Iran's Interior Ministry Declares 'Mahabad Incident' Case Closed

The Deputy Security and Police Chief of Iran's Interior Ministry announced the 'closure of the Mahabad case', stating, 'The individual involved was not an intelligence officer, and we have concluded that no government or intelligence agent was involved in this incident.' Hossein Zolfaqari, in an interview with the Tasnim news agency published on Tuesday, June 15, stated, 'The Mahabad case was thoroughly examined by our experts, and we reached the necessary conclusions, which revealed that the primary cause of the gathering in front of the Tara Hotel in this city was the provocation of people through social media.' The Deputy Minister referred to the Mahabad incident as 'a fabricated event' that resulted in 'false news being generated in cyberspace.' The Mahabad events refer to the death of 28-year-old Parinaz Khosravani, whose death was reported by some social media users and news pages linked to Kurdish opposition parties as an attempt to prevent 'the assault of an intelligence officer' on her. In these narratives, it was claimed that Ms. Khosravani threw herself out of a window of one of the hotel rooms where she worked to prevent this issue and died. However, hotel managers denied this, and the head of the judiciary in West Azerbaijan Province stated that based on the examination of text messages from the accused and Parinaz Khosravani, it was determined that the deceased willingly went to his room and, after being informed by one of her 'colleagues' that the hotel manager was 'monitoring the surveillance cameras', she intended to jump from the balcony to the lower floor, resulting in her death. Despite this, protests over Parinaz Khosravani's death began very quickly in Mahabad, during which part of the Tara Hotel was also set on fire. The Ministry of Intelligence announced that its forces had arrested members of a 'four-member military team' who had entered Iran for 'sabotage actions' after the events at the Tara Hotel, with 'quantities of weapons and military ammunition' in western Iran. However, the Deputy Security and Police Chief emphasized that 'the individual responsible is currently in prison' and 'the media can also interview him to prove the lack of affiliation of that individual with government agencies for those who are still looking for something else.' This official of Hassan Rouhani's government did not explain how the media could ascertain the 'lack of affiliation of the accused with government agencies' through an interview. Mr. Zolfaqari added that 'some individuals with political motives wanted to enter this wave to present the issue in another way, which was resolved wisely by the officials and local trusted figures.'