Tehran spies on Christians and ethnic minorities. And hangs two 'blasphemers'

A report by Lookout Threat Lab researchers shows the extensive use of spyware to monitor dialogues, movements and activities. A repression that has intensified with the protests over the killing of Mahsa Amini. Hundreds of people were targeted, but the numbers are underestimated. On 8 May, two men were executed in Arak prison.

Tehran (AsiaNews) - Christians, as well as members of other ethnic and religious minorities, have also ended up in the Islamic Republic's intelligence network, which has used spyware and other technological means to monitor their conversations, movements and activities over the past year.

A mesh of controls and espionage, which has grown stronger in recent months, especially after the start of street protests for rights and freedoms linked to the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.

A report released in recent days by Lookout Threat Lab researchers revelas that the protagonists of this massive monitoring campaign are intelligence officers linked to the Disciplinary Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Faraja). 

Since March 2020, at least 487 mobile devices have been infected with the 'BouldSpy' programme, which has the ability to extract data including photographs, screenshots of conversations, and recordings of video calls from applications such as Whatsapp and Telegram.

According to the data released by the US-based body, the majority of the victims live in areas where ethnic minorities such as Kurdistan, Sistan and Baluchistan and the western Azerbaijan province where Armenians, Assyrians and Chaldeans are more prevalent. 

Of these, at least 25 espionage cases can be counted in the city of Urmia, which is "historically associated with Armenian and Chaldean Christianity," Kyle Schmittle of Lookout Threat Intelligence Researcher points out to Article18.

"“Some files stolen from victims indicate Christian faith, particularly snippets or scanned sections of relevant books,” he added.," he continues. And Faraja's men would be behind the interceptions, because 'the first data collection location was in the immediate vicinity of a police station, border checkpoint, cyber police headquarters or military facility'. 

For Schmittle, the BouldSpy malware was 'in all probability' installed using physical access to the device 'when a victim was in detention', and some of them also had 'photos of official Faraja documents on their devices', indicating that they had been arrested.

A peak was reportedly recorded at the height of the protests for Mahsa Amini in October 2022, with the rate of infection of the devices rising from 23-30 from July to September to 74 in October, then falling back to 23 in November even though 'the number is much higher' and the data 'underestimated' because the infiltration data is deleted. 

From the Islamic Republic also comes news of the hanging of two men in Arak prison on 8 May. The two had been arrested in 2020 and sentenced to death for blasphemy (burning of the Koran), insulting the Muslim faith and the Prophet Mohammed. According to the indictment, they ran online platforms where messages were broadcast.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norwegian NGO Iran Human Rights, emphasises that "the execution of Yousef and Sadrollah for 'insulting the prophet' is not only a cruel act of a medieval regime, but is also a grave insult to freedom of expression".

The activist leader adds that 'there has been a surge in executions' following the 'anti-government' riots linked to Mahsa Amini's death, but hangings for blasphemy 'are rare'. Tehran is second only to China in the number of executions and has already executed over 200 people this year alone.