Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:30Has this movement ended or is it still at its beginning?
00:00:34The anniversary of the Mahsa movement and the narrative of a
00:00:38changing society on BBC Persian uses fake names.
00:00:41Their phones are disposable and they remain hidden from view,
00:00:45not to escape the law, but to expose
00:00:48lawbreakers. They are
00:00:52BBC World Service reporters,
00:00:55and this is Global Eye from BBC.
00:00:58If the attack on the school was intentional,
00:01:31this is a clear violation of the principle of distinction.
00:01:35A missile strike
00:01:37destroyed the world of these children.
00:01:40This investigative report examines
00:01:43where this elementary school is,
00:01:45why it was targeted, and who is responsible for this
00:01:49attack in which 120 children were killed.
00:01:52Can Iran file a case of war crime in relation
00:01:56to the attack on this school? The windows of the house
00:02:09shattered. The sound of the explosion came from the school.
00:02:13I ran barefoot towards the school.
00:02:17When I got closer, smoke
00:02:20and fire were rising. I reached the girls'
00:02:24courtyard. Pieces of torn bodies
00:02:28were scattered everywhere.
00:03:00Asnat and Hesam were as usual. For
00:03:03118 other students of Shajarah Elementary School and their
00:03:07teachers, it was also a normal morning. Mikail Mirdoqi,
00:03:109 years old and in third grade, puts his bag and water bottle
00:03:14on his shoulder and, when he says goodbye in the hallway
00:03:18to go to school, he asks his mother to take a picture
00:03:21of him.
00:03:24Fatemeh Rahdar is 11 years old and in fifth grade. One
00:03:27of her relatives told us
00:03:30that every day she travels 30 kilometers by shuttle from the village
00:03:33of Bandar Kolahi to reach school. Being a studious
00:03:37child, she wants to become a doctor. Samira
00:03:41Malleh, 11 years old and in fifth grade, and her brother
00:03:44Sadra have also gone to school. Samira
00:03:48loves to dance and wants to become
00:03:50a teacher.
00:03:53Mehdi Sanjari leaves home at 7:09 AM.
00:03:57His father, as always, takes him
00:04:00to school. Mahdiz is 7 years old and loves
00:04:04skateboarding.
00:04:04They
00:04:08reach their destination. This is Shajarah
00:04:11Tayebeh Elementary School in northern Minab, 20 kilometers
00:04:15from the shores
00:04:16of the Persian Gulf.
00:04:19Brothers and sisters, as always, separate in front
00:04:23of the school. Boys enter through this door
00:04:26and girls through this door. Here, in
00:04:30the 3D map, you can see that this elementary school has two separate
00:04:34courtyards for girls and boys.
00:04:37However, their building is the same. The boys' classes
00:04:40are on the first floor, and the girls' classes are on the second
00:04:44floor. After a few hours, the teachers
00:04:48gathered in the office for an emergency meeting.
00:04:50At 9:45 AM,
00:04:54Israel and America attacked Iran.
00:04:58The order to close schools is
00:05:00given. Teachers contact parents between
00:05:0310:30 and a little after 11
00:05:06to come and pick up their children from school
00:05:10or send them home by shuttle.
00:05:14Parents rush
00:05:16towards the school in panic.
00:05:19At 1:12 PM,
00:05:23a missile targets the school building.
00:05:26The missile hits the second
00:05:33floor and the girls' classrooms,
00:05:37and the debris collapses on the boys' students
00:05:41on the lower floor. Therefore, the number of killed
00:05:44boys, which was 73, is more than the number of killed
00:05:48girls, which was announced as 47.
00:05:51Rescuers say that the officials had gathered the children
00:05:55in the prayer room, which was here, because
00:05:58they found many bodies under the debris in this area.
00:06:01Some of them, according to
00:06:04rescuers, were still in the arms
00:06:06of their teachers.
00:06:14I was stunned and confused, not knowing where to go to find
00:06:18the children. I turned my head towards the girls'
00:06:21office.
00:06:23Thick smoke and fire were coming out of the window. I thought maybe
00:06:27my children had gone into the office out of fear.
00:06:30I called out their names again with all my might.
00:06:33They were not there.
00:06:36The more I looked for my children, the more despairing
00:06:39I became. The school that day was soaked
00:06:43in blood, flesh, fire, smoke, and gunpowder.
