Iran protests: Bereaved families prevented from mourning their loved ones move their memorials online
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.
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.
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.
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.
World
Ukraine and Europe cannot reject Trump’s plan – they will play for time and hope he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin
“Terrible”, “weird”, “peculiar” and “baffling” – some of the adjectives being levelled by observers at the Donald Trump administration’s peace plan for Ukraine.
The 28-point proposal was cooked up between Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff and Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev without European and Ukrainian involvement.
It effectively dresses up Russian demands as a peace proposal. Demands first made by Russia at the high watermark of its invasion in 2022, before defeats forced it to retreat from much of Ukraine.
Ukraine war latest: Kyiv receives US peace plan
(l-r) Kirill Dmitriev and special envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg in April 2025. Pic: Kremlin Pool Photo/AP
Its proposals are non-starters for Ukrainians.
It would hand over the rest of Donbas, territory they have spent almost four years and lost tens of thousands of men defending.
Analysts estimate at the current rate of advance, it would take Russia four more years to take the land it is proposing simply to give them instead.
It proposes more than halving the size of the Ukrainian military and depriving them of some of their most effective long-range weapons.
And it would bar any foreign forces acting as peacekeepers in Ukraine after any peace deal is done.
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Is Moscow back in Washington’s good books?
The plan comes at an excruciating time for the Ukrainians.
They are being pounded with devastating drone attacks, killing dozens in the last few nights alone.
They are on the verge of losing a key stronghold city, Pokrovsk.
And Volodymyr Zelenskyy is embroiled in the gravest political crisis since the war began, with key officials facing damaging corruption allegations.
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Ukrainian support for peace plan ‘very much in doubt’
The suspicion is Mr Witkoff and Mr Dmitriev conspired together to choose this moment to put even more pressure on the Ukrainian president.
Perversely, though, it may help him.
There has been universal condemnation and outrage in Kyiv at the Witkoff-Dmitriev plan. Rivals have little choice but to rally around the wartime Ukrainian leader as he faces such unreasonable demands.
The genesis of this plan is unclear.
Was it born from Donald Trump’s overinflated belief in his peacemaking abilities? His overrated Gaza ceasefire plan attracted lavish praise from world leaders, but now seems mired in deepening difficulty.
The fear is Mr Trump’s team are finding ways to allow him to walk away from this conflict altogether, blaming Ukrainian intransigence for the failure of his diplomacy.
Mr Trump has already ended financial support for Ukraine, acting as an arms dealer instead, selling weapons to Europe to pass on to the invaded democracy.
If he were to take away military intelligence support too, Ukraine would be blind to the kind of attacks that in recent days have killed scores of civilians.
Europe and Ukraine cannot reject the plan entirely and risk alienating Mr Trump.
They will play for time and hope against all the evidence he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin and put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war, rather than force Ukraine to surrender instead.
The Eurovision Song Contest is changing its voting system, following allegations of “interference” by Israel’s government this year.
Israeli singer Yuval Raphael received the largest number of votes from the public in the contest in May, ultimately finishing as runner-up after the jury votes were counted.
But a number of broadcasters raised concerns about Israel’s result.
After the final, Irish broadcaster RTE requested a breakdown in voting numbers from contest organiser the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), while Spain’s public broadcaster, Radio Television Espanola (RTVE), called for a “complete review” of the voting system to avoid “external interference”.
In September, Dutch public broadcaster AVROTROS said it could no longer justify Israel‘s participation in the contest, due to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
It went on to say there had been “proven interference by the Israeli government during the last edition of the Song Contest, with the event being used as a political instrument”. The statement did not elaborate on the means of “interference”.
Sky News has contacted the Israeli government for comment.
In early December, the EBU will hold its winter general assembly, with members due to consider the changes, and if not satisfied, vote on Israel’s participation.
Key changes to next year’s competition include:
• Clearer rules around promotion of artists and their songs
• Cap on audience voting halved
• The return of professional juries to semi-finals
• Enhanced security safeguards
Read more: Could Eurovision boycotts over Israel lead to a competition crisis?
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Will Eurovision boycott Israel?
Sanctions threat
The EBU said the tightening of rules around promotion was to “discourage disproportionate promotion campaigns… particularly when undertaken or supported by third parties, including governments or governmental agencies”.
It said that “any attempts to unduly influence the results will lead to sanctions”.
Contest director Martin Green said “no broadcaster or artist may now directly engage with or support campaigns by third parties – including governments or their agencies – that could distort the vote”.
He said the reduction in the number of votes that can be made online, or via SMS or phone call, from 20 to 10 was “designed to encourage more balanced participation”.
He said that “although the number of votes previously allowed did not unduly influence the results of previous contests, there were concerns expressed by participating broadcasters and fans alike”.
Professional juries in semi-finals – and younger jurors
It was also announced that professional juries in the semi-finals would be restored for the first time since 2022, with an expansion to the range of professions from which jurors can be chosen.
The EBU said this will give roughly 50-50 percentage weight between audience and jury votes.
At least two jurors aged 18-25 will be present in every jury, to reflect the appeal of the contest with younger audiences.
Also mentioned were enhanced technical safeguards designed to “protect the contest from suspicious or coordinated voting activity” and strengthen security systems that “monitor, detect and prevent fraudulent patterns”.
