When protests broke out across Iran in September, 26-year-old Mohammed Hassan Torkaman’s message was one of defiance.
“Personally, if I see even one symbolic protest in Babol, I will support it,” he wrote on Twitter.
The nature-loving student was shot dead by security forces during a demonstration just two days later – protests had broken out over the death of a young woman in police custody who was arrested for wearing her hijab “incorrectly”.
Months on, his family say they are still being harassed by the authorities in an attempt to silence them about what happened. It is an experience that human rights experts say is common for those whose loved ones died as a result of state violence in Iran.
For some families like Mohammad Hassan’s, however, remaining silent is not an option. And social media is providing them with a way to memorialise and seek justice for the dead.
Mohammad Hassan Torkaman’s story
Mohammad Hassan was a typical 26-year-old. He loved the outdoors, and could often be found exploring the forest with his friends. He was fascinated by space too, covering his home with posters of stars and far-flung galaxies.
His fluffy white Persian cat, Pashmak, was his pride and joy.
Image: Mohammed Hassan and his cat, Pashmak. Pic: Twitter
His brother says he was a calm, kind person who had great ambitions.
“He had big ideas and wanted to make an impact in the future,” his brother said.
Mohammed Hassan had moved to Babol five years ago to study at university. So on 21 September, his family in Shahin Shahr, Isfahan, didn’t know he had gone out to protest.
It was only when they received a worried phone call from one of his friends that they realised something awful had happened.
“I was in a terrible state of shock, so I remember everything like a nightmare,” his brother said.
The friend told them that he had been calling Mohammad Hassan after he failed to turn up to his house as expected. An unknown voice eventually picked up and said that Mohammad Hassan had been shot.
His father, a veteran and former prisoner of war during the conflict between Iran and Iraq, was so shocked by the news that he suffered a stroke and was taken into intensive care.
His brother says that when he went to see Mohammad Hassan’s body in the morgue, he saw a bullet wound in his head.
For three days, the authorities refused to release the body and only did so on the condition that the family would remain quiet about where he had been shot and held the funeral under strict security.
But even then, their ordeal was far from over.
“The events for the third and the seventh days were held under watchful eyes of the agents,” his brother said.
At the 40th day ceremony, the situation escalated.
“They were attacked by the security forces, plain clothes militia using stun grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets, paintballs and batons. Many were arrested and wounded,” his brother said.
It’s now been months since Mohammad Hassan’s death and the memorial gatherings that followed. But relatives say the authorities are still harassing them.
“We are more or less threatened, we are monitored and controlled, some days they follow us, some nights they are stationed near our home,” his brother said.
Digital memorialisation
Azadeh Pourzand, a human rights researcher at SOAS University of London, explains that Iranian authorities have a history of treating families of those killed by the state in this way as they fear the impact the killing could have.
“It’s ironic that the regime is so strong with its state violence as a repressive regime but is scared of the dead bodies it creates,” she told Sky News.
“It’s not new to see the burial ceremonies for victims of state violence being disrupted in this way. It’s used as a tool to further harass and silence families,” she said.
Azadeh says that for many years, this meant that the only cases that would garner attention were those in which the victim was already publicly known or of a certain societal status. It was therefore largely left to human rights organisations like the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center to document the stories of all of the others who died at the hands of the state.
Since 2002, the centre has run the Omid Memorial project which is a digital archive of all of those who have been killed by the state and acts as an online memorial.
“The project’s mission is to ensure that all victims of the state’s violation of the right to life are memorialised, that society acknowledges the harm done to them and their loved ones, to help start their healing process in the absence of justice,” said Roya Boroumand, who runs the centre.
The advent of social media, however, has meant that individuals are now empowered to do this themselves in ways that they were previously unable to. It means that social media pages dedicated to the memory of those who have been killed in Iran are increasingly common online.
Many of these accounts are run by bereaved family members. Three months after Mohammad Hassan’s death, two of his relatives set up Twitter pages that post on a daily basis, almost exclusively about Mohammad Hassan. They now have a combined following of over 27,000.
Image: This digital image of Mohammed Hassan has been shared on pages dedicated to his memory and across social media
Among the posts are pictures of Mohammad Hassan as a child, as well as his gravestone and memorial shrine. Many include anecdotes about Mohammad Hassan and calls for justice.
The hashtag of Mohammad Hassan’s full name in Farsi, which features in each of the posts, has been tweeted over 143,000 times according to data collected by social listening platform TalkWalker.
Image: One of the posts shared in memory of Mohammed Hassan, which was originally written in Farsi describes how the cemetery he is buried in was blocked off by security agents
“It is my duty and my family’s duty to be the voice of my brother’s unjustly shed blood. My father was the one who stood in front of Iraqi soldiers and defended his country. We learned our courage from him,” Mohammad Hassan’s brother said.
