When a foreign government befriends Iran and pursues appeasement policies toward Tehran, it opens the door for the regime to exploit it and pursue its hard-line agenda on that foreign soil more easily. A recent example is the case of Turkey, which has been cozying up with the Iranian regime and consequently harming its own national interests. Ankara’s close relationship with Tehran has emboldened and empowered the regime to reportedly assassinate dissidents on Turkish soil.
Forough Abbasi’s determination to expand sports competition for Iranian women has twice taken her to the Olympic Games, but while competing in the Alpine skiing world championships in Italy this week, she was reminded that there are limits. Her coach, Samira Zargari, was prevented from traveling with Abbasi to Cortina d’Ampezzo by her husband. Shortly after her giant slalom run Thursday, Abbasi expressed optimism about how far women have progressed in Iran but was emotional about what remains to be accomplished.
The Biden administration is in contact with Iran to demand the release of Americans held in the Islamic republic, an issue that will help determine future relations between the countries, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said. While Iran says it won’t negotiate unless the U.S. rejoins a nuclear accord abandoned by the Trump administration, Sullivan said “the script has been flipped” because President Joe Biden has offered to re-engage with Tehran.
The lawyer of a woman recently executed in Iran said Friday that the authorities hanged his client despite suffering a fatal stroke before her execution. In a Friday post on his facebook account which was later deleted, Omid Moradi said that Zahra Esmaili suffered a fatal stroke after witnessing 16 men being hanged befor her and authorities hanged her dead body. He said that Esmaili’s death certificate states “cardiac arrest” as the cause of death.
The religious fascism ruling Iran is engulfed in crises and will not remain in power even for a day without repression, torture, and execution. At least 30 prisoners, including three women, were executed in different Iranian cities in the past 30 days alone. Many prisoners are executed secretly. These executions took place in the Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz and Gohardasht Prison in Karaj (west of Tehran) as well as central prisons of Zahedan, Qom, Dezful, Sanandaj, Zanjan, Sheiban Ahvaz, Isfahan, Shiraz, Ardabil, Meshginshahr, Birjand, Noor, and Borujerd, respectively.
A person with dual French and Iranian citizenship and a German national were arrested in Iran more than two weeks ago, French daily newspaper Le Figaro reported on Friday. Without citing its sources, the newspaper said the two individuals were arrested and detained before Feb. 4 as leverage in anticipation of the sentencing of Iranian diplomat Assadolah Assadi in Belgium that day. The diplomat was sentenced to 20 years in prison for planning to bomb an Iranian opposition rally in France in 2018.
Iran has been using a server in the Netherlands to spy on its political opponents, a Dutch radio station has revealed. The server was identified by Rik Delhaas, a journalist with the “Argos” radio program broadcast on NPO Radio 1, and security company Bitdefender, following a tip-off from an Iranian man living in the Netherlands. The server was tracked down to a location near the city of Haarlem thanks to a corrupted file received on the chat app Telegram by an Iranian dissident, Delhaas said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the Iranian regime’s use of “baseless charges” to suppress journalists in the country following the arrest and sentencing of a theater and cinema photographer. “Instead of trying to rehabilitate its international image, Iran has instead created a revolving cell door policy with regards to imprisoning journalists,” said Justin Shilad, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at the CPJ.
A letter sent by seven UN Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights to the Iranian regime, in order to clarify the position of the regime on the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, is a very “momentous breakthrough” according to Amnesty International. In 1988, the then-Supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini ordered a fatwa to eradicate any political oppositions to his despotic regime, which lead to the mass executions of some 30,000 political prisoners in the span of just a few months.
There have been dozens of executions in recent days in Iran under the mullahs’ regime as a sign of the deteriorating human rights situation. On February 17, the Iranian regime hanged at least seven people, including a woman identified as Zahra Esmaili. Zahra Esmaili was the 114th woman executed during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as the regime’s so-called “moderate” President. Zahra Esmaili’s lawyer, Omid Moradi revealed that the regime had hung Esmaili’s dead body since she had already passed away due to a heart attack. He also claimed that at least 16 people were executed before Zahra, not 6.
پس از تایید مرگ بهنام محجوبی در بیمارستان از سوی نزدیکان این زندانی سیاسی، اداره کل زندانهای تهران هم با صدور اطلاعیهای مرگ او را تایید کرد. در اطلاعیه این نهاد زیرمجموعه قوه قضائیه جمهوری اسلامی ادعا شده که بهنام محجوبی «دچار مسمومیت از طریق مصرف خودسرانه دارو» شده بود و «چند بسته حاوی مواد سیاهرنگ پودری در معده وی» وجود داشت. همچنین وعده داده شده که دلیل دقیق مرگ این زندانی سیاسی پس از بررسی توسط پزشکی قانونی اعلام شود. بهنام محجوبی، درویش گنابادی زندانی روز شنبه ۲۵ بهمنماه در پی آن چه «مسمومیت دارویی» اعلام شد از زندان اوین به بیمارستان لقمان تهران منتقل شد و یک روز بعد به خانوادهاش اعلام کردند که آقای محجوبی به کما رفته است.
سازمان «جامعه جهانی بهائی» با انتشار گزارشی اعلام کرد که برخی از رهبران مسلمان، مقامات دولتی و نمایندگان مجلس در سراسر جهان با صدور بیانیههایی در حمایت از بهائیان روستای «ایول» ساری، نگرانی عمیق خود را از مصادره املاک این شهروندان بیان کردهاند. دیان علائی، نمایند جامعۀ جهانی بهائی در سازمان ملل در ژنو در این گزارش که روز پنجشنبه ۳۰ بهمن ماه منتشر و نسخهای از آن به صدای آمریکا ارسال شده، میگوید: نگرش رهبران مسلمان در سراسر جهان که با چنین موج چشمگیری از حمایت به کمک دوستان بهائی خود در ایران میآیند، نشان قدرتمندی برای جمهوری اسلامی است که مسلمانان اقدامات آنها را محکوم میکنند.
انتشار خبر اعدام یک زن، که پیش از به دار آویخته شدن به دلیل سکته قلبی درگذشته بود، بازتاب بسیار زیادی در رسانهها و شبکههای اجتماعی داشته است. چهارشنبه ۲۹ بهمن ۱۳۹۹، زهرا اسماعیلی، ۴۲ ساله، به اتهام قتل همسرش در کنار ۱۶ نفر دیگر در زندان رجایی شهر اعدام شدند. هویت ۱۶ مرد اعدام شده و جرایم آنان مشخص نیست. اما امید مرادی، وکیل زهرا اسماعیلی، اعلام کرد پیکر بیجان موکلش به دار آویخته شده است، زیرا خانم اسماعیلی پیش از اجرای حکم دراثر ایست قلبی جان خود را از دست داده بود. چنین اقدامی حتی در میان کشورهایی که در آنها مجازات اعدام رواج دارد، نیز بیسابقه است.