00:06:47All the terrified people were looking for their children.
00:06:49The bodies
00:06:52of Asnat and Hesam were found the next day in the morgue.
00:06:56Their bodies were intact and identifiable. But
00:07:00the bodies of many of these children, due to
00:07:03being dismembered, were identified only by DNA testing. Makan
00:07:07Nasiri, 7 years old, was the only child of whom not
00:07:11a single trace remained. He was declared missing,
00:07:14so it is believed that the missile directly
00:07:17hit him. Parents say that the attack
00:07:21on Shajarah Tayebeh Elementary School is a war crime.
00:07:24But can Iran file a war crime case
00:07:27at the International Criminal Court
00:07:31regarding the attack on this school?
00:07:33If the attack on the school was intentional,
00:07:37meaning that the American decision-makers targeted the school
00:07:41because it was a school, this is a clear
00:07:44violation of the principle of distinction,
00:07:48meaning a violation of the distinction between
00:07:51military and civilian targets. A violation of the principle
00:07:55of distinction is considered a war crime.
00:07:57If the targeters really reasonably believed
00:08:01that the target was a military target, even in that case,
00:08:04it is difficult to say that the attack violated the principles
00:08:07of distinction and proportionality. What has almost
00:08:10certainly been violated is the principle of precaution,
00:08:14a principle that requires the parties involved
00:08:17to take all possible measures to ensure the military nature
00:08:21of the target.
00:08:24However, it is not entirely out of the question that the prosecutor will try
00:08:28to prove that in cases of severe negligence,
00:08:31for example, an attack carried out without any information
00:08:35about the target, or based on obvious
00:08:39outdated or incomplete information, criminal responsibility will also be raised.
00:08:47This school was established 10 years ago in the northeast of a complex
00:08:51belonging to the IRGC Navy and has been separated
00:08:54from this complex by a wall ever since. Many
00:08:57media outlets outside Iran have referred to this complex
00:09:01as an IRGC military base, but locals told BBC Persian
00:09:05that this complex was previously the base of the Asef Brigade
00:09:08of the IRGC Navy, but for many years it has no longer been a military
00:09:12base. Its buildings have been repurposed.
00:09:16Satellite images show that at least 3 years ago, the two
00:09:19guard towers that were in these corners were removed.
00:09:23And only one guard tower remains here, which
00:09:26one of the locals told us has been abandoned for years.
00:09:29This CCTV video,
00:09:33which the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released in early
00:09:37April, provides important details of the attack.
00:09:40With the shadows in this video and other videos from the moments
00:09:44after the impact, we concluded
00:09:48that the approximate time of the attacks was in the morning and afternoon
00:09:52of March 9th. In the first wave, which occurred between
00:09:5511 AM and 12 PM, the school was targeted.
00:09:59In this video, we see that within 50
00:10:02seconds, at least 9 missiles hit this complex.
00:10:06An examination of the geographical location of the impact points
00:10:09shows that in the 10th second, four.
00:10:18In the second wave, between 2 and 3 PM, three missiles hit
00:10:22here. A geographical analysis shows that
00:10:25these missiles hit the buildings of the Absalan clinic and its surroundings.
00:10:29These buildings had been evacuated and no casualties were
00:10:32reported. The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
00:10:36has not specified whether all the attacks
00:10:39on the school and the IRGC complex
00:10:42are shown in these images or not.
00:10:44The Martyr Absalan Clinic of the IRGC Navy
00:10:48was opened in this complex about two years ago.
00:10:52We have found that these warehouses that were destroyed
00:10:56in the missile attack are the cultural
00:10:59cooperative stores. On this side of the complex,
00:11:03there is also a car wash called Persian Gulf with a separate
00:11:06entrance and a sign installed on Resalat Boulevard.
00:11:10It is said that this warehouse, which was completely destroyed,
00:11:13was a children's playhouse, and this destroyed building
00:11:17was the clinic's warehouse. We have not been able
00:11:20to independently confirm the use of these two locations.
00:11:23Here is also a football field. This warehouse,
00:11:27which is only a few hundred meters from the school, was destroyed
00:11:30in the missile attack. This small building,
00:11:33whose entrance is on Resalat Boulevard, is a coffee shop called
00:11:36Sunset.
