According to Iran Human Rights Monitor (IHR), at least 1,791 people have been executed this year, marking a staggering rise from the 993 executions recorded in 2024.

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

Iran continues to accuse Israel of orchestrating false-flag attacks against Jews and Israelis abroad to stoke fears of antisemitism in the wake of the Bondi Beach massacre, even as the regime escalates its own domestic crackdown, with public executions reaching record levels.

Speaking to commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Sunday, Iranian military chief Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi referred to the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people and wounded at least 40 others, as “not the first time that Jews have been targeted in an attempt to portray Israel as a victim,” accusing the Jewish state of committing similar crimes in the past.

“The Zionist regime has assassinated members of the Jewish community and their affiliates in other countries to prevent reverse migration, escape internal turmoil, and instill antisemitism,” Mousavi said.

However, as the Islamist regime in Iran continues to issue baseless accusations, Australian and Israeli authorities are actually investigating whether Tehran had a role in orchestrating the mass shooting targeting Sydney’s Jewish community, citing the regime’s long history of plotting terrorist attacks abroad.

According to Iranian media, Mousavi also accused the United States and Israel of wrongdoing, saying “the events of the past two years have exposed their criminal nature to the world.”

“Enemies of the country are lawbreakers, warmongers, and deceivers, and they do not adhere to any international law or humanitarian norms,” he said.

In the immediate aftermath of the Dec. 14 massacre at Bondi Beach, the Iranian Foreign Ministry publicly condemned the “violent attack” in Sydney, though the statement was vague and made no mention of antisemitism, the local Jewish community, or any specific target.

However, Iranian state and semi-official media pushed a starkly different narrative, spreading conspiracy theories that framed the attack as a plot orchestrated by Israel.

Other outlets expressed support for the attack, even praising it, claiming that the rabbi who was killed during the massacre, Eli Schlanger, was a “staunch advocate of genocide in Gaza.”

The Iranian news agency Mehr openly called “the Zionist regime” the main suspect, portraying the attack as a “false flag” operation allegedly designed to serve Israeli interests.

Earlier this year, Britain, the United States, France, and 11 other allies issued a joint statement condemning a rise in Iranian assassination and kidnapping plots in the West, as a new report warned Tehran has been intensifying efforts to target Jewish communities abroad.

With a surge in assassination, kidnapping, and harassment plots targeting individuals in multiple countries, Western allies urged Iranian authorities to halt these illegal actions, noting how the regime continues to promote antisemitism abroad and recruits criminal networks to carry out attacks against Jews.

Iran is facing mounting international pressure not only over its terror operations abroad but also for its escalating brutal internal crackdown amid growing domestic tensions and crises.

According to Iran Human Rights Monitor (IHR), a Norway-based NGO that tracks the death penalty in the country, at least 1,791 people have been executed this year, marking a staggering rise from the 993 executions recorded in 2024.

Most of those executed were accused of collaborating with Mossad — Israel’s national intelligence agency — and aiding covert operations in Tehran, such as assassinations and sabotage targeting the country’s nuclear program.

With at least 61 women among those executed, Iran remains the world’s leading executioner on a per capita basis, using capital punishment as a tool of repression, fear, and ideological control.

Last week, a group of survivors, together with the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC), filed a criminal complaint in Argentina accusing Iranian authorities of crimes against humanity committed during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

In a first-ever legal action of its kind, survivors of the regime’s atrocities filed a criminal complaint against 40 named Iranian officials, alleging gender persecution, murder, torture, and other brutal acts, including targeted blinding, in response to the regime’s brutal 2022 crackdown.

With this lawsuit, plaintiffs are asking the Argentine court to investigate senior figures in Iran’s intelligence services, military, police, the IRGC, and civilian government for their roles in a widespread and systematic assault on civilians.

Among those filing the complaint is Mahsa Piraei, one of Minoo Majidi’s three children, seeking justice for her 62-year-old mother who was shot dead in September 2022.

According to autopsy reports, more than 167 metal pellets were fired into her back at point-blank range.

“In our own country, we could not find justice for my mother’s killing, as the judiciary is neither fair nor independent,” Piraei said. “But today, I am happy that this crime has not crushed our hope for justice, and that our efforts are finally bearing fruit.”

“With the help of human rights lawyers, we are taking our case to courts outside of Iran,” she continued. “I believe that our perseverance as families seeking justice, and our commitment to upholding human dignity, is a global cause that knows no borders.”

The 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests erupted nationwide after Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, died in a Tehran police station following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s hijab rules, igniting a nationwide uprising calling for human rights and individual freedoms.

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MNSNBC suggested in recent days that Trump could not have been shot in the ear by a high-caliber rifle bullet, as it would’ve left little ear behind.

By Andrew Kerr, The Washington Free Beacon

A conspiracy theory has run unabated in Democratic circles following the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump on Saturday.

It posits that Trump staged the shooting for a photo op, that the wound on his ear was caused by something other than an assassin’s bullet, and that he was never in mortal danger.

