The Iranian Diaspora Brief

The Iranian Diaspora Brief: February 4, 2021

Top Stories

Iranian Dissidents Urge Biden To Press Tehran On Human Rights, Democracy | Voice Of America

A group of Iranian dissidents has urged U.S. President Joe Biden to support their demands for secular democracy and respect for human rights in Iran, issues on which Biden’s administration has been silent early in its term as it focuses on curbing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. In an open letter to Biden dated February 1, written in English and shared with VOA Persian, the 38 Iran-based activists wished him success following his January 20 inauguration and appealed to his administration to consider incorporating several of their political goals in its Iran policy.

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Academic Facing Jail In Iran Escapes To U.K. | The New York Times

A British-Iranian academic who was sentenced in Iran to nine years and three months in prison for “cooperating with a hostile state” has fled the country and is now in Britain, he said on Wednesday. The academic, Kameel Ahmady, an anthropologist who has written about genital cutting in Iran, said he had left the country in December by crossing its mountainous western border, after being sentenced by a Tehran court that month and having an appeal rejected.

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Iranian Diplomat Sentenced To 20 Years For Foiled Bomb Plot In France | The Wall Street Journal

A Belgian court sentenced an Iranian diplomat to 20 years in prison for plotting a bomb attack against a gathering of Iranian dissidents outside Paris in 2018, in a case that has strained Tehran’s ties with Europe. Assadollah Assadi, a counselor at Iran’s embassy in Vienna, was Thursday convicted of organizing the foiled attack that targeted a rally held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella opposition group dominated by the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, or MEK. 

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Regime Abuses

How Iran Lured A Dissident From France To Execution | AFP

In October 2019, Iranian dissident Ruhollah Zam was running a widely followed news site based in France, accompanied by his family and benefitting from refugee status as well as security in his country of exile. But just over a year later, on December 12, 2020, Zam was hanged in Iran, an execution that prompted international condemnation. How had Zam gone from the relative comfort of his life in France to meeting his death aged just 42 at the hands of the hangman in his home country, whose leaders he had targeted in his work?

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Detained Iranian Journalist Mohammad Mosaed Tops February Ranking Of One Free Press Coalition’s “10 Most Urgent” Press Freedom Cases | Forbes

Iranian journalist Mohammad Mosaed, who was detained last month by Turkish border police after fleeing Iran following a summons to begin serving his jail sentence for tweeting during an internet shutdown, tops the February ranking of the One Free Press Coalition’s “10 Most Urgent” list of press freedom cases. The “10 Most Urgent” list, issued by a united group of pre-eminent editors and publishers, spotlights journalists whose press freedoms are being suppressed or whose cases are seeking justice.

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Russia, Iran Among Leading States Practicing Repression Abroad, Says Rights Watchdog | Radio Free Europe

Russia and Iran are among the top authoritarian states extending their tentacles of repression abroad to target exiles, a new report by Freedom House says. The report published on February 4, says the Russian government “conducts highly aggressive” transnational repression activities abroad, relying “heavily” on assassination as a tool to target former insiders and other individuals perceived as threats by the Kremlin. The Russian campaign accounts for seven of 26 assassinations or assassination attempts identified globally by the U.S.-based nongovernmental organization between 2014 and 2020.

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Iran Hangs 27 People In January Amid Incessant Use Of Death Penalty | Iran Human Rights Monitor

At least 27 prisoners were executed in Iran in January 2021. The executed include four political prisoners, six drug offenders, 16 people convicted of murder and one accused of rape. At least 10 of those executed are Baluch citizens. This figure does not include prisoners who are secretly executed and whose identities cannot be registered due to the regime’s lack of transparency. These executions were carried out in Ahvaz, Qom, Zahedan, Ardabil, Sanandaj, Qom, Rasht, Mashhad, Meshkinshahr, Zabol, Tabriz, Yazd, Zanjan and Qazvin prisons.

