Iranian dissidents are calling on the Biden administration to keep up the pressure on the country’s leaders, arguing that the regime is at its “weakest point in history” — even as the administration looks set to re-engage with Tehran. A report by The Organization of Iranian-American Communities (OIAC), which opposes the regime and calls for a democratic, secular government, warns that U.S.policy based on isolation or engagement “rely on blind faith that the regime will one day change its behavior, a supposition that is logically unfounded and evidentially unpersuasive.”
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran reportedly opened fire on protesters in the city of Saravan on Monday, killing and injuring an unconfirmed number of people. Protesters responded Tuesday by storming the governor’s office in Saravan and damaging some police vehicles. Saravan is located in the province of Sistan-Baluchistan, close to the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Many of the residents are members of the Baloch ethnic minority, which also populates the neighboring regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
An Iranian woman who was sentenced to hang for the killing of her husband died from a heart attack, but was strung up anyway, according to her lawyer. The Times U.K. reports Zahra Ismaili collapsed while waiting in line behind 16 other convicts for her turn to be executed. Ismaili’s attorney, Omid Moradi, said his dead client was hanged as a measure of deference to the victim’s family. Arab News reports the victim’s mother was allowed to kick the chair from under Ismaili’s limp and hanging body.
France’s foreign ministry confirmed Wednesday that a French national was detained in Iran in May 2020 and that authorities are “attentively following the situation of our fellow national”. The ministry added that the French national was under consular protection and that the embassy in Tehran was in regular contact with him. A lawyer for the man, Saeid Dehghan, told the Associated Press he had met with his client three times, the latest less than a month ago, adding that he is in good health and good spirits, particularly after having spoken by phone with his family.
Iran has seen a surge in executions as well as amputations using a hideous medieval-style guillotine to remove victims’ fingers. The country’s barbaric system of punishments sees prisoners hanged from cranes in public while there is also widespread use of horrific electric shocks and flogging. The latest figures show Iran carries out around 250 executions a year, including about a dozen in public, in which the condemned die a slow agonising death while dangling in the air.
According to human rights activists, Iranian political prisoner and Dervish Behnam Mahjoubi lost his life due to the regime’s refusal to send him to a hospital immediately. For a long while, authorities have deprived him of essential medical care, which put his life at risk. Even on February 16, human rights defenders reported that he had been killed under torture in Evin Prison three days ago. His acquaintances had acknowledged that the regime covered-up the news, fearing to spark public ire and international condemnations.
The death of prisoner of conscience Behnam Mahjoubi, who died on February 21, 2021, after untreated medical conditions that included serious neurological issues, reflects the continued crisis in Iran’s prisons, where prisoners, especially prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, are denied proper medical treatment. “Many prisoners in Iran are in desperate need of medical treatment and more will die without immediate care,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
Iran’s IRGC forces on Monday clashed with Baloch locals who carry fuel over the border region in Sistan and Baluchestan. Initial reports indicate that at least 8 people were killed and dozens were wounded and were taken to hospital. Reports indicate that the IRGC has dug large holes in the zero points of the border to prevent the movement of Baloch locals who carry fuel over the border, and this has led to protests by the locals. A number of locals gathered today in front of the IRGC base in the city of Saravan and demanded the reopening of the border and permission to travel, but the IRGC forces opened fire on them.
At least two Baluch protesters, including a 13-year-old child, were shot and killed today by the IRGC forces in the Qaleh Bid Base during protests in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan Province. Hassan Mohammadzehi, 13 and Mohammad Saleh Motaghedi were shot and killed during the protests on Wednesday, two days after dozens of ‘fuel carriers’ were were killed and wounded in the southeastern province.
Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has added her voice from a prison cell to international concern about a spate of executions in her country. At least 48 executions have taken place over the past three months, a figure the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute last week described as ‘appalling’. A letter from Sotoudeh, who is serving sentences adding up to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes for offences including ‘encouraging corruption and prostitution;’ and ‘appearing at the judiciary without Islamic hijab’ was released today by human rights group PEN America.