00:11:39In these satellite images, we see that these
00:11:42buildings were severely damaged in the missile
00:11:45attacks. In our investigations, we found
00:11:49no signs of military activities in this area belonging
00:11:52to the IRGC Navy. Therefore,
00:11:56if we assume that this was not a military base,
00:11:59can we assume that the missiles hit this
00:12:03location due to an error, and the target was somewhere
00:12:06else nearby? We searched the area around
00:12:10this school and outside the IRGC Navy compound
00:12:13using satellite images. As you can see, this area
00:12:17is full of buildings, residential, and commercial complexes.
00:12:21We were only able to identify an IRGC base
00:12:25about one kilometer to the south. Therefore,
00:12:29it does not seem that the main target was somewhere
00:12:32else nearby. Another
00:12:35reason that rejects the missile error hypothesis is that
00:12:38all military experts to whom we showed these images
00:12:42believe that these missiles are Tomahawks, among
00:12:46the most advanced and accurate long-range cruise missiles,
00:12:49with an error margin of 5 to 10
00:12:53meters. The Tomahawk
00:12:55missile
00:12:59is exclusively owned by the US. Therefore, the US military must specify why this school was attacked.
00:13:02However, the US has not yet claimed responsibility
00:13:06for this attack. We asked the Pentagon several times
00:13:10what was the reason for the attack on this complex,
00:13:13but each time they gave us the same answer that
00:13:16the US Secretary of Defense
00:13:18repeatedly gave to reporters and
00:13:23Democratic senators.
00:13:27This is despite the fact that former US military officer
00:13:30and expert in precision targeting in warfare,
00:13:33who worked at the Pentagon's Center for Excellence in Civilian
00:13:37Protection, believes that if the Pentagon
00:13:41had not confirmed that the Minab attack was their responsibility,
00:13:45they would not have started the investigation at all. According
00:13:48to Mr. Bryant, the very fact that the US military
00:13:52has started the investigation indicates that
00:15:25it is necessary for this target to be attacked, and then the most
00:15:28important stage, especially in the case of an attack on a school,
00:15:32is to examine the civilian environment and what is
00:15:35called the pattern of civilian presence around the target.
00:15:39After that, a risk assessment
00:15:41of collateral damage and civilian casualties is carried out.
00:15:45And then, if all these stages
00:15:49are completed and the decision to continue the attack
00:15:52is still made, the status of the target
00:15:55must be re-examined as close as possible
00:15:59to the actual time of the attack, not only to ensure that
00:16:03it is still a military target, but also to assess the status
00:16:06of civilians around that location.
00:16:11According to official statistics, in the attack on this school,
00:16:15120 students, 26 school officials and teachers, one of whom
00:16:19was 6 months pregnant, one service driver,
00:16:23one citizen, and 7 parents were killed.
00:16:26I lost
00:16:29two of my children together, on the same day, at the same moment. Time
00:16:33stopped
00:16:35for me right there.
00:16:38My children were full of big goals, full of enthusiasm and hope
00:16:42for the future. It's a great shame.
00:16:45According
00:16:55to official statistics, 30 of these children,
00:16:58like Asnat and Hesam, were siblings.
00:17:00Mahya
00:17:04and Ali Salari, however, were sisters.
00:17:21Now, only the father remains from this family of four.
00:18:31I tell you that I will not play with hijab under any circumstances.
00:18:34We still exist. Being banned
00:18:38from working in the Ministry of Guidance of the Islamic Republic
00:18:41does not mean elimination to me at all.
00:19:08Isfahan, December
00:19:102023 protests,
00:19:12a year
00:19:14of protests that led to the arrest
00:19:17of 16 defendants in the case known as Imam Hossein Square
00:19:21in Isfahan. Defendants who are all between 20
00:19:25and 30 years old. The first branch of the Isfahan
00:19:28Revolutionary Court has now issued death sentences
00:19:32for 10 of these defendants at the preliminary stage.
00:19:36These are the charges considered for the defendants
00:19:39in this case: Moharebeh (enmity against God), aiding in Moharebeh,
00:19:43destruction of public property in the حكم
00:19:46of Moharebeh, incitement, assembly and collusion, and propaganda
00:19:49against the system in connection with the December
00:19:522023 protests.
