After Amir Hekmati was released from Iranian custody in a 2016 deal trumpeted as a diplomatic breakthrough, he was declared eligible for $20 million from a special U.S. government fund as compensation for years of imprisonment that included brutal torture. But payday never arrived, leaving Hekmati to wonder why. The answer has finally arrived: Newly filed court documents reveal decade-old FBI suspicions that he traveled to Iran with the goal of selling classified secrets to the government.
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei in his speech to mark the Islamic Eid Mab’as said something astonishing: “We will not clamp down on dissidents, but they should not be hostile either.” Speaking about ‘dissidents’ in Iran especially by someone who now for more than 30 years is the top official of the country and responsible for all the people’s miserable situation and the brutality of this regime is something strange, and the question that arises here is why is the ‘supreme leader’ speaking about them now? What has caused Khamenei to play this political game with the main Achilles’ heel of its regime?
Iranians are largely unable to use international communications tools and services because companies won’t sell their products to them or allow them to use their free services due to fears of violating U.S. sanctions. This undermines the right to access information and digital security because it means Iranians must rely on communication tools and services produced in Iran that the Iranian authorities censor and surveil. This poses grave security risks for users, especially within the activist and dissident communities, who risk state prosecution and imprisonment for online content disapproved of by the state.
The Iranian Judiciary sentenced political prisoner Forough Taghipour to five years in prison for supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK/PMOI), following an extended period where her fate was kept in limbo. Taghipour’s sister is an MEK member at Ashraf 3 in Albania. Taghipour, 25, was arrested alongside her mother Nasim Jabbari, as well as Zahra Safaei and her daughter, Parastoo Moeini, on February 24, 2020, and all four were taken to Evin Prison Ward 209 for two months of interrogation.
Concerned about the rise of social uprisings and creating an atmosphere of terror, the clerical regime continues to carry out executions, torture, and blind and arbitrary arrests. From March 13 to 15, 2021, the clerical regime executed at least six prisoners in Mashhad, Zanjan, and Rasht. On Saturday, March 13, a woman named Maryam Karimi was hanged in Rasht Prison after 13 years in prison. On Sunday, March 14, Arash Varesi, a native of Bijar (western Iran), imprisoned with his brother Nejat for 10 years, was executed in Zanjan Central Prison. Nejat Nejati has also been sentenced to death and is awaiting execution.
Iran urged Britain on Monday to avoid “politicising” the legal process against British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff, who faces a new charge of “propaganda against the system.” Zaghari-Ratcliffe appeared in court on Sunday, one week after completing a five-year jail sentence on charges of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment which she denied. Her lawyer said he expected a verdict on the new charge within the next week.
The Iranian regime is taking “extraordinary deterrent measures” to prevent an uprising of citizens against its repressive rule during the upcoming Festival of Fire, dissident leaders said on Monday. The festival, also called Chaharshanbe Suri or Scarlet Wednesday, takes place on the Wednesday prior to the Iranian new year on March 20, when young people dress in disguises, bang spoons against plates and go through their communities to receive snacks.
US senators, including several Democrats, rebuked the Iranian government at a virtual event hosted by an advocacy group linked to Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition body previously designated as a terrorist organisation by Washington. Speaking at a celebration of the upcoming Persian new year Nowruz and organised by the MEK-aligned Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC), senior US lawmakers called for continued sanctions and pressure against Tehran.
Ever since Iran’s 1979 revolution replaced a modernizing monarchy with an Islamist totalitarian regime, the people of Iran have suffered greatly but failed to come together in one unified opposition. Ideological divisions, rivalries, and distrust have been exploited by the ruling cabal, which has used the full panoply of regime-survival tactics—from assassination of opposition leaders to disinformation operations to reincarnations of the mythical prospect of “reform.” The effect has been to confuse, intimidate, demoralize, atomize, and disempower Iranians, both inside the country and in the diaspora.
The United Nations has made “women’s full and effective participation and decision-making in public life” the main theme of its 65th meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women this month. This, they believe, will help end violence and discrimination against women. In Iran, this would be assessed by looking at life under the ruling religious regime, which has built its power on misogyny and effectively turned women into second-class citizens for the past 40 years through a series of sexist laws and patriarchal practices.
Iran is set to hold its presidential elections in June, which has only increased factional fighting as the politicians try to shift blame for the various crises facing Iran, but the media are predicting a national boycott and protests. This is not unprecedented. Last February, following the November 2019 uprising and the January 2020 protests over the downing of a passenger jet, the people overwhelmingly refused to vote in the parliamentary elections because they saw that it would not change anything, and they wanted regime change. In fact, there hasn’t been a large election turnout since the 1980s, when opposition candidates ran.