It’s a baseless conspiracy theory disproven by reams of documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts. And it’s a belief held by one-third of the Democratic electorate.

One in three registered Democrats believe it is “credible” that the shooting Saturday in Butler, Pa., was staged and not intended to kill Trump, according to a Morning Consult poll released Monday.

The findings show that large swaths of the Democratic base have fallen prey to the phenomenon known as “BlueAnon,” a play on the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory that once gripped portions of the Republican base and served as an obsession of the mainstream media throughout the first Trump administration.

But the Morning Consult poll shows that BlueAnon adherents among the Democratic base far outnumber their QAnon counterparts on the right.

The poll showed that 34 percent of Democratic voters found it either definitely or probably credible that Trump staged Saturday’s shooting, with less than half—45 percent—saying the conspiracy theory is not credible.

By comparison, a widely cited 2021 poll found that only 23 percent of Republicans were QAnon believers.

The rise of BlueAnon can be attributed to prominent Democratic activists and liberal media commentators egging on the notion that Trump staged Saturday’s shooting.

Democratic powerbroker Dmitri Mehlhorn, an ally of President Joe Biden who has made at least 10 visits to his White House, wasted no time fanning the flames of conspiracy in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s assassination attempt.

Mehlhorn on Saturday evening sent a memo to reporters imploring them to portray the shooting as a false-flag operation straight from Vladimir Putin’s playbook, designed to give Trump a good photo opportunity.

“This is a classic Russian tactic, such as when Putin killed 300 civilians in 1999 and blamed it on terrorists to ride the backlash to winning power,” Mehlhorn wrote.

Mehlhorn did not address the numerous photos that captured bullets whizzing just inches away from Trump’s face and blood running from the clearly visible bullet wound across his right ear as Secret Service agents escorted the former president off the stage.

Nor did he mention the death of firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was shot while shielding his family from the assassin’s bullets.

Mehlhorn is hardly the only liberal activist pushing the conspiracy to liberal voters.

Jeff Tiedrich, a liberal social media influencer with 1.1 million followers who attended an Oct. 2022 White House influencer summit to coordinate midterm election messaging with the Biden administration, on Monday posted a Substack screed “connecting some weird dots” surrounding the shooting.

“Did the extreme right want this to happen?” Tiedrich wrote, speculating the shooting could have been connected to a plot to replace Trump atop the GOP ticket with former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Tiedrich, who did not return a request for comment, on Thursday mocked the Washington Post for describing the shooting as “Trump’s near-death experience” and said there was no hard evidence that a bullet grazed the former president’s ear.

“What the fuck is going on under that bandage?” Tiedrich asked. “And why is the press so disinterested in finding out?”

Liberal MSNBC commentators have adopted a subtler approach to fanning the conspiratorial flames, suggesting in recent days that Trump could not have been shot in the ear by a high-caliber rifle bullet and that the former president is hiding something by not releasing detailed medical records about his wound.

“If he was shot by a high-caliber bullet, there should probably be very little ear there,” MSNBC host Michael Steele told viewers on Tuesday.

Steele’s fellow MSNBC host Joy Reid on Wednesday joined him in asking questions about Trump’s injuries.

“I have many questions!” Reid wrote on Threads. “Like where are the medical reports? What caused Trump’s injury and what was the injury? Sheapnel? [sic] Glass? A bullet?”

Reid doubled down on her baseless conjecture Thursday morning, posting a video to TikTok in which she said that “we still don’t know for sure whether Donald Trump was hit by a bullet,” glass fragments, or something else.

She then suggested something nefarious was behind the Secret Service’s having “allowed” Trump to pump his fist as agents led him off the rally stage.

“We don’t know why, for nine full seconds, Donald Trump was allowed to stand back up during an active shooting, an active shooter situation,” Reid said.

“Even though they at that point had said the shooter was down, how would they have known if there were more shooters or not?”

“Yet they allowed him to stand up in the middle of that, you know, crisis and pose for a photo and fist-pump the air so he could get the iconic photo?” Reid added.

MSNBC did not return a request for comment.

Straight news reporters have also joined in on the baseless speculation. Former CNN reporter John Harwood wrote Thursday morning that an AR-15 bullet could not have pierced Trump’s ear without blowing the ear to smithereens.

“On the other hand it’s easy to imagine a shard of shattered glass causing the bleeding Trump suffered,” Harwood said before adding that he is “not familiar with ballistics at all.”

Democratic conspiracy-mongering could distract from legitimate questions about the Secret Service’s response to Saturday’s shooting.

Agency director Kimberly Cheatle is facing GOP calls to resign from her post following revelations that, 10 minutes before Trump took the stage, Secret Service agents spotted the gunman on the roof where he carried out the attack.

Cheatle said Tuesday the roof was left unprotected because it was “sloped.”

“And so there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so the decision was made to secure the building, from inside,” Cheatle said.

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