00:19:55Taraneh Rahimi, Navid Elyasi, Abolfazl
00:19:58Dadgostar, Mehdi Mansouri, Ahmadreza
00:20:01Saeedi, Mehrdad Boueri, Mohammad Mahdi
00:20:04Asadi, Armin Gholami, Parsa Jafari,
00:20:07and Mehdi Jafari are the 10 people who have been sentenced to death.
00:20:11Romina Rahimi and Milad Boueri have each
00:20:15been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Hamed Mehrlian
00:20:18to 15 years, Setayesh Saeedi, Sajjad Abedi, and
00:20:22Ali Boueri have each been sentenced to 5 years
00:20:25in prison. Most of them are employees of shoe
00:20:29stores in Imam Hossein Square in Isfahan. Some
00:20:32sources told the BBC that during the court session,
00:20:36a photo of Colonel Kamrani was displayed,
00:20:39an IRGC colonel whom Iranian news agencies have referred
00:20:43to as a martyr defending security and said that he was killed
00:20:47on January 8th in the Isfahan protests. However,
00:20:50a well-informed source told the BBC that the murder of Mr. Kamrani
00:20:54and another person who was killed that night has not been directly
00:20:58attributed to any of the defendants. Witnesses say
00:21:01these two people were killed in a place that was some
00:21:05distance from Imam Hossein Square in Isfahan, and the court
00:21:09has not provided any evidence linking the defendants to their murders.
00:21:12A well-informed source told the BBC that this case has fundamental
00:21:16flaws and many ambiguities. One of them is the limited
00:21:20access to the file. Also, there is a lot of evidence that shows
00:21:23that the confessions made during interrogation were not true
00:21:27and were obtained under
00:21:29pressure, abuse, and torture.
00:21:32The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran
00:21:35said a few months ago that the Islamic Republic has used execution to intimidate
00:21:39opponents and protesters during war and truce.
00:21:42The Iran Human Rights Organization reported that since
00:21:46March 19, 2023,
00:21:49at least 27 people related to the December protests
00:21:52have been executed. Most of these individuals
00:21:56were forced to make statements against themselves under pressure
00:22:00and torture and were deprived of basic prisoner rights.
00:22:04Farin Hashemi, BBC.
00:22:05At the same time as the real war
00:22:12that was going on in various cities of Iran and several
00:22:15other involved countries, another war was taking place in the cyber space.
00:22:21A war between fake and real, a war between
00:22:25doubt about visual documents and trust in them. Ali
00:22:28Mardani from Witness Institute has been working on this AI
00:22:32risk for a long time. This war that has been going
00:22:36on in Iran and several other countries in the region
00:22:40has coincided with the availability of AI tools. Perhaps
00:22:43it can be said that this is the first big war and the biggest
00:22:47war that we have witnessed since the popularization of AI.
00:22:50Now, access and the amount of AI content
00:22:53have become much higher than the other war we were
00:22:57talking about. It seems that the investment of both
00:23:01sides of the war or several sides of the war
00:23:04in these tools has also increased. You see, whenever there has been
00:23:07war in world history, we have always
00:23:10seen propaganda from all
00:23:13sides, and now this propaganda
00:23:16with AI has another effect and...
00:23:20We have really reached a point where it is very
00:23:23difficult for ordinary people to distinguish what is real and what
00:23:27is not real. We see that
00:23:31a lot of believable content is being created. When
00:23:35a user sees such convincing content,
00:23:38what can be expected of them to be able
00:23:41to distinguish real content from AI content?
00:23:45It has become very difficult, and we are
00:23:49seeing that
00:23:51when you talk to very professional people,
00:23:55with people who do fact-checking
00:23:58professionally, everyone is saying that
00:24:02the number has increased so much
00:24:04and its reality has also gone up so much that
00:24:08it has become very difficult, and there is a great need
00:24:11for responsibility to be on those who have power in this
00:24:15space, from AI models that create content
00:24:19to transparency systems. They are in the model itself,
00:24:23and now we don't see companies saying that they are trying
00:24:26to label and do different
00:24:30things. In such a way that it cannot be done, and it is not enough,
00:24:33meaning that information about the reality of content
00:24:37is not enough. The speed
00:24:40with which lies spread in cyberspace, don't you see
00:24:44that lies spread faster? Lies not only spread
00:24:48faster, they also get bought faster
00:24:51than reality, because some people are waiting
00:24:54to believe that fake or fabricated content.
