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Here’s What You Didn’t Read About the Jewish Man Executed By Iran
Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani. Photo: screenshot.
Regarding the execution of Jewish Iranian citizen Arvin Ghahremani, the Associated Press wholeheartedly embraces the dubious narrative of the Islamic regime’s judiciary. While selling its wares on the mantra of “Advancing the power of facts,” the leading news service conceals the harrowing basic facts from readers — that the young man’s family insisted that he was defending himself from his attacker, and that the Iran Human Rights advocacy group slammed the legal case’s “significant flaws.”
The AP’s Nov. 4 coverage ignored the case’s glaring problems, and hewed closely to the line espoused from a website affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, starting with a headline that frames Ghahremani’s act as motivated by nothing more than money, as opposed to self-preservation: “Iran executes a Jewish citizen convicted of murder following a dispute over money.”
With no byline and a dateline of Tehran, the AP’s article begins:
Iran on Monday executed a Jewish citizen convicted of murdering another man in 2022 following a personal dispute, reports said. It was a rare case of an execution of member of a religious minority in the predominately Muslim nation.
Mizanonline.ir, a website affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, said 23-year-old Arvin Ghahremani was put to death after the country’s Supreme Court affirmed the capital punishment handed down in the case earlier last year. …
According to the report, Ghahramani attacked the victim outside a gym in Kermanshah in 2022 and stabbed the man several times following a dispute over money he had loaned the victim.
“In the midst of the threats of war with Israel, the Islamic republic executed Arvin Ghahremani, an Iranian Jewish citizen,” said IHR [Iran Human Rights] director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding the legal case had “significant flaws.”
“However, in addition to this, Arvin was a Jew, and the institutionalised anti-Semitism in the Islamic republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the execution of his sentence,” Amiry-Moghaddam added.
IHR said that Ghahremani was accused of killing a man during a street fight in Kermanshah two years ago. But it said that, according to his family, he had been attacked with a knife and defended himself using the attacker’s weapon.
Unlike AFP, the Associated Press story contained no mention of the claim of self-defense, nothing about IHR’s statement about “significant flaws” in the case, not a word about Amiry-Moghaddam’s charge that “institutionalized antisemitism … undoubtedly played a crucial role” in the ruling, and no hint of the backdrop of Iran’s attacks on Israel and its ongoing threats to wipe the Jewish State off the face of the earth.
Furthermore, AFP included additional essential information, raising further questions about the Iranian judiciary’s version of events which the AP shared without challenge:
The defendant’s lawyers requested a retrial three times, but each request was rejected, it added.
Mizan said that Ghahremani was 21 at the time of the fight. However IHR said he was 18 then, with other reports saying he was 20 or 21 by the time of his execution.
Moreover, the AP’s selective reporting omitted a clear indication that antisemitism played a key role in Ghahremani’s execution. Thus, the AP story noted the “the convicted man’s lawyers and relatives had failed to convince the victim’s family to abstain from qisas — an act under Islamic penal code that calls for similar punishment, or an ‘eye for an eye’ — and effectively pardon his killer.”
But, according to the Iran Human Rights NGO, Shokri’s family had initially agreed to pardon Ghahremani — that is, until they learned that Ghahremani was Jewish. Thus, IHR reported:
An informed source told IHRNGO: “Arvin’s religion was initially cited as Shia Muslim in the case and the victim’s family agreed to accept diya but changed their mind and insisted on his execution when they discovered that he was Jewish.”
Finally, on Nov. 6, Voice of America (VOA) revealed additional red flags indicating that there’s more to the story than the laundered Mizan-Iranian judiciary-AP version lets on (“New details emerge in Iran’s first execution of Jewish minority member in 30 years“):
VOA has learned that Arvin Ghahremani, the first Jewish person executed by the Islamic Republic in 30 years, was put to death in the western city of Kermanshah on Monday without prior notice to his family. …
A U.S.-based source with contacts in Iran sent VOA the text of a letter that Ghahremani’s Iranian lawyer, Peyman Saketkhou, wrote on Tuesday and stated that Ghahremani had been executed without notice to family members or defense lawyers. …
The source requested anonymity to safeguard communications with Iran-based lawyers, whose work on cases dealing with sensitive issues has exposed them to harassment and arrest by Iranian authorities.
“The execution of Ghahremani without notice to the family shows the cruelty of the regime,” George Haroonian, an Iranian American rights activist, said in a statement to VOA.
According to VOA:
Another Iran-based rights group, Human Rights Activists in Iran, reacted to Ghahremani’s execution by noting that under Iranian law, when a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, qisas does not give the non-Muslim’s family the right to seek the offender’s execution. It said that in such cases, only blood money or lesser punishments typically are imposed.
Finally, VOA included a reaction from the US government:
The Biden administration issued its first reaction to Ghahremani’s execution on Wednesday.
