Iranian MPs chant ‘Death to America’ on anniversary of US embassy takeover

“President Trump has said he wants to sit down and negotiate this with Iran," the Democratic senator told Iran International.

"Iran having a nuclear weapon is unacceptable, so it's important that they be willing to resolve this,” the Maryland lawmaker added.

He was speaking before a defiant speech by Iran’s Supreme Leader on Monday in which the veteran theocrat appeared to double down on a hard line toward Washington.

Khamenei, 86, ruled out any cooperation with the United States, saying every US president had demanded “Iran’s surrender” but failed.

“Only if the United States completely cuts its backing for the Zionist regime, removes its military bases from the region, and ceases interfering in its affairs, their request for cooperation with Iran—not in the near future but much later—could be examined,” Khamenei said.

Iran denies seeking nuclear arms and says its program is peaceful.

The United States held five rounds of negotiations with Tehran over its disputed nuclear program earlier this year, for which President Donald Trump set a 60-day ultimatum.

When no agreement was reached by the 61st day on June 13, Israel launched a surprise military offensive, followed by US strikes on June 22 targeting key nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow.

Senator Van Hollen has previously expressed skepticism of military efforts to deny Iran a nuclear bomb.

“I have long supported the goal of ensuring that Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon. But bombing is not, in my view, the best and certainly not the most sustainable way of achieving that goal,” he told the Arms Control Association in a speech in September.

Van Hollen has said the window of diplomacy is still open in his remarks in September and there should be a coordinated effort to reach an agreement.

“The United States, the E3 (France, Germany, and Britain) and Iran should move swiftly to restart negotiations on a pragmatic, effective nuclear agreement,” he said.

Iran provided significant material support for “terrorists” who carried out attacks in Iraq between 2003 and 2017, District Judge Randolph Moss of the District of Columbia said in a 12-page memorandum opinion.

The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and promptly faced a deadly insurgency.

Moss awarded about $420.7 million in compensatory damages and $420.7 million in punitive damages to the plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs generally rely on the US Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund for compensation as it is “very difficult” to collect judgments from Iran, their co-counsel Nicholas Reddick said.

“Pretty much all of Iran’s assets have already been seized by the government or prior litigants, so there isn’t just money sitting around in a bank account that we can go seize.”

Foreign governments are generally considered beyond the jurisdiction of US courts, but the terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) allows the courts to hold these countries accountable, where immunity is not absolute.

In 2016, Iran filed a lawsuit against the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, for allegedly breaching a 1955 friendship treaty by allowing US courts to freeze assets of Iranian companies. The money was to be given in compensation to victims of terrorist attacks.

In 2023, the ICJ judges ruled Washington had illegally allowed courts to freeze assets of some Iranian companies and ordered the United States to pay compensation but left the amount to be determined later.

However, in a blow for Tehran, the world court said it did not have jurisdiction over $1.75 billion in frozen assets from Iran's central bank.

Iran's security forces arrested child rights defender Hossein Mirbahari, a founding member of the Society for the Protection of Child Laborers and Street Children, at his sister’s home in Tehran on October 15.

New-York based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said on Monday Mirbahari has been held without charge and denied access to his family and lawyer, with his whereabouts still unknown.

“Mirbahari’s unlawful arrest and the closing of the organization mirror the Islamic Republic’s dismantling of other NGOs, and reflect its intensifying drive to wipe out independent civil society organizations,” CHRI’s executive director Hadi Ghaemi said in a statement.

He added that the government’s actions showcase what he called the Islamic Republic's "lawless thuggery", accusing it of fearing “any independent societal activities, no matter how vital a role they play.”

Security forces sealed the organization’s office in Tehran the same day as Mirbahari’s arrest and confiscated equipment and communication devices, effectively halting its operations.

The NGO's closure and Mirbahari's arrest were first reported by the Iranian outlet Emtedad in mid-October.

The group had been operating legally since 2002 after receiving official registration from the Interior Ministry, providing education, health services, and psychological support to vulnerable children.

CHRI called on the United Nations, UNICEF, and the European Union to press Iran for Mirbahari’s immediate release and to demand the reopening of the organization, citing his fragile health following chemotherapy.

The closure comes amid what CHRI described as an escalating campaign by Iranian authorities to criminalize humanitarian work and silence advocates for children, women, and marginalized communities.

The group said the shutdown has already disrupted schooling for many children the NGO supported.

Iran faces a worsening child labor crisis, with estimates ranging from 1.5 to 7 million working children. Official figures cited by Iran’s Parliamentary Research Center in 2023 said 15% of the country’s children are engaged in labor, while Tehran’s City Council estimated 70,000 child laborers in the capital alone.

The Society for the Protection of Child Laborers and Street Children had served as a rare legal platform for advocacy and assistance to working and street children across Iran, employing specialized units in education, health, social work, and research before its forced closure.

The closure marks a continuation of previous crackdowns on independent civil society organizations.