00:24:58That's exactly how it is. We all have our own beliefs,
00:25:02and when
00:25:04fake content matches our beliefs,
00:25:08it's easier to accept it. And in
00:25:12the toxic environment we see in Iran, we ourselves
00:25:16know that this toxic information environment has been created
00:25:19by the Islamic Republic for 47 years. Before the internet and
00:25:23after the internet, to control information, and through
00:25:26the media or through the internet, it's such
00:25:30that any information coming out of Iran, if it's connected
00:25:34to the regime itself, we can easily understand
00:25:38why people don't believe it. But in
00:25:41an environment like this, where there is a war
00:25:44and people are in danger, not knowing what is real
00:25:47and what is not real
00:25:50can put people's lives in great danger. The fact
00:25:54that people doubt what is really happening to them can
00:25:57threaten their lives. Exactly.
00:26:01I myself am in Iran, I am in Iranian society,
00:26:04and I see how those around me
00:26:07always ask me, "Is this real? What
00:26:11should we believe now? Did they really hit this building?
00:26:14Are they really killing civilians?" In this human
00:26:18rights work, where we are always looking for documents
00:26:22to record crimes
00:26:25against human rights, it has become very difficult,
00:26:29especially in this environment where everyone doubts
00:26:33us. We are now in the middle of this war,
00:26:37a while after one of the most unprecedented
00:26:39moments in Iran's history, where thousands of people
00:26:43were killed by the Islamic Republic, and the information
00:26:47environment at that time, access
00:26:49to documents of those crimes was very difficult
00:26:53because of what the Islamic Republic did, from cutting
00:26:57off the internet, from threatening
00:27:00the families of the victims, arresting people who were filming.
00:27:04That is, they were censoring our access
00:27:07to documents in every way. Now we are in
00:27:10a situation where civilians are dying in this war,
00:27:14and the Islamic Republic is doing its best
00:27:17to prevent us from having access to documents.
00:27:21That is, through the government and state
00:27:25media, they are sending photographers.
00:27:28It is understandable that people doubt
00:27:40this content. How much does this internet outage
00:27:43and prevention of people's access to content publication
00:27:47affect people's resorting to AI and similar
00:27:51tools to doubt any content that is coming out? Israel
00:27:55is a very big factor in this space and knows
00:27:58what kind of content the people
00:28:02of Iran, who are fed up with the Islamic Republic,
00:28:05will buy. And in a place where we cannot hear
00:28:09the real voice of the Iranian people, this
00:28:11content can easily take its place and be believable.
00:28:15We saw content from
00:28:18the Ekbatan building where the Israeli
00:28:21flag was projected with light onto the building,
00:28:25and we easily realized that it was made
00:28:29with AI. But you see, in an environment
00:28:32where the Islamic Republic is silencing the voice of the Iranian
00:28:36people, such content will be bought,
00:28:40and this is how we see AI filling
00:28:43the gap of this outage and these censors.
00:28:47That is, the internet outage and censorship that is currently
00:28:50being imposed on the majority of Iranians here
00:28:53is also damaging the image that Iranians can
00:28:56see of what is happening in their country. Exactly. In this
00:29:00space, we see, for example, a country like Israel
00:29:04can fill this content gap with fake content.
00:29:57This is BBC Persian Radio. Jam-e-Jahanama,
00:30:00a live look at the most important
00:30:03news and events in Iran
00:30:05and the world.
00:30:12Stay with us for the latest developments.
00:30:15Jam-e-Jahanama
00:30:19with you.
00:30:22This is London,
00:30:268 PM Tehran. Headlines:
00:30:30World economy worried about escalating crisis
00:30:33in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb. Saudi Arabia
00:30:36has promised a decisive response to Houthi attacks.
00:30:40Iran says that equations related to oil and the straits
00:30:43have changed. Confirmation of a shortage
00:30:46of strategic weapons due to the war with Iran
00:30:50in a report published by the US Department of Defense's
00:30:53Inspector General. Trump had repeatedly
00:30:57denied concerns about declining weapons stockpiles,
00:31:01the news agency