Politics making itself heard over Europop lyrics
Mr Green said that the neutrality and integrity of the competition is of “paramount importance” to the EBU, its members, and audiences, adding that the event “should remain a neutral space and must not be instrumentalised”.
Israel’s 2024 representative, Eden Golan. Pic: AP
A vocally apolitical event, world events have dominated Eurovision in recent years.
Russia was banned from the competition in 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine.
Israel has competed in Eurovision for more than 50 years and won four times, but there have been ongoing calls to block their participation over the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the Hamas-Israel war.
Israel denies targeting civilians in Gaza and has said it is being unfairly demonised abroad.
In September, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, and Slovenia threatened to withdraw their participation in Eurovision unless Israel is excluded from the competition.
There were also demonstrations against Israel’s inclusion in Basel, Switzerland, when the 2025 competition took place.
‘Step in right direction’
Responding to the changes, Iceland’s official broadcaster RUV told Sky News they were “a step in the right direction”, and they would be discussing them with their “sister stations in the Nordic countries” ahead of the EBU meeting in December.
Ireland’s official broadcaster RTE told Sky News: “Clearly, events in the Middle East are unfolding day by day. As previously confirmed by the EBU, the issue of participation in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest has been included on the agenda of the EBU Executive Board’s ordinary Winter General Assembly.”
Sky News has also contacted the official broadcaster for the Netherlands (AVROTROS), Spain (RTVE), Slovenia (RTVSLO), and Israel (Kan) for comment.
The chief executive of Kan, Golan Yochpaz, has previously said the event should not become political and that there is “no reason” why Israel should not be part of it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Pic: Reuters
Netanyahu praised Israeli entrant
Earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel’s 2025 Eurovision entrant Yuval Raphael she had brought the country “a lot of honour” after she finished in second place, adding “you’re the real winner. Statistically, it’s true… You entered the hearts of a huge portion of the public in Europe.”
The year before he told entrant Eden Golan: “I saw that you received almost the highest number of votes from the public and this is the most important thing, not from the judges but from the public, and you held Israel’s head up high in Europe.”
In October, a ceasefire deal was put in place, aimed at bringing an end to the two-year war in the Middle East.
The war began when Hamas stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation, with airstrikes and ground assaults devastating much of the territory and killing more than 67,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it says around half of those killed were women and children.
The world’s largest live music event, next year’s contest will be held in Vienna, Austria, in May and will celebrate 70 years of Eurovision.
Over 200 students have been kidnapped from a Catholic boarding school in western Nigeria – the second mass abduction in the country this week.
Gunmen took 215 students and 12 teachers from St Mary’s School in Agwara, Niger state, early on Friday, according to the Christian Association of Nigeria.
Daniel Atori, a spokesperson for the Niger state chapter of the association, said he met parents of the abducted children “to assure them that we are working with the government and security agencies to see that our children are rescued and brought back safely”.
St Mary’s is a secondary school that has students aged 12 to 17, but the institution is attached to an adjoining primary school with more than 50 classrooms and dormitory buildings.
Dauda Chekula, 62, said that four of his grandchildren, ranging in age from seven to 10, were among those abducted.
“We don’t know what is happening now, because we have not heard anything since this morning,” Mr Chekula said.
“The children who were able to escape have scattered, some of them ran back to their houses and the only information we are getting is that the attackers are still moving with the remaining children into the bush.”
On Monday, 25 schoolgirls were kidnapped from a boarding school in neighbouring Kebbi state, northwest Nigeria.
Police said men armed with rifles stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the town of Maga at around 4am local time (3am UK time), arriving on motorcycles in an apparently well-planned attack.
Student escapes from kidnappers
A 15-year-old student who was among those abducted from the boarding school in Kebbi state’s Danko-Wasagu area managed to escape.
She said she found refuge at a teacher’s house.
The Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the town of Maga was attacked on Monday. Pic: AP
Police at the school compound to investigate the kidnapping. Pic: Africa Independent Television/Reuters
It was not immediately clear who was to blame for either of the abductions.
Abubakar Usman, the secretary to the Niger state government, said in a statement that the latest kidnapping occurred despite a prior intelligence warning of heightened threats.
“Regrettably, St Mary’s School proceeded to reopen and resume academic activities without notifying or seeking clearance from the state government, thereby exposing pupils and the staff to avoidable risk,” it read.
A security staffer was “badly shot” during the early-morning attack on the school, the Catholic Diocese of Kontagora said.
Blood stains on the floor of the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School. Pic: AP
Ransom demand for worshippers
Separately, gunmen attacked a church in Kwara state on Monday, killing at least two people.
A church official said 38 worshippers were also kidnapped by the gunmen, who have since issued a ransom demand of 100 million naira (£52,660) for each person.
Kebbi, Kwara and Niger states border one another.
Worshippers run for cover after hearing gunshots in Kwara state, Nigeria. Pic: Reuters
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The attacks have highlighted insecurity in Nigeria and forced President Bola Tinubu to postpone foreign trips.
At least 1,500 students have been abducted in the region since Boko Haram extremists seized 276 Chibok schoolgirls more than a decade ago.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Niger and Kebbi state, but analysts say gangs often target schools in kidnappings for ransom.
Nigeria was recently thrust into the spotlight after Donald Trump singled the country out, claiming that Christians are being persecuted – an allegation that the government rejected.
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