The Iranian Diaspora Brief

The Iranian Diaspora Brief: April 1, 2021

Top Stories

Exclusive: EU Set To Sanction More Iranians For Rights Abuses, First Since 2013, Diplomats Say | Reuters

The European Union is set to agree to sanction several Iranian individuals on Wednesday for human rights abuses, the first such measures since 2013, three EU diplomats said. EU envoys are expected to agree to impose travel bans and asset freezes on the individuals, the diplomats said, and their names would be published next week, when the sanctions take effect. They gave no further details. The European Union declined to comment. Like the United States, the European Union has an array of sanctions over human rights since 2011 on more than 80 Iranian individuals which have been renewed annually every April.

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267 In 2020: Iran ‘Obsessively’ Carrying Out Executions, Rights Groups Say | AFP

Iran is “obsessively” executing death row inmates despite a decline in public support for capital punishment, rights activists said Tuesday as they released a report on the death penalty in the country. Iran executed at least 267 prisoners last year, according to the report by the Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) and Iran Human Rights (IHR). At least four were juvenile offenders while nine were women, the annual report said.

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Iran Puts Pressure On Outspoken Political Prisoners With Jail Swaps | The National

Some of Iran’s most outspoken political prisoners are being moved to new jails far from their families as part of a campaign of harassment against the regime’s most-effective critics, a human rights group has said. Campaigners say the transfer of lawyers, labour campaigners and women’s rights activists from Tehran’s notorious Evin jail accelerated in the last year as the leadership seeks to dilute the influence of significant opposition figures. Women, in particular, have been targets, campaigners say.

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Regime Abuses

Baha’is Repressed And Persecuted By The State | Qantara

The two-page document is potentially explosive. Experts believe it shows the minutes taken during a meeting on 21 September of last year in the northern Iranian city of Sari. According to the document, during the gathering, senior officials from a number of provincial authorities agreed to pursue a systematic policy of persecution against Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority: the Baha’is. The Baha’i faith emerged in Iran in the middle of the nineteenth century. Today it has some five million members worldwide. Responding to a written enquiry from DW, Bärbel Kofler, the German government’s human rights commissioner, said that in their Iranian homeland the Baha’is are, “the worst treated minority in terms of their human and political rights. They’re viewed as a sectarian political group and persecuted accordingly.”

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In the News

Iran’s Intelligence Establishment Is Spreading Propaganda Through Films And TV | Center For Human Rights In Iran

Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi boasted about the substantial role of the state’s security establishment in the production of local films and television shows during an interview with the reformist Shargh newspaper on February 15, 2021. The goal is to use entertainment mediums as a vehicle to “educate the public” and “protect society against espionage,” said Alavi. In reality, the productions serve as vehicles for state propaganda, portraying the government as a benevolent actor even as it suffocates civil society actors through arbitrary arrests and kangaroo trials to repress dissent and criticism of state policies.

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An Iranian Cleric, Rights Activist, And Hacker Entered A Room—On Clubhouse | Atlantic Council

A member of the Khomeini clan, a women’s rights activist, and a hacker enter a room. It sounds like the beginning of a joke but in reality, that’s what happened recently in a Clubhouse chatroom discussing whether or not the hijab should remain mandatory in Iran. Ahmad Khomeini, the 22-year-old great-grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, is one of a growing number of members of the Iranian political elite joining the trendy invitation-only audio chat app, which has surged in popularity since mid-February among Iranians inside Iran and the diaspora.

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Six Protests In Nowruz, Iranians Vent Their Anger At The Regime | Iran News Update

From March 22 to 28, the people of Iran staged at least six rallies and protests in various cities despite the national holidays of Nowruz, the new year in the Persian Calendar. In other words, the regime’s horrible plundering and oppressive policies compelled citizens to take to the streets even during the holiday period. Shopkeepers, petrochemical workers, poultry farmers, locals, Haft-Tappeh workers, and water staff staged these rallies. In some cases, protesters extended their rallies for several consecutive days as a sign of their determination to obtain their inherent rights. Furthermore, people in Khuzestan province had the lion’s share in the above-mentioned protests.

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Mothers Of Murdered Iranians Protest | Iran News Update

The mothers of those executed by the Iranian regime, especially those of the November 2019 uprising victims, spoke on social media over Persian New Year about a renewed fight for justice that would see their children’s murderers prosecuted and punished. The mother of November 2019 protester Pejman Qolipour said: “I hope the coming year would be filled with calm, without oppression, without bloodshed, without aggression. We follow the path of our children. I have cried out everywhere, I am the mother of Pejman Qolipour, and the only thing that will soothe my soul is justice for the person who targeted my son’s heart.”