“We are dismayed by reports that the regime in Iran executed Arvin Ghahramani. The circumstances of the case and the prosecution raise troubling questions about due process,” U.S. special envoy Deborah Liptstadt said in a post on the X platform.
Meanwhile, while CAMERA contacted the AP about the gross failings of wire service’s Nov. 4 article the very same day it was published, the news agency has neither improved its initial story nor published a follow up with the developments noted by Voice of America.
“Advancing the power of facts” is the AP’s promise to readers, and concealing the troubling questions about due process in the horrific execution of Arvin Ghahremani is the reality.
Tamar Sternthal is the director of CAMERA’s Israel Office. A version of this article previously appeared on the CAMERA website.
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Washington Warns UK, France Against Recognizing Palestinian Statehood
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy leaves Downing Street, following the results of the election, in London, Britain, July 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
i24 News – The United States has warned the UK and France not to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference scheduled for June 17 in New York, the Middle East Eye reported Tuesday.
France and Saudi Arabia will co-host this conference on the two-state solution, with Paris reportedly preparing to unilaterally recognize Palestine. France is also pressuring London to follow this path, according to sources from the British Foreign Office.
French media reports indicate that French authorities believe they have the agreement of the British government. Meanwhile, Arab states are encouraging this move, measuring the success of the conference by the recognitions obtained.
This initiative deeply divides Western allies. If France and the UK were to carry out this recognition, they would become the first G7 nations to take this step, causing a “political earthquake” according to observers, given their historical ties with Israel. The Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer threatened last week to annex parts of the West Bank if this recognition took place, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
In the United Kingdom, Foreign Secretary David Lammy publicly opposes unilateral recognition, stating that London would only recognize a Palestinian state when we know that it is going to happen and that it is in view.
However, pressure is mounting within the Labour Party. MP Uma Kumaran, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the government was elected on a platform that promised to recognize Palestine as a step towards a just and lasting peace. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, believes that there is no legitimate reason for the United States to interfere in a sovereign decision of recognition, while highlighting the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump on this issue.
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Police, Shin Bet Thwart Suspected Iranian Attempt Perpetrate Terror Attack
A small number of Jewish worshipers pray during the priestly blessing, a traditional prayer which usually attracts thousands of worshipers at the Western Wall on the holiday of Passover during 2020, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 12, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Ronen Zvulun.
i24 News – The Shin Bet security agency and Israel Police thwarted another Iranian attempt to recruit Israelis, according to a statement on Tuesday, arresting a resident of East Jerusalem for allegedly carrying out missions for the Islamic Republic.
Iranian agents recruited the suspect, who in turn recruited members of his family. He is a resident of the Isawiya neighborhood in his 30s, and is accused of maintaining contact with a hostile foreign entity to harm the state by carrying out a terrorist attack against Jews.
The suspect had already begun perpetrating acts of sabotage and espionage, including collecting intelligence about areas in Jerusalem, including the Western Wall and Mahane Yehuda Market. He also hung signs, burned Israeli army uniforms, and more in exchange for payment totaling thousands of shekels.
He was also charged with planning a terror attack in central Israel, including setting fire to a forest, and was told to transfer weapons to terrorist elements in the West Bank.
The suspect’s sought the help of family members, including his mother. A search at his home revealed sums of cash, a spray can used in some of his activities, airsoft guns, suspected illegal drugs, and more.
His indictment is expected to be filed by the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office.
The statement said that the case is yet another example of Iranian efforts to recruit Israelis. “We will continue to coordinate efforts to thwart terrorism and terrorist elements, including those operating outside Israel, while attempting to mobilize local elements in order to protect the citizens of the State of Israel,” the Shin Bet and Police said.
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Pro-Russian, Anti-Israeli Hackers Pose Biggest Cybercrime Threats in Germany
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt holds a chart showing the development of antisemitic crime, during a press conference on Figures for Politically Motivated Crime in the Country, in Berlin, Germany, May 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Cybercrime in Germany rose to a record level last year, driven by hacker attacks from pro-Russian and anti-Israeli groups, the BKA Federal Crime Office reported on Tuesday as the government said it would boost countermeasures to combat it.
“Cybercrime is an increasing threat to our security,” said Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt. “It is getting more aggressive but our counter-strategies are also becoming more professional,” he said.
Some 131,391 cases of cybercrime took place in Germany last year and a further 201,877 cases were committed from abroad or an unknown location, a BKA report said.
The actors behind the hacker attacks on German targets were primarily either pro-Russian or anti-Israeli, said the BKA, adding targets were mostly public and federal institutions.
Ransomware, when criminals copy and encrypt data, is one of the main threats, said the BKA, with 950 companies and institutes reporting cases in 2024.
German digital association Bitkom said damage caused by cyberattacks here totaled 178.6 billion euros ($203.87 billion) last year, some 30.4 billion euros more than in the previous year.
Dobrindt said the government planned to extend the legal capabilities authorities could use to combat cybercrime and set higher security standards for companies.
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