Iran’s state-run media are warning officials of social turmoil due to the increasing economic and social crisis. These warnings come just months before the regime’s sham presidential elections. On Sunday, the government approved a plan, raising workers’ salaries to 3.9 million tomans. While some officials bragged about this salary raise, state-run media acknowledged that workers’ new salary rate is far below the poverty line.
Something profound is taking shape inside Iran. Mere months from the country’s next presidential election, and in the midst of a U.S. push for reengagement with its clerical regime, recent days have seen new signs of life from—and coordination among—Iran’s notoriously fragmented opposition. As The Foreign Desk first reported, a new civic campaign launched by dissidents inside Iran has begun to percolate among opposition elements both inside and outside the country. The grassroots effort, dubbed “No to the Islamic Republic” (and boasting a distinctive graphic and anthem) has emerged in recent days in Iran’s bazaars and public places in the form of pamphlets, graffiti and other media.
در روزهای اخیر فشار بر زندانیان سیاسی در ایران شدت گرفته است. محمد نوریزاد در اعتراض به وضعیتش خودزنی کرده و گفته که اعتصاب غذا و دارو خواهد کرد. اسماعیل عبدی فعال صنفی معلمان هم امروز از زندان اوین تهران به زندان رجایی شهر کرج منتقل شد. پیشتر سپیده قلیان و مریم اکبری منفرد هم، به ترتیب، به زندانهای بوشهر و سمنان تبعید شدند. پرهام قبادی در گزارشش، با همسران اسماعیل عبدی و محمد نوریزاد صحبت کرده است.
بنجامین بریر، گردشگر فرانسوی که که نزدیک به ۱۰ ماه پیش در ایران بازداشت شده بود، با اتهام جاسوسی مواجه شده است. سعید دهقان، یکی از وکلای این مرد فرانسوی روز دوشنبه به رویترز گفت او با دو اتهام جاسوسی و تبلیغ علیه نظام مواجه است. به گفته سعید دهقان “روز گذشته، دادگاه آخرین دفاع این زندانی را اخذ کرد. اتهام جاسوسی او به خاطر عکاسی از یک منطقه ممنوعه است. به نقل از وکیل و یک فرد نزدیک به خانواده بنجامین بریر گزارش داده که او ۳۵سال دارد و هنگام پراندن یک پهپاد کوچک برای عکاسی در بیابانی در نزدیکی مرز ایران و ترکمنستان دستگیر شده است. وکیل بنجامن این زندانی گفت اتهام تبلیغ علیه نظام هم به خاطر پستی در یکی از شبکههای اجتماعی است که در آن نوشته بود “حجاب در جمهوری اسلامی ایران اجباری است”، اما در دیگر کشورهای اسلامی نه.
عفو بینالملل با انتشار فراخوانی خواستار آزادی بدون قید و شرط، مهران رئوف، شهروند ایرانی بریتانیایی و فعال کارگری شد که صرفا به خاطر «تاکید بر حقوق انسانی و به واسطه فعالیت در حوزه حقوق کارگران»، در ایران بازداشت شده است. سازمان عفو بینالملل با انتشار این فراخوان از مردم و فعالان حقوق بشر سراسر دنیا خواست به ایران برای بازداشت آقای رئوف اعتراض کنند و از مقامات جمهوری اسلامی بخواهند بلافاصله به حبس انفرادی این زندانی دو تابعیتی پایان دهند و از او در مقابل شکنجه بیشتر و سایر بدرفتاریها محافظت کنند. این نهاد حقوق بشری همچنین از مقامات ایران خواست تضمین دهند که آقای رئوف امکان دسترسی به کمکهای کنسولی از سوی مقامات بریتانیا داشته باشد و ضمن تماس با خانواده در خارج از ایران، از وکیل انتخابی و کلیه مراقبتهای پزشکی مورد نیاز برخوردار باشد.
مهمترین مسئله نویسندگان و شاعران ایرانی در یکصدساله گذشته آزادی بیان و رهایی از فشار سانسور و سرکوب دولتی و ایجاد تشکلی برای ایستادگی برابر منویات حکومتها بوده است. بسیاری از نویسندگان آزادیخواه در این مسیر یا جان خود را ازدست دادهاند، یا ناچار به ترک وطن و زندگی در تبعید شدهاند و یا سالهای عمرشان را در زندان سپری کردند. کانون نویسندگان ایران نیمقرن قبل با انگیزه حمایت از آزادیخواهی، آزادی بیان بدون هیچ محدودیت و مبارزه با سانسور توسط جمعی از نویسندگان شکل گرفت و طبیعی است که همواره اعضاء فعال آن مورد عتاب و غضب متولیان حکومتی و تهدید و تعقیب نهادهای امنیتی قرار گرفته باشند..