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Iran: Protest Gatherings Against The Unpatriotic Agreement With China | NCRI

The signing of an unpatriotic pact between the Iranian regime and China has sparked a wave of public protests against the plundering of Iran’s national resources, even within the regime’s factions. Yesterday and today, hundreds of patriotic and freedom-loving Iranians, particularly youths and especially women, took to the streets in Tehran, Isfahan, Karaj, Gilan, and other cities to protest the deceitful agreement. Yesterday, a protest rally was held in Tehran in front of the mullahs’ parliament and in Karaj and other cities in front of the regime governor’s offices.

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Opinion

Is Iran Operating Terrorist Cells Across Europe? – Opinion | Rachel O’Donoghue For The Jerusalem Post

… The annual event, which was attended by tens of thousands of people, had been organized by Iran’s exiled opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI). High-profile attendees included Donald Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, ex-speaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, as well as dozens of parliamentarians from European Union member states, and five British MPs. The couple evidently hoped to kill hundreds, if not thousands of people, but their primary target was NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi, who delivered the keynote speech that afternoon.

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Non-English Language Media

رویترز: اتحادیه اروپا تحریم‌های حقوق بشری تازه علیه ایران وضع می کند | BBC News

خبرگزاری رویترز گزارش داده است که اتحادیه اروپا قصد دارد به زودی چند مقام ایرانی را به اتهام نقض حقوق بشر تحریم کند. این خبرگزاری به نقل از سه دیپلمات اروپایی که نام آنها را منتشر نکرده گفته است که توافق درباره تحریم‌های تازه روز چهارشنبه (۳۱ مارس) انجام خواهد شد. منابع رویترز می گویند که اتحادیه اروپا قصد دارد اسامی افرادی تحریمی را هفته آینده اعلام کند. انتظار می رود سفر این افراد به کشورهای عضو اتحادیه اروپا ممنوع و هرگونه دارایی احتمالی آنها در اروپا مسدود شود. این اولین اقدام اتحادیه اروپا علیه حکومت ایران از سال ۲۰۱۳ میلادی خواهد بود. اتحادیه اروپا رسما در این خصوص اظهار نظری نکرده است.

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گزارش سالانه هرانا از وضعیت حقوق بشر ایران؛ صدور ۲۲ هزار ماه زندان و ۲۳ هزار ضربه شلاق برای منتقدان جمهوری اسلامی | Voice Of America


مجموعه فعالان حقوق بشر در ایران، موسوم به «هرانا»، در گزارش سالانه وضعیت حقوق بشر ایران اعلام کرده است که در سال گذشته میلادی بیش از ۲۲ هزار ماه زندان برای منتقدان جمهوری اسلامی صادر و شهروندان به تحمل بیش از ۲۳ هزار ضربه شلاق محکوم شده‌اند. همچنین ۲۳۶ شهروند اعدام‌ شده‌اند و ۷۲ درصد احکام اعدام به صورت مخفیانه اجرا شده است. گزارش یکساله وضعیت حقوق بشر در ایران که به تازگی توسط این نهاد حقوق بشری منتشر شده، با وجود مخالفت جمهوری اسلامی نسبت به فعالیت سازمان‌های حقوق بشری در ایران است که دارای بخش‌های متعددی از جمله حقوق زنان، کارگران، کودکان، زندانیان و همچنین اعدام‌های صورت گرفته در سال گذشته میلادی است.

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سازمان «حقوق بشر ایران» می‌گوید در سال گذشته میلادی بیش از ۲۶۰زندانی در ایران اعدام شدند | Voice Of America

به گزارش سازمان حقوق بشر ایران در طول سال گذشته میلادی حکم اعدام دست کم ۲۷۶ زندانی در ایران به اجرای درآمده است. سازمان حقوق بشر ایران روز سه‌شنبه ۱۰ فروردین ماه با انتشار سیزدهمین گزارش سالانه اعدام در ایران گفته است که دست‌کم ۲۷۶ زندانی در سال ۲۰۲۰ میلادی در ایران اعدام شدند که ۶۶ درصد آن به صورت رسمی اعلام نشده و ۲۱۱مورد، برابر با ۷۹ درصد از کل اعدام‌ها مربوط به اتهام قتل عمد بوده است. بنا بر این گزارش، در سال گذشته میلادی دست کم ۲۵ نفر به دلیل اتهامات مرتبط با «مواد مخدر»، دو نفر در ارتباط با «اعتراضات سراسری»،‌ یک نفر بر اساس اتهامات مربوط به «راه‌اندازی کانال خبری-سیاسی در رسانه‌های اجتماعی»، و یک نفر نیز به دلیل «مصرف نوشیدنی‌های الکلی» اعدام شده‌اند.

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