Iranian authorities have shot and killed a man celebrating the country's elimination from the 2022 World Cup, according to a human rights group, as the Islamic Republic intensified its attempt to quash dissent in the wake of Mahsa Amini's death in September.
The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights said 27-year-old Mehran Samak was one of many citizens celebrating the loss of Iran — the national team symbolises the regime to many Iranians — across the country after the United States claimed a one-nil victory in Qatar.
"He was shot in the head by state forces when he went out to celebrate the Islamic Republic's loss … in Bandar Anzali," the organisation said on Twitter.
"The Islamic Republic's Forensic Medical Organisation is refusing to return [his] body to his family despite a crowd of people gathering outside the building to support them."
The United Nations says more than 300 people have been killed so far and 14,000 arrested in the protests that followed Ms Amini death in custody.
The Kurdish woman's death in September after being arrested by the notorious Tehran morality police, has triggered more than two months of protests that pose the biggest challenge to the clerical regime since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Female journalists arrested
Iranian authorities have arrested a female journalist from a reformist newspaper and two actors behind a viral video as the Islamic republic continues to crack down on dissent.
Security forces arrested Shargh newspaper journalist Nastaran Farokheh at her home on Sunday (local time) and confiscated her laptop and phone, as well as the phones of her family members, the newspaper said on its website.
"The reason for the arrest is not yet clear," it said.
Farokheh's arrest is the third of a female journalist from Shargh newspaper since the protests broke out.
The first, Niloufar Hamedi, was arrested on September 20 after she visited the hospital where Ms Amini spent three days in a coma before her death.
Hamedi was charged on November 8 along with another female journalist, Elaheh Mohammadi of Ham Mihan newspaper, with propaganda against the state and conspiring against national security.
The second female journalist at Shargh to be arrested was Marzieh Amiri, who was detained on November 1, the newspaper said.
Mohammadi was taken into custody on September 29 after she travelled to Ms Amini's hometown of Saqez in Kurdistan province to cover her funeral.
The reformist newspaper Sazandegi reported in late October that more than 20 journalists were being held for their reporting of Ms Amini's death or the subsequent unrest.
The business newspaper Jahan-e Sanat was closed down last week after accusations were made against the security forces, the judiciary said.
On October 30, more than 300 journalists issued a joint statement criticising the detention of their colleagues and the denial of their rights, including access to lawyers.
Actors behind viral video arrested
Authorities also arrested the two actors behind a viral video where a group of film and theatre figures stood silently without headscarves in solidarity with the protest movement, a rights group said Wednesday.
The actor and director Soheila Golestani, who appeared without her headscarf in the video, and the male director Hamid Pourazari, who also appeared prominently, have both been arrested, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said.
It was not clear where they were being held, it added. Some reports suggested they had been detained as the World Cup football clash between Iran and the US got underway late Tuesday but this could not be immediately confirmed.
In the video, Golestani, wearing black, walks into the shot without a hijab and turns around to reveal her face, looking directly into the camera.
Nine other women then join Golestani with the same gesture, as do five men.
The Iran Wire website said all those in the video were Iranian actors. It was not clear if they too risk arrest.
Prominent Iranian playwright Naghmeh Samini confirmed on her Instagram account that Golestani and Pourazari had been arrested.
She described the arrests as the "reaction of the some of the audience" to a "performance".
Breaking taboos
Several Iranian actors have during the protest movement made taboo-breaking gestures of removing their headscarves, with are mandatory for women in the Islamic republic.
Earlier this month, Taraneh Alidoosti, one of Iran's best-known actors remaining in the country, posted an image of herself on social media without a headscarf.
Iran also arrested two prominent actors, Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi, who expressed solidarity with the protest movement and removed their headscarves in public in an apparent act of defiance.
Both have now been released on bail, reports said.
Iranian cinema figures were under pressure even before the start of the protest movement sparked by Ms Amini's death.
Prize-winning directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi remain in detention after their arrests earlier this year.
French ambassador summoned
The Islamic republic's foreign ministry summoned the French ambassador on Wednesday following a unanimous vote by lawmakers in Paris earlier this week condemning infringement of liberties and women's rights, state media said.
During the debate on the resolution in the French parliament on Monday, Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna condemned "the Iranian regime's massive use of arbitrary detention, censorship, violence".
She said Iran was responding with "repression" to the "legitimate aspirations of Iranian women and men".
On Wednesday, French ambassador Nicolas Roche heard Iran's "strong protest against the baseless accusations" and "unacceptable interventions", the official IRNA news agency reported.
The French resolution "condemns in the strongest terms the brutal and widespread repression" of "non-violent protesters".
It also "demands the immediate release of seven French nationals who have been arbitrarily detained".
Iran has accused Western countries, including France, of stoking the unrest that has rocked the country.
AFP/ABC/Reuters
