The U.S. State Department has denounced Iran’s escalating crackdown on Christians, highlighting the case of a Catholic woman who has resorted to a hunger strike while imprisoned in one of Iran’s most notorious detention facilities.

The Trump administration’s statement, addressing the Iranian regime’s extensive human rights abuses, was released alongside recent military actions in response to Iran’s aggression toward commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

The woman on hunger strike is 42-year-old Ghazal Marzban, incarcerated in Evin prison in Tehran, known for its harsh conditions, as reported by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Marzban, a Catholic, has been sentenced to nearly a decade in prison for her religious beliefs, according to Iranian specialists speaking to News Media. As of late May, her health has deteriorated significantly due to her protest. Her current status remains uncertain.

It remains unclear whether the administration intends to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran’s leadership regarding their widespread persecution of religious minorities and political dissenters.

A State Department spokesperson told News Media, “We are aware of these reports. It is reprehensible that the Iranian regime continues to persecute religious minorities, including Iranian Christians.”

Article 18, an organization that promotes religious freedom in Iran, noted that following Marzban’s conversion, the Islamic law graduate was banned from taking her bar entry examination. Her husband, who also converted to Christianity, has been denied medicine for his Parkinson’s disease, according to Article 18.

News Media sent a press query to Iran’s U.N. Mission about Marzban and the plight of practicing Christians in Iran.

The State Department spokesperson said, “In Iran, human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, association, and religion or belief, are completely ignored. The regime targets members of religious and ethnic minority groups and uses tactics like arbitrary arrest and torture to intimidate opponents and silence dissent.”

After the regime reportedly murdered as many as 45,000 Iranian demonstrators within a 48-hour period in January, including as many as 22 Iranian Christians, the security forces of the regime arrested vast numbers of protesters.

President Donald Trump has cited the number of 45,000 Iranians killed by the regime. The State Department told News Media that Iran’s leaders should free those protesters still in detention.

“We reaffirm our unwavering solidarity with the people of Iran and call for the immediate and unconditional release of all political and wrongfully detained prisoners, including those facing persecution for peacefully exercising their fundamental freedoms,” said the State Department spokesperson.

Lisa Daftari, an expert on Iran who is the editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, told News Media that the joint U.S.-Israel elimination of the former supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, in February, “Hasn’t eased pressure. On the contrary, we are seeing more escalation and the implementation of even more hardline influences.”

Daftari said the “Arrests of Christians jumped from 139 in 2024 to 254 in 2025, alongside longer and more frequent sentences. At least 11 people received over a decade. After the recent war, authorities claimed they had ‘neutralized’ 53 elements, which is how they refer to evangelical Christians. That is because the Islamic Republic views conversion as a security threat.”

Hengaw, an organization that monitors human rights violations in Iran, reported on its website on July 3 that the regime plans to seize the St. Peter Church in Tehran. Daftari said, “This is a large Christian compound with schools and family homes, and roughly 20 Armenian and Assyrian families are being expelled under a Revolutionary Court order that’s been sitting unused since 1998.”

When asked about a policy response from the U.S., Daftari said, “If there’s going to be a response, it has to be targeted. That means sanctions on the specific judges, intelligence officials and IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] actors involved in cases like St. Peter Church and Marzban. And the transfer of church property to entities like EIKO [a business empire controlled by the late Khamenei] should be treated as state seizure, not an internal legal matter, and raised accordingly in international forums.”

Ramin, whose real name cannot be disclosed due to “security reasons,” an expert for Open Doors, a global Christian organization that aids persecuted Christians, told News Media, “The threatened confiscation of St Peter’s Evangelical Church in Tehran is deeply concerning and should not be viewed merely as a property dispute. It reflects a wider and long-standing pattern of pressure on Iran’s Christian communities, including recognized historic churches, Protestant communities, converts and reported cases involving Catholic converts.”

