As the start of the presidential election in Iran approaches, some of the so-called reformists are acting mysteriously which of course is not an unexpected thing. These fake regime’s reformists have forgotten that they themselves once said, “Reforms are dead, and just because of the coronavirus we did not arranged a burial ceremony.” They have forgotten that the same official of their faction said: “In the Middle Ages when the king died, they have used this expression, ‘the king is dead, long live the king, now let me tell this about the reformists.
Denmark’s public prosecutor said on Thursday it had charged three members of an Iranian Arab opposition group for financing and supporting terrorist activity in Iran in collaboration with Saudi Arabian intelligence services. The three members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA) were arrested in February last year and have been in custody since. “This is a very serious case where persons in Denmark have carried out illegal intelligence activities and financed and promoted terrorism from Denmark in other countries,” public prosecutor Lise-Lotte Nilas said in a statement.
The Director of US National Intelligence Avril Haines has cited Iran’s contribution to instability in the Middle East as she testified at a public congressional “Worldwide Threats” hearing. Haines also told the Senate Intelligence Committee that China is an “unparalleled” priority. She described China as increasingly “a near-peer competitor challenging the United States in multiple arenas.” Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray said his agency opens a new investigation linked to China every 10 hours.
On Tuesday, the organization Iran Human Rights published a 120-page report, co-authored by Together Against the Death Penalty, detailing the usage of capital punishment in Iran since the election of President Hassan Rouhani. The report noted a significant increase in the total number of executions compared to the period overseen by Rouhani’s avowedly hardline predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The findings seemingly reinforce the conclusion that many Iranian dissidents and human rights activists made immediately after the current president took office in 2013, namely that expectations of reform under his leadership were groundless.
In the past six days, authorities in Iran hanged at least 11 inmates in six different prisons. At dawn on Monday, April 12, the government hanged Arsalan Zare at Adilabad Prison in Shiraz, the capital of Fars province. He was a farmer and had been kept behind bars for 15 years. On the same day, authorities executed two inmates at Karaj Central Prison in Alborz province, west of Tehran. The executed individuals were identified by human rights activists as Mohsen Mahdavian, 26, and Mehrdad Jalali, 40. They had served in prison for four and five years, respectively.
As Iranians were marking the end of the Nowruz holidays in early April, more than 25 Baha’is were summoned and arrested in the cities of Shiraz, Mashhad, Bandar Abbas, and Karaj. Others saw their homes raided and searched by security forces. The crackdown, initiated by the Ministry of Intelligence and reinforced by the judiciary, came just as Iran was facing its fourth wave of coronavirus cases, and most cities had been newly-placed on high alert.
Authorities in Iran have released a 37-year-old Iranian Christian convert four months early after he tested positive for COVID-19, according to a report. Majidreza Souzanchi, who was arrested in 2017 for his association with a house church and being involved in evangelism, was released from Tehran Greater Prison on April 8, about four months before he was to be released after he contracted COVID-19 in that prison, International Christian Response reported on Friday.
Forced marriages in Iran are among the leading causes of the increase in suicide among women and girls. Forced and early marriages are common examples of violence against women. Teenage girls who were forced into marriage sometimes set themselves on fire in rural areas. Among other Iranian provinces, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and Ilam have the highest suicide rates. Forced and early marriage among girls is also very common in these provinces.
A model who posed for pictures without a hijab has been snatched off the street by Iran-backed Houthi rebels who are planning to prosecute her in a kangaroo court for being a bad influence. The young Yemeni model and actress kidnapped by Iran-backed Houthi rebels is set to be ‘tried’ by her abductors who see her as a corrupting influence, according to reports. Entesar Al-Hammadi, 20, and two of her colleagues were snatched from a street in the rebel-controlled Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on February 20.
Iranian state TV censored a live broadcast of a British soccer match to avoid showing the legs of a female assistant referee, a rights group said Tuesday. The match was censored over “100 times,” according to My Stealthy Freedom, an Iranian rights group that opposes Iran’s compulsory hijab law. During the Premier League match between Tottenham and Manchester United on Sunday, an Iranian state channel cut away from the game and played footage of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the backstreets of North London in an effort to conceal shots of assistant referee Sian Massey-Ellis, who was wearing shorts.
Iran has stepped up its campaign of death threats and harassment of BBC employees and their families following critical reports of the country’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The broadcaster said Iran-based relatives of staff had been brought in for questioning in increasing numbers and given a “clear message” that their relatives should stop working for the BBC. The approach has become “more frightening and aggressive” towards elderly parents and other family members, the broadcaster said in a memo to MPs and media rights groups. A number of journalists have received death threats.
