journalist', accusing him of running a 'terrorist cell' involved in rocket attacks, allegations that remain unverified and have been rejected by Al Jazeera. Local journalists who knew him say that earlier in his journalism career, he had worked with a communications office run by Hamas. Press freedom groups and the UN human rights agency condemned the strike, calling it a possible grave breach of international humanitarian law. On Monday, several Gazans gathered to pay their respects to Sharif and his four colleagues who also died in the attack. Media freedom groups and international organizations condemned the killing. A posthumous message written by the journalist in the eventuality of his death said he had been silenced and urged people 'not to forget Gaza'. Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to take control of the remaining parts of Gaza, including large sections of Gaza City and Al-Mawasi, an area designated by Israel as a safe zone but now crammed with displaced Palestinians. The plan has triggered further criticism abroad, with Germany suspending some arms exports to Israel and Australia joining other Western nations in recognizing a Palestinian state. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 61,499 people have been killed in the territory since Israel's campaign began, figures the United Nations deems credible. Hamas's October 2023 assault on Israel left 1,219 people dead, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Europe and Kyiv lay out Ukraine ceasefire terms to Trump on call
BERLIN, Aug 13 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said European leaders had laid out terms for a ceasefire in Ukraine that would protect their security interests in a call on Wednesday with U.S. President Donald Trump. European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held the call with Trump in a bid to influence his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021. "We have made it clear that Ukraine must be at the table as soon as follow-up meetings take place," Merz said in at the joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "We want negotiations to proceed in the right order, with a ceasefire at the outset." Merz, who initiated the meeting with Trump, said that Ukraine was prepared to negotiate on territorial issues, but "legal recognition of Russian occupation is not up for debate". The country would need "robust security guarantees", he said, although he did not detail what kind. If there was no movement on the Russian side in Alaska, however, "then the United States and we Europeans should and must increase the pressure". "President Trump is aware of this position and largely shares it," Merz said. The chancellor noted that all conversations held with Putin since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine three and a half years ago had each time been accompanied by an even Russian harsher military response. If the same occurred this time, it would show conversations with Putin were neither credible nor successful. "If the United States of America now work towards peace in Ukraine that safeguards European and Ukrainian interests, he can count on our full support in this endeavour," said Merz.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
European leaders comment on teleconference with Trump on Ukraine
Aug 13 (Reuters) - Donald Trump joined a teleconference with European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday, two days before the U.S. leader is due to hold a summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin on a possible peace deal for Ukraine. Following are some quotes from the leaders following the call: "Everything concerning Ukraine must be discussed only with Ukraine's participation. We must be preparing a trilateral format (along with Trump and Putin) for talks. "A ceasefire must be the number one priority... There should be security guarantees. Truly reliable." "President Trump was very clear that the United States wanted to achieve a ceasefire at this meeting in Alaska... "The second point on which things were very clear, as expressed by President Trump, is that territories belonging to Ukraine cannot be negotiated and will only be negotiated by the Ukrainian president." "There are currently no serious territorial exchange schemes on the table." "The principle that borders cannot be changed by force must continue to apply. "Negotiations must include robust security guarantees for Kyiv. The Ukrainian armed forces must be able and remain able to effectively defend the sovereignty of their country. They must also be able to count on Western aid in the long term. "Negotiations must be part of a common transatlantic strategy. Then they can ultimately be most likely to succeed. This strategy must continue to rely on strong support for Ukraine and necessary pressure against Russia. This also means, if there is no movement on the Russian side in Alaska, then the United States, we and Europeans should and must increase the pressure. "President Trump knows this position, he shares it very extensively and therefore I can say: We have had a really exceptionally constructive and good conversation with each other."