Ramin added, “St Peter’s is one of Iran’s historic Protestant churches, and the reported eviction of families from the compound sends a clear message of intimidation to the wider Christian community. Together with the arrest, detention and sentencing of Christian converts, including those from Catholic backgrounds, this shows that the Iranian authorities continue to treat the peaceful Christian faith as a security concern rather than as a basic right to freedom of religion or belief.”

Mansour Borji, the executive director of Article 18, told News Media that “The targeting of Christians whom the founders of the Islamic Republic viewed as an ideological threat began from the earliest days of the revolution. This included both Catholic and Protestant communities. Within days of the 1979 revolution, the Rev. Arastoo Sayyah, an Anglican priest, was murdered in his office. Foreign missionaries were expelled within the first year and Christian schools, hospitals and churches soon came under increasing pressure.”

He added that, “Since 2008, Article18 has documented numerous confidential cases involving the arbitrary arrest of Catholic converts, harassment of church leaders, visa denials for clergy, the revocation of citizenship from a long-serving bishop and the confiscation and demolition of church property.”

Borji continued, “The recent move against St. Peter’s Church is therefore not an isolated incident or a new development. It is part of a long-standing pattern of systematic pressure on independent Christian communities. The Islamic Republic is a totalitarian regime that has consistently sought to suppress any institution or community that operates outside its ideological control.”

In the wake of the intensified persecution of Iranian Christians, he warned that “If the Islamic Republic regains the capacity to project its ideology with renewed confidence, the consequences are likely to extend across the region and beyond.”

He urged that perpetrators “face targeted sanctions, visa restrictions and asset freezes under existing human rights mechanisms.”

Borji said, “Governments, especially in the EU, U.K. and other trade partners, should also make religious freedom a consistent part of their engagement with Iran, rather than treating it as a secondary issue. Appeasing a regime that persecutes its own people has rarely produced moderation.”

A Russian individual accused by US authorities of having ties to Russia’s FSB intelligence service entered a plea of not guilty on Thursday. The charge involves his alleged role in a cyber espionage operation executed by a tech firm targeting Western entities.

Denis Obrezko, who was extradited from Thailand after his capture there in November, entered his not guilty plea during a brief online hearing with a federal magistrate in Boston. This follows his indictment earlier in the week for allegedly conspiring to engage in computer fraud and abuse.

The 36-year-old faces charges stemming from what the indictment describes as a cyber espionage effort linked to the Russian government. The campaign is said to have taken aim at companies in the US and Europe, NATO-aligned European government bodies, and groups backing Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.

According to the indictment, cybersecurity experts have been monitoring the hacking activities, identified as “Void Blizzard” and “Laundry Bear.” These names were also used by Microsoft and Dutch intelligence agencies in May 2025 when detailing a newly detected Russian cyber group.

If convicted, Obrezko could face a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.

His lawyer, Max Nemtsev, in ​an email said he plans “to vigorously contest the charges on both factual and legal grounds.”

According to the indictment, ​Obrezko had worked at Russia’s Federal Security Service, the domestic intelligence and security agency known as the FSB, from 2012 to ‌2017 ⁠before joining technology firm Yutek-NN, where he was a deputy director.

The indictment said that the company conducted cyber espionage campaigns at the behest of the Russian government.

Yutek could not be reached for comment.

The indictment said Obrezko and other employees and associates of Yutek conspired since at least 2023 to extract email and other data from ​companies’ systems using tools ​like fake domain names, ⁠VPNs and proxy servers.

Victims included a social media network; a US development company; a cloud software company; and a US-based educational institution.

Court filings say the FBI has ​identified at least 11 US companies that have been hacked, a number it ​believes to ⁠be just a fraction of Void Blizzard’s victims.

According to the indictment, Obrezko’s phone also stored a file containing AI-generated summaries of more than 13,000 stolen emails from members of an Eastern European parliament.