Contradictory statements by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and others have fed uncertainty about the cause of the death at 65 of Qods (Quds) Force Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi. On Sunday evening, the IRGC information office announced that the long-time intelligence commander had died of a heart attack. On Monday, the spokesman for the Guards Ramazan Sharif denied Hejazi had died of a heart attack but from years of tough missions, the effects of Covid-19 contracted a few months ago, and from injuries caused by chemical weapons used by Iraq in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Sharif suggested the long-term damage of the chemical weapons was the main cause of Hejazi’s death.
For hundreds of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Iranians who fled their homeland because of persecution for who they are, moving to Turkey was not a significant improvement. Sexual and gender minorities say constant harassment and discrimination experienced in the host nation is forcing many of them to seek relocation to a third country. A.R. is a 41-year-old transgender man who crossed into Turkey last year because of abuse from his community and Iranian authorities. Now residing in eastern Turkey’s Van province, he asked VOA to conceal his full name to avoid harassment by transphobic people in the host region.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov paid a working visit to Tehran on April 13, where he held talks with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif. The Russian foreign minister was also received by the President Hassan Rouhani and parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The key issue on the agenda of the meetings was the prospect of the return of Washington and Tehran to the Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Major General Mohammad Baqeri, the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, and Colonel General Sherali Mirzo, the defense minister of Tajikistan, met last week (April 6 and 8) in Tehran, where they inter alia signed an agreement on creating a joint military defense committee (IRNA, April 8; Regnum, April 9). The two sides said that the new body will promote security cooperation and help them counter terrorism; but exactly how it will work remains unclear.
It has long been evident that the Iranian regime is desperate for the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal. This is due to the regime’s financial hardship and the significant pressure it is facing inside the country. After the former Trump administration began imposing pressure on the Iranian regime following its withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, the mullahs faced two major uprisings at home. Iran’s regime is now bankrupt both politically and economically and with a sham presidential election — in which candidates are vetted and approved by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Guardian Council — scheduled for June 18.
A new and rapidly growing popular rebellion is affecting the Iranian regime. On March 11, a statement signed by 640 eminent Iranians, some living within and some outside Iran, was posted on-line in English and Persian with the hashtag #No2IslamicRepublic. It marked the launch of a new anti-government movement. The founding statement called for the overthrow of the Iranian regime, describing it as “the biggest obstacle in the way of freedom, prosperity, democracy, progress, and human rights.”
جمعی از بازنشستگان کارگری در اعتراض به شرایط بد معیشتی و عدم توجه به مطالباتشان مقابل ادارات تامین اجتماعی استانهای مختلف ایران تجمع کردند. کانالهای “اتحاد بازنشستگان” در تلگرام نیز به نقل از یک شاهد عینی گزارش داد که در تهران دستکم سه نفر از دو زن که از سخنرانان بودند، بازداشت شدند. اتحادیه آزاد کارگران می گوید از هویت این دستگیر شدگان اطلاعی در دست نیست. این چهارمین تجمع سراسری بازنشستگان از آغاز سال جدید شمسی است. معترضان در استانهای مختلف از جمله کرمانشاه، هرمزگان، خوزستان، تهران، اصفهان، البرز، کرمان، قزوین و خراسان رضوی به خیابان آمدهاند.
در ادامه دور جدید اعتراضات صنفی به دلیل مشكلات معیشتی در ایران، مالباختگان بازار بورس و همچنین بازنشستگان تامین اجتماعی در پایتخت و دیگر شهرها دست به تجمع زده و با سردادن شعارهایی، بر شرکت نکردن در انتخابات ریاست جمهوری آینده تاکید کردند. پس از اعتراضات روز دوشنبه مقابل ساختمان بورس – اعتراضاتی که طی آن پرچم این نهاد به دست معترضان پایین كشیده شد – تصاویر منتشر شده در رسانههای اجتماعی حاكی از آن است كه سهامداران مالباخته بازار بورس بار دیگر با تجمع مقابل ساختمان بورس در سعادتآباد تهران، ضمن مطالبه رسیدگی به وضعیت مالیشان از سوی دولت، شعار میدادند كه دیگر در نظام جمهوری اسلامی، رای نخواهند داد.
ا گذشت یک سال از بازداشت علی یونسی و امیرحسین مرادی، دانشجویان نخبه دانشگاه صنعتی شریف در تهران، نه تنها کماکان دادگاهی برای آنها برگزار نشده، بلکه اتهام «افساد فی الارض» نیز به آنها نسبت داده شده است. آیدا یونسی، خواهر علی یونسی، با اشاره به اتهام نسبت داده شده به این دو دانشجوی زندانی به صدای آمریکا گفت، این اتهام از جانب نیروهای امنیتی طرح شده و دادگاه هیچگونه بررسی نسبت به این اتهام انجام نداده است تا رد و یا تایید شود. وی افزود: «واقعیت برای ما هم پوشیده است. یعنی این که چرا الان نهادهای امنیتی تصمیم میگیرند اتهامات بی پایه و اساس به دو جوان بزنند برای ما هم دلیل اصلیش پوشیده است.