Other accounts dedicated to memorialising all of those who have died have also sprung up.
One page was initially created to pay tribute to the 1,500 protesters killed in 2019. The account now creates and shares memorials for those who have died during the recent protests and for those who have been executed. It has 27,000 followers on Instagram and a further 7,000 on Twitter.
“The government of Iran wants these things not to be mentioned at all, not to be heard at all. The government media denies this at all,” the page’s operator told Sky News.
“I am the voice of their grieving families,” they said.
“What we are seeing here is grassroots archiving and memorialising,” said Azadeh Pourzand.
She explains that these memorials are also about achieving justice for those who have died.
“The ultimate goal is: we are not going to forget and we are not going to forgive. We’re not going to let our loved one’s blood go to waste. We are going to keep it alive, we are going to remember and we are going to seek justice,” she told Sky News.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.
These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.
The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.
Image: Israel Gaza map
Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.
Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.
More on Gaza
Related Topics:
What is famine?
The IPC defines famine as a situation in which at least one in five households has an extreme lack of food and face starvation and destitution, resulting in extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and death.
Famine is when an area has:
• More than 20% of households facing extreme food shortages
• More than 30% of children suffering from acute malnutrition
• A daily mortality rate that exceeds two per 10,000 people, or four per 10,000 children under five
Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.
Israel says no famine in Gaza
Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.
“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.
Israel accused of allowing famine to fester in Gaza
Tom Fletcher, speaking on behalf of the United Nations, did not mince his words.
Gaza was suffering from famine, the evidence was irrefutable and Israel had not just obstructed aid but had also used hunger as a weapon of war.
His anger seeped through every sentence, just as desperation is laced through the report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Conditions are expected to worsen, it says, even though the Gaza Strip has been classified as a level 5 famine. There is no level 6.
But it took only moments for the Israeli government to respond in terms that were just as strident.
Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”
Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.
Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.
“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.
The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.
Image: Palestinians struggle to get aid at a community kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: AP
The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.
The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.
But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.
The Ukrainian suspected of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines had served in Ukraine’s Secret Service and in the Ukrainian Army’s special forces, Sky News understand.
Serhii K., 49, was arrested in northern Italy on Thursday following the issuance of a European arrest warrant by German prosecutors.
It is not known whether he was still serving at the time of the pipeline attack in 2022 and Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the explosions.
According to sources close to the case, the suspect has been found in a three-star bungalow hotel named La Pescaccia in San Clemente, in the province of Rimini.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:58
Man arrested over Nord Stream attacks
When military officers from Italy’s Carabinieri investigative and operational units raided his bedroom, he didn’t try to resist the arrest.
The hotel’s employees have been questioned, but no further evidence or any weapons were found, the sources added.
Serhii arrived on Italy’s Adriatic coast earlier this week, and the purpose of his trip was a holiday. He was found with his two children and his wife.
More on Italy
Related Topics:
At least one of the four people within his family had a travel ticket issued in Poland. He crossed the Italian border with his car with a Ukrainian license plate last Tuesday.
He was travelling with his passport, and he used his real identity to check into the hotel, triggering an emergency alert on a police server, we have been told.
Image: A satellite image shows gas from the Nord Stream pipeline bubbling up in the Baltic Sea. File pic: Roscosmos via Reuters
After the arrest, he was taken to the Rimini police station before being moved to a prison in Bologna, the regional capital, on Friday.
Deputy Bologna Prosecutor Licia Scagliarini has granted the German judicial authorities’ requests for Serhii’s surrender, but Sky News understands the man told the appeal court that he doesn’t consent to being handed over to Germany.
He also denied the charges and said he was in Ukraine during the Nord Stream sabotage. He added that he is currently in Italy for family reasons.
While leaving the court, he was seen making a typical Ukrainian nationalist ‘trident’ gesture to the reporters.
The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the Bologna appeal court is set to decide whether Serhii will be extradited to Germany or not. He will remain in jail until then.
In Germany, he will face charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures.
German prosecutors believe he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.
Serhii and his accomplices are believed to have set off from Rostock on Germany’s north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack.
The explosions severely damaged three pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Europe. It represented a significant escalation in the Ukraine conflict and worsening of the continent’s energy supply crisis.
According to a US intelligence report leaked in 2023, a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack. Yet, no group has ever claimed responsibility.
Image: Spare pipes for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. File pic: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer
Sky News understands Genoa’s Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy has requested their colleagues in Bologna to share the information related to Serhii.
Anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating another alleged sabotage linked to the Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Seajewel, which sank off the port of Savona last February.
On Thursday, they asked an investigative police unit to figure out whether there is a link between that episode and the Nord Stream attacks.