After Microsoft in May 2025 published ⁠a report ​detailing the activities of Void Blizzard, Obrezko corresponded with an unnamed ​co-conspirator who went by the alias “Ethan Hunt,” the same name as the character Tom Cruise plays in the “Mission: Impossible” movie franchise, the ​indictment said.

According to police statements, the man accused of the heartless slaying of a college student, a father of three, and a dog he was caring for, was previously acquainted with the victims.

Authorities have identified the victims as 22-year-old Jazmine Alexis Bates, a University of Alabama student, and 31-year-old Jose Felix Alvarez-Duenas, a single father with three children. Both were discovered deceased from gunshot wounds in Brookwood, Alabama, this past Monday.

The grim discovery was made during a welfare check at the residence where Alvarez-Duenas was taking care of a friend’s dog, which was also found fatally shot.

Alarm bells rang when 24-year-old De’Kendrick Crawford, the suspect, appeared on footage captured by a doorbell camera following the incident.

Moreover, authorities had already been wary of Crawford due to a prior episode that had caught their attention.

Crawford, knew both victims as well as the primary resident of the home where they were killed through work, according to investigators.   

‘We were able to identify who that suspicious person was that was seen on the doorbell cameras,’ Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Captain Jack Kennedy said at a press conference. 

‘That person turned out to be an acquaintance of everyone there, including the primary resident, they used to all work together at a local business. They all worked together, they all knew each other and socialized together at some point in the past.’ 

Despite their connection, police are yet to locate any evidence that could indicate a motive for Bates and Alvarez-Duenas’s deaths. The suspect remains tight-lipped, invoking his right to not speak to detectives. 

Crawford was already wanted on an outstanding warrant for allegedly firing a gun multiple times at an occupied office building on the University of Alabama campus. 

‘It was found that he already had a felony warrant for an incident last month where he had gotten terminated from a job on campus,’ Kennedy said. 

‘He was not a University of Alabama employee. He worked for some type of construction or some other type of company that was contracted at UA. 

‘He was terminated from his job out there and as he drove away, fired some shots out the window of a vehicle. Some of those shots struck a building near Coleman Coliseum.’ 

Crawford managed to evade law enforcement for weeks before the senseless tragedy on Monday, police said.

After an hours-long standoff with police, he was arrested for capital murder of two persons. 

Police have described the killings as random, saying that Crawford had little criminal history other than the previous warrant and that people who knew him were surprised by his arrest. 

Investigators are searching electronic devices and communications to try to determine a motive. Crawford has maintained his right not to speak with detectives, police said. 

Crawford’s alleged victims were found after the owner of the dog Alvarez-Duenas was pet-sitting had been unable to reach him on Sunday night and Monday morning, prompting her to check her home’s surveillance cameras remotely.

Footage showed a man acting suspiciously on her back porch during the early morning hours of that day, so she contacted her landlord, who then requested police investigate.

When officers arrived, they immediately found Alvarez-Duenas’s body upon opening the front door. They searched the rest of the home and discovered Bates’s body in a closet. The dog was also found shot dead inside the home. 

Surveillance footage was examined and Crawford was identified as the suspect. 

They soon located the suspected murderer at a relative’s apartment. They attempted to get him to leave the home, but he refused.

Officers eventually breached the building and located Crawford hiding in an attic crawlspace.

‘After four hours of tactical operations including drones, tear gas, tactical units – walls, doors being breached and attics being searched with K-9s, yeah, he gave up,’ Captain Kennedy said at a press conference.

‘He gave up only because he cared about himself more than he cared about his victims, and he knew that the guys that we sent up in that attic to get him would defend theirselves [sic] if he did anything,’ Kennedy added.

Crawford was arrested ten hours after his alleged victims’ bodies were found. He is being held in the Tuscaloosa County Jail without bond, according to the jail’s records, and he has not yet entered a plea.

He has also been charged with firing a gun at an occupied building for his prior outstanding warrant.