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Iran Executes Eight Prisoners In One Week | Iran Focus

Authorities in Iran executed a 31-year-old Iranian Baluch political prisoner on Saturday in Zahedan central prison. The execution of Javid Dehghan Khold was the eighth in just one week, suggesting that Iran’s human rights situation is deteriorating fast. Dehghan Khold was arrested in 2015 and tortured into confessing to the charges lodged against him, including the pulling out of fingernails and being flogged with a cable. Many human rights activists and groups urged the Iranian regime to spare his life.

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Iran Regime’s Terrorism And Human Rights Violations Go Hand In Hand, Require Firm Action | NCRI

With recent executions in Iran, particularly political executions, the regime has confirmed its goal to systematically oppress dissidents. Simultaneously, the trial of Iran’s incarcerated diplomat-terrorist Assadollah Assadi, who tried to bomb the opposition rally in 2018 in France, shows mullahs’ systematic purge of dissident does not recognize boundaries. Since its foundation in 1979, the Iranian regime has considered export of terrorism abroad and domestic violence as its pillars of existence. 

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Iran: Burning Of Political Prisoner Gholam-Hossein Kalbi By Boiling Water And Denying Him Hospital Treatment | NCRI

Political prisoner Gholam-Hossein Kalbi, 61, who is being held in Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz, has suffered severe and painful burns to his neck and back due to the sudden splashing of a large amount of boiling water while taking a shower in prison. Prison officials, however, refuse to take him to the hospital, while the blisters caused by the burn becoming infectious. Kalbi, who has entered his 21st year in prison, is one of the longest incarcerated political prisoners in Iran.

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Five Baha’is Summoned To Covid-Hit Prison | Iran Press Watch

Five members of the Iranian Baha’i community living in Mashhad have been summoned to Vakilabad Prison to begin serving their sentences. According to an informed source who spoke to IranWire, that the names of the five are Naghmeh Zabihian, Nakisa Hajipour, Nika Pakzadan, Farzaneh Daneshgari and Sanaz Eshaghi. Each has been issued with a one-year sentence on charges of “propaganda against the regime through propagation of the Baha’i faith”. 

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In the News

Human Rights Groups Slam Iran For Abuses | Arab News

Thirty-six human rights and civil society organizations have signed a letter condemning Iran for carrying out arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions and “enforced disappearances” of its Kurdish minority. Signatories include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, ARTICLE 19, the Center for Human Rights in Iran, the Minority Rights Group and others. “There are serious concerns that the arrests are due to the individuals’ peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of opinion, expression and association, including through involvement in peaceful civil society activism and/or perceived support for the political visions espoused by Kurdish opposition parties seeking respect for the human rights of Iran’s Kurdish minority,” they said.

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Iranian Resistance Leader Says Regime ‘At Its Weakest Point,’ Urges Biden To Hold It To Account | Fox News

The leader of the main Iranian resistance group tells Fox News that the regime in Tehran is at its “weakest point” in its history, and is calling on the Biden administration to hold the regime accountable for its human rights violations. “The Iranian regime is at its weakest point in its history of the last 42 years. It is economically bankrupt,” National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) President-elect Maryam Rajavi told Fox News in response to written questions. “The national currency is in a free fall, and corruption has penetrated every aspect of the regime.”

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Joint Letter: Urgent International Action Needed To Secure Release Of Kurdish Activists And Others Arbitrarily Detained In Iran | Human Rights Watch

We, the undersigned 36 civil society and human rights organizations, call for the urgent attention of the international community to an ongoing wave of arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, and enforced disappearances by the Iranian authorities, targeting scores of people from Iran’s disadvantaged Kurdish minority in the provinces of Alborz, Kermanshah, Kurdistan, Tehran, and West Azerbaijan.

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UK Government Urges Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s Husband To Stop Speaking Out | Arab News

The UK government has urged the husband of jailed British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to stop publicizing plans to free her on March 7 or risk jeopardizing her release. But her husband Richard Ratcliffe tweeted that he rejects the government’s advice. “We continue to believe that transparency is the best form of protection from abuse,” he wrote. “We have also made clear that the government’s role is to remind the Iranian authorities that Nazanin has the UK’s protection, not to act as a messenger for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) mafia tactics and suppression.”