Iranian refugee and former Trump official Ellie Cohanim slammed John Kerry on Wednesday, calling the former secretary of state’s backdoor meetings with Iran during Trump’s presidency “anti-American” and an attempt to undermine the administration’s foreign policy stances. During an appearance on “Fox and Friends,” the former State Department special envoy called the Biden administration’s talks with Iran to reenter the nuclear deal “diplomatic malpractice” and urged them to stop making unilateral concessions and instead increase demands on the Iranian regime.
Iranian pensioners have been holding protest rallies across the country for the past three weeks to demand their basic rights. This culminated in a rally on Sunday in over 20 cities, including Tehran, Tabriz, Arak, Yazd, Neyshabur, Khorram Abad, Sari, Shushtar, Karaj, Ahvaz, Haft Tappeh, Ardebil, Qazvin, Rasht, Dezful, Mashhad, Kermanshah, Isfahan, Ilam, and Bojnurd. At this fifth nationwide protest by retirees in two months, they chanted.
Ever since being disarmed by the Bush administration during the Iraq War, the Iranian Resistance, or the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), has been targeted for assassination by Iranian intelligence services. Hundreds were killed while unarmed on the Iraqi border in their camp by Iranian and Iraqi Special Forces, before being moved to safe refuge in Albania by the Obama administration, but only after pressure from Congress and world opinion.
Iran, Europe and many American progressives are pressuring the Biden administration to revive the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. Official groupthink has coalesced around a singularly misguided belief: The U.S. has so badly mistreated Iran in the past that it must engage and appease the Islamic Republic now. I understand this view because I was once taught to believe it. This mindset is what convinced me in 2016 that I could safely do research for my dissertation in Iran. My optimism was misplaced.
وزارت خارجه فرانسه گزارشهای مربوط به بازداشت یک شهروند این کشور در ایران را تایید کرده است. فرانسه گفته است که سفارت این کشور در تهران با فرد بازداشت شده در ارتباط است. سعید دهقان، وکیل این مرد فرانسوی در ایران، به بیبیسی فارسی گفت که موکل او یک توریست جوان فرانسوی به نام “بنجامین” است که ۹ ماه پیش در ایران بازداشت شده است. آقای دهقان ادامه بازداشت او را “غیرقانونی” خواند و گفت که این فرد با “اتهامات متناقض و متعارضی روبرو است. به گفته آقای دهقان این شهروند فرانسه در زندان وکیلآباد (زندان مرکزی مشهد) است و وکلای او با وجود سفرهای مکرر به مشهد اجازه دسترسی به محتوای پروندهاش را نداشته است.
بر اساس ویدئوها و روایتهای منتشر شده در شبکههای اجتماعی، اعتراضات مردم در شهر سراوان که در روزهای گذشته آغاز شده بود، همچنان ادامه دارد و مردم در شهرهای دیگر سیستان و بلوچستان از جمله زاهدان و ایرانشهر نیز در حمایت از مردم شهر سراوان دست به اعتصاب زدهاند. صدای آمریکا پیشتر بر اساس ویدئوهای دریافتی و همچنین روایتهای منتشر شده در شبکههای اجتماعی، گزارش داده بود که روز سهشنبه ۵ اسفندماه، جمعی از شهروندان سراوان در اعتراض به آن چه که کشته شدن چندین سوختبر توسط شلیک مستقیم ماموران سپاه پاسداران گزارش شده بود، در مقابل ساختمان فرمانداری این شهرستان تجمع کردند.
کمیسیون آزادی مذهبی بینالمللی آمریکا در بیانیهای ارائه خدمات درمانی نادرست به بهنام محجوبی درویش گنادی زندانی را، که به صورت تعمدی توسط مسئولان زندان اوین صورت گرفت و موجب مرگ او شد، به شدیدترین وجه محکوم کرد. در این بیانیه، که عصر چهارشنبه ۶ اسفند منتشر شد، همچنین گفته شده حکومت ایران در سال ۲۰۱۹ نیز به همین ترتیب جان نورعلی تابنده، رهبر معنوی درواویش گنابادی، را گرفت و جای خالی او را با یکی از افراد وفادار به خود پر کرد. در بیانیه از قول گیل منچین رییس کمیسیون آزادی مذهبی بینالمللی آمریکا نقل شده است: «مرگ بهنام محجوبی نقض وحشتناک آزادی مذهبی توسط حکومت ایران و یادآور محض آزارو اذیت فاحش و مداوم جامعه دراویش گنابادی است.