Tehran has arrested and jailed domestic critics and opposition figures despite Washington’s deployment of a naval “armada” in the Arabian Sea.
Over recent weeks, US president Donald Trump has assembled a large fleet in the region built around the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group, after telling Iranian protesters in January that “help is on the way” during large-scale anti-government demonstrations.
The original purpose of US gunboat diplomacy was to force Iran to cease its brutal crackdown on mass protests which erupted in late December and stretched into January.
Rather than regime change, the current US objective appears to be to pressure Iran to make concessions over its nuclear programme during ongoing negotiations.
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The US has called for an end to Iran’s nuclear programme and limits on its production of ballistic missiles, and an end to support for armed groups in the region.
The scale of the Iran’s crackdown on protesters is still emerging. While the Iranian government put the death toll at just over 3,000, opposition groups put it anywhere between 30,000-36,000, while 50,000 were said to have been arrested.
Pressure on dissidents is continuing. On Saturday, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi (53), arrested two months ago, was handed a new sentence of seven years and six months in prison and two years of internal exile in South Khorasan on alleged collusion with the US and Israel and anti-government propaganda.
That brings the total number of years she will serve to 17.
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In 2016, Mohammadi was handed a prison sentence for “establishing and running an illegal splinter group”. She was released in 2020 but returned to prison in 2021, with a temporary release on health grounds in 2024.
In recent days, four other leading figures in the reform front – former legislator Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, ex-diplomat Mohsen Aminzadeh, front head Azar Mansouri and spokesman Javad Emam – were also detained.
The official Mizan news agency reported that the detainees were said to be “organising and leading extensive activities aimed at disrupting the political and social situation” while Iran faced “military threats” from Israel and the US.
Amnesty International reported that Iranians “across the country, outraged at decades of repression, were demanding fundamental change and a political system that respects human rights and dignity”.
The human rights group accused Iranian authorities of responding with “an unprecedented deadly crackdown” using “unlawful force, firearms, and other prohibited weapons, against protesters, which resulted in mass killings and serious injuries”.
These protests were preceded by the nationwide November 2019-2020 democracy demonstrations and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising of 2022 sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini for failing to wear her headscarf (hijab) as specified by law.
Throughout bouts of unrest, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and Basij youth militia have so far remained loyal to the fundamentalist government despite domestic and external calls for regime change.