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Opinion

President Biden, Listen to Iranian Pro-Democracy Dissidents | Mariam Memarsadeghi For Newsweek

Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to unify the country. For unity to be real and not a mere facade, Biden needs to show openness to the principles and priorities of those who did not vote for him. This is as true on foreign policy as on the domestic front, and when it comes to national security, the threat of Iran is more fraught with bad-faith partisanship than any other issue. To put the national interest first, Biden should craft a new approach to Iran that has as its defining strength bipartisan consensus.

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Silence About Iranian Political Prisoners’ Conditions Is Unacceptable | Iran News Update

Iran’s prison and judicial system are fraught with injustice and cruelty, and long prison sentences have been consistently handed out to all political prisoners, including those in contact with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Soheil Arabi, an Iranian political prisoner, was arrested in 2013 by Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and has now finished serving his original sentence. However, he, along with many other political prisoners, is being forced to remain in prison as the regime’s Judiciary has extended his sentence.

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Non-English Language Media

  کامیل احمدی، پژوهشگر دوتابعیتی محکوم به زندان، از ایران خارج شد | BBC News

کامیل احمدی، پژوهشگر ایرانی بریتانیایی که در دادگاه انقلاب به اتهام “همکاری با دولت‌ متخاصم” به ۹ سال حبس محکوم شده بود، از ایران خارج شد. حکم آقای احمدی، مردم‌شناس و پژوهشگر علوم اجتماعی، آذر ماه امسال اعلام شد و او به قید وثیقه آزاد بود. علاوه بر زندان، او به پرداخت ۶۰۰ هزار یورو جریمه هم محکوم شده است. وکیل آقای احمدی در ایران به این حکم اعتراض کرده است. آقای احمدی که اکنون در بریتانیا است، به بی‌بی‌سی گفت که در ایران “اگر دوتابعیتی باشید، همیشه یک پرونده بالقوه دارید.”

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درخواست مریم رجوی از پرزیدنت بایدن: جمهوری اسلامی بابت نقض حقوق بشر پاسخگو شود | Voice Of America

رییس شورای ملی مقاومت با بیان این که ایران در «ضعیف‌ترین نقطه» تاریخ خود قرار دارد، از دولت جو بایدن خواسته است جمهوری اسلامی را بابت نقض حقوق بشر پاسخگو کند. مریم رجوی، رییس شورای ملی مقاومت، در پاسخ به پرسش کتبی فاکس نیوز، که گزارش آن روز چهارشنبه ۱۵ بهمن منتشر شد، گفت: «رژیم ایران در ضعیف‌ترین نقطه تاریخ ۴۲ ساله خود قرار دارد. آن رژیم از نظر اقتصادی ورشکسته است. وی با بیان این که «کام مردم ایران به شدت تلخ شده است و آنها بسیار عصبانی هستند،» خاطرنشان کرد که «اعتراضات نوامبر ۲۰۱۹ و ژانویه ۲۰۲۰ به روشنی اشتیاق مردم ایران را برای تغییر رژیم به نمایش گذاشت.

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 نقض حقوق اقلیت‌های مذهبی در ایران | حکم زندان سه نوکیش مسیحی در دادگاه تجدیدنظر تایید شد | Voice Of America

یک نهاد فعال در زمینه دفاع از حقوق مسیحیان ایران می‌گوید حکم زندان ساسان خسروی، سام خسروی، و حبیب حیدری سه نوکیش مسیحی که پیشتر در دادگاه انقلاب بوشهر صادر شده بود در دادگاه تجدید نظر عینا تایید شد. سازمان «ماده ۱۸»، که یک سازمان غیرانتفاعی و نهادی فعال در زمینه دفاع از حقوق مسیحیان ایران و مستقر در لندن است، روز سه‌شنبه ۱۴ بهمن در گزارش جدیدی نوشت، شعبه چهارم دادگاه انقلاب تجدیدنظر بوشهر روز ۸ بهمن ‌حکم زندان این سه نوکیش مسیحی را که تیر ماه سال جاری توسط دادگاه انقلاب بوشهر به دلیل باور دینی و فعالیت‌های صلح آمیز عقیدتی آنها به اتهام «تبلیغ علیه نظام» صادر شده بود، عینا تایید کرد.

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