Past Iranian NGO closures

Last April, Iran shut down the Mehr-e Shams-Afarid NGO safe house, which provided support and empowerment programs for vulnerable women.

In August 2022, Iran shut down the Noor Sepid Hedayat Social Harm Reduction Institute, an NGO that supported women with substance abuse issues and vulnerable children in Shoush, a neighborhood in southern Tehran.

Iranian authorities shut down Khaneh Khorshid, an NGO aiding women with substance abuse in southern Tehran, in March 2022.

In 2020, Iranian security forces arrested Sharmin Meymandinejad, the founder and director of the largest anti-poverty NGO in the country, Imam Ali's Popular Student Relief Society (IAPSRS), and subsequently closed down its headquarters.

In August 2019, another independent charity supporting marginalized women and girls in Tehran, Omid-e-Mehr was forcibly closed by the Iranian authorities.

It was not immediately clear when the revocation took effect.

Dabir told Iran International in a telephone interview in October that he had “given back” his green card but declined to respond to requests for comment.

Wrestling is an ancient and widely celebrated sport in Iran.

The male-dominated theocracy has backed wrestling programs with generous state funding in support that has helped Iranian athletes secure numerous international titles and championships.

A gold medalist in freestyle wrestling at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and a former Tehran city council member, he has been a vocal supporter of Iran’s ruling establishment and its anti-Western rhetoric.

“We always chant ‘Death to America,’ but the important thing is showing it in action,” Dabir said in a 2022 interview with Iran’s state media. “Some people talk a lot but don’t do much. We need to prove it with action.”

Following the comments, the Biden administration denied entry to Dabir and several Iranian wrestlers who were due to compete in Texas.

'Enforcing gender apartheid'

Iran’s state-run Press TV quoted Dabir in January 2022 as saying he obtained the Green Card during the Sydney Olympics, “just like many other athletes,” believing he might study in the United States, but “never used it.”

Iranian-American activists have long opposed Dabir’s entry into the United States, citing his political loyalties and role in enforcing restrictions on women’s participation in sport.

“(Dabir) is not only enforcing gender apartheid in sport, banning women from most wrestling disciplines and forcing mandatory hijab in the few allowed formats like Alysh, but also stands accused of deep corruption and political cronyism,” said Lawdan Bazargan, director of advocacy group the Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA).

Iran bans women from competing in wrestling, even as neighboring Muslim countries such as Turkey permit female participation.

Sardar Pashaei, a former Greco-Roman world champion and once head coach of Iran’s youth national team, wrote to the USA Wrestling’s executive director in 2022 urging US sports bodies to shun Iranian government-sponsored athletes.

“Refrain from inviting officials and athletes who are government propaganda tools that are anti-women and anti-American,” he wrote.

Speaking at a conference in Hiroshima in Japan on Monday, Zarif said Iran’s resilience in the face of military and economic pressure had shown that “the era of hit and run is over.”

“A superpower that spends over $800 billion a year on its military could not humiliate Iran, which allocates less than $10 billion to defense,” Zarif said.

“In fact, that superpower was compelled to evacuate all personnel from its military bases surrounding Iran before daring to launch reckless bombings against Iran’s safeguarded facilities.”

US talks with Tehran over its disputed nuclear program began earlier this year with a 60-day ultimatum. On the 61st day, June 13, Israel launched a surprise military campaign which was capped with US strikes on June 22 targeting key nuclear sites in Esfahan, Natanz and Fordow.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has called the attacks illegal.

Zarif said decades of sanctions, cyberattacks, and assassinations had failed to force Iran to capitulate, arguing that the country’s nuclear program was rooted in “dignity, not deterrence.”

He said Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s insistence on continuing the program stemmed from “resistance to submission."

“For him (Khamenei), it has always been about something far more profound and enduring: dignity,” Zarif said.

Iran's 86-year-old ruler appeared to double down on his hard line against a rapprochement with Washington on Monday, saying the United States must quit military bases in the region and sever ties with Israel to mend fences with Iran.

The former Iranian chief negotiator urged the United States to “set aside the illusion of demanding Iran’s unconditional surrender” and instead engage in “genuine negotiations” to ensure the program remains peaceful.

Zarif called for reviving diplomacy through initiatives he said he had proposed to promote peaceful nuclear cooperation and rebuild trust with the West.

“One practical step that I proposed in a recent Foreign Policy essay could be a US–Iran non-aggression pact,” Zarif said. “Another initiative that a colleague and I proposed in The Guardian a couple of months ago is the Middle East Network for Atomic Research and Advancement, or MENARA — a collaborative regional network dedicated to non-proliferation while harnessing peaceful nuclear cooperation.”

The United States has demanded Iran renounce domestic uranium enrichment while Tehran maintains its nuclear program is an international right.

Zarif said the network would include “an enrichment consortium bringing together existing capabilities into a collective peaceful and transparent effort,” adding that it would be open to all Middle Eastern countries willing to renounce nuclear weapons and accept strict safeguards.