Police said that Crawford will likely be hit with multiple other charges as the murder investigation develops.

A spokesman for the University of Alabama said: ‘We extend our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Jazmine Bates after this tragedy. UA staff have contacted her family to offer support.’

A representative for Buffalo Phil’s restaurant, where Bates and Alvarez-Duenas worked together and allegedly met Crawford, said: ‘There are simply no words to express the pain our team is feeling. 

‘They were more than employees — they were family. Their kindness, dedication and the joy they brought to our workplace will never be forgotten.’

A GoFundMe was set up to help Bates’s family cover the cost of funeral expenses and transportation arrangements to bring the student’s body to her home city of Chicago.

On the fundraising page, friends and family described the young woman as ‘the kind of person you could always count on, reliable, selfless, and always willing to help anyone in need without hesitation.’ She would have graduated in December.

A GoFundMe was also set up to help Alvarez-Duenas’s family cover funeral costs and provide financial support for his four-year-old, nine-year-old and ten-year-old children, as he was their sole caregiver and provider.

The father was described as ‘the best dad to those babies, always putting their needs first and making sure they felt loved and safe.’

‘He was also the best friend to many, a wonderful son, and a caring brother to his six sisters,’ the fundraiser added. ‘Felix never met a stranger and would help anyone in any way he could, always offering a hand or a kind word to those in need.’

WADSWORTH, Ill. (WLS) — A man from the northern suburbs is now facing serious charges of child pornography, following his arrest on allegations of downloading nearly 200,000 illicit files, according to the police.

Authorities in Lake County reported that 74-year-old Steven C. Kazmer was taken into custody on Wednesday in Wadsworth. He is presently charged with eight felony counts related to child pornography.

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The investigation was a collaborative effort involving the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office, Woodstock Police Department, and the Illinois Attorney General’s Internet Crime Against Children Task Force. Officials discovered that the suspect was allegedly engaged in downloading and distributing child sexual abuse material.

On Wednesday, a search warrant was carried out at a residence located in the 4700 block of Pebble Beach Drive in Wadsworth by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Waukegan Police Department, and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. They were assisted by the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office’s Electronic Storage Detection K9s, Enzo and Grip.

Kazmer was apprehended after numerous electronic devices, allegedly containing deleted child sexual abuse material, were recovered, as reported by the authorities.

The suspect appeared in court Thursday, where he was ordered to remain in custody pending his trial.

Kazmer is scheduled to appear in court again August 5.

In an alarming incident over Argentina, a flight instructor tragically died after jumping out of a small aircraft, leaving his student to land the plane solo.

The event unfolded on a Saturday flight, as 42-year-old Leandro Andrés Bertazzo was aboard a two-seat Cessna 150G. According to CNN, drawing from its Argentinian partner TN, Bertazzo suddenly decided to jump mid-flight over the province of Córdoba.

Eduardo Álvarez, director of the Flying Parrot Córdoba flying school where Bertazzo was employed, expressed his shock to TN: “This tragic choice was made with another individual right there in the aircraft. It’s an unimaginable situation, showcasing the complexities of the human mind.”

Rosario, the 22-year-old student pilot, recounted to officials that Bertazzo instructed her with the words, “You know what you have to do, carry on,” before he removed his equipment, opened the aircraft door, and took the fatal leap, as Álvarez reported.

Opening the door of a plane midair is incredibly difficult. Álvarez said it would be akin to trying to open the door of a car traveling 124 miles per hour.

Álvarez said that Rosario managed to land the plane safely, despite being in “complete shock.” There was no damage to the plane, according to TN.

Álvarez noted that Bertazzo had gone on a flight with another student earlier in the day.

Álvarez also told TN that Bertazzo had visited a psychiatric institute, something that was only known by his family prior to his death.

Prosecutors in Córdoba will lead the investigation into Bertazzo’s death. The plane he jumped from is now in police custody.