As the Biden administration continues talks with Iran about restarting the nuclear deal, five Americans are still being held in prison by Tehran. Their families say they are human bargaining chips. Among them: Emad Shargi, a 56-year-old American businessman whose wife and daughters are making a public appeal for his release. He has not been heard from in five and a half months. He was taken to Iran’s notorious Evin prison in 2017. “He was simply taken out of our life and without an explanation,” his wife of 32 years Bahareh Shargi told Fox News in an exclusive interview.
A British-Iranian labour activist arrested in Iran faces a minimum 10-year jail term after being accused of being the leader of a communist cell, his supporters have learned. Mehran Raoof, 64, has been held in solitary confinement at Tehran’s Evin jail since he was detained in October last year, along with other labour and human rights activists who gathered in a Tehran café. He has only been seen once by his lawyer at a hearing last month when he was accused of unspecified security offences, but a 200-page file seen by his legal team now accuses him of being the leader of a banned communist group.
In 1985, my parents were taken to court in Tehran by a tenant who was trying to stop them from selling a property he was renting from them at the time. My parents were surprised to learn about the lawsuit. After all, they had given the tenant several months to vacate. He had no legitimate legal argument. On the day of the hearing, when it was the tenant’s turn to present his case, he pointed at my parents and shrilly declared that they were communists. For a moment, the room fell silent. Then my parents’ lawyer calmly closed his legal files and, without making eye contact with anyone, walked out of the courtroom.
Amnesty International has marked the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersex-phobia, and Transphobia by renewing its calls on Iran to repeal laws criminalizing consensual same-sex relations. The London-based human rights watchdog said in an analysis published on May 17 that the recent “horrifying” killing of a 20-year-old gay man in Iran “has shed new light on how the criminalization of consensual same-sex sexual conduct and gender nonconformity perpetuates systemic violence and discrimination” against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBT).
Iranian authorities appear to be stepping up a campaign of repression against an embattled religious minority, allegedly attempting to identify young members of the faith and convert them to Islam against the wishes of their parents. Human rights advocates also describe raids on the homes of dozens of members of the Baha’i faith over the last few weeks and the seizing of property belonging to the religious minority.
Iran is “dangerous” for the stability of the Middle East and the world, former US President George W. Bush told Fox News Wednesday and commented about how the US should deal with Tehran. Bush also blamed the violence between armed militant Palestinian groups and Israel raging for ten days, said what “you’re seeing playing out is Iranian influence targeted toward Israel.” In January 2002, President Bush called Iraq, Iran and Norther Korea the “axis of evil”, in a prelude to his administration policy of overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Iranian authorities have embarked on a wave of arbitrary arrests of more than a dozen citizens in Ahvaz, capital of the southwestern Khuzestan Province. Among those arbitrarily arrested is the mother of one of the November 2019 uprising martyrs. The clerical regime arrested some 15 young men and the elderly mother of one of the November 2019 uprising martyrs in Ahvaz and the Port of Mahshahr from Friday, May 14 to Sunday, May 16. The arrests came simultaneous with the Eid-al Fitr, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Both cities were hubs of protest during the bloody nationwide uprising in November 2019.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards commander on Wednesday hailed the Palestinian militants who have peppered Israel with rocket fire in the Gaza Strip’s latest conflict. “Today we are witnessing the birth of a new Palestine… fighting with missiles,” Major General Hossein Salami said at a pro-Palestinian rally in central Tehran’s Imam Hossein Square. “A new Israel has also emerged, one that is broken, frustrated, downcast, that has lost confidence in itself,” said Salami, whose country supports the Islamist militant groups in Gaza firing rockets at its arch-foe Israel.
As President Biden pursues a new nuclear settlement with Iran, for some people it’s personal. Families of Western dual nationals being held in Iran – either in prison or under house arrest – describe waiting anxiously for news of their relatives’ fates. “We have highs and lows,” said Elika Ashoori, whose British-Iranian father Anoosheh is serving a 10-year prison sentence. She told Fox News: “We have episodes where we are extremely hopeful, where he’s extremely hopeful that something’s moving to the right direction.
A cross-party group of 60 members of the UK parliament has written to foreign secretary Dominic Raab urging him to grant diplomatic protection to British Iranian dual national Anoosheh Ashoori, who is currently being held in an Iranian prison. Ashoori was detained in August 2017 and subsequently convicted to ten years’ imprisonment on charges of spying for Israel – charges he and his family strenuously deny. Last month, lawyers working on Ashoori’s case wrote to Rabb calling on the UK to grant him diplomatic protection, as it had previously done in the case of another British-Iranian dual national jailed in Iran, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is warning that U.S. money that would go to Iran if the Biden administration rejoins the Iran nuclear deal could end up funding terror groups like Hamas — which is currently launching rockets into Israel. Pompeo appeared on “America’s Newsroom” to discuss the escalating situation in Israel. Hamas has launched rockets into Israel, causing the U.S. ally to respond with airstrikes targeting Hamas locations in Gaza.
On Sunday, dozens of Iranian cities saw mass protests by retirees, who are demanding that their pensions be increased in line with inflation, and literacy movement teachers, who are angry about their terrible living conditions; all of which is all down to the corruption of the mullahs. During the demonstrations, held in Arak, Ahvaz, Ardebil, Borujerd, Isfahan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Karaj, Kerman, Khorramabad, Lahijan, Mashhad, Shiraz, Tehran, and Tabriz, protesters called on the public to boycott the presidential elections.
In recent years, a women’s rights movement in Iran has continued to grow in spite of aggressive attempts to stifle it. Women in Iran are at the centre of a human rights crisis which is now attracting global attention thanks to peaceful protests on social media, and the high-profile detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian charity worker from London. Nazanin is a well-known example of the incarceration of women in Iran for political gain. She was detained during a trip to Iran, where she had travelled to visit her parents.
The Biden administration’s outreach to Iran is in full swing. A third of a year into its tenure, the new White House appears to be pulling out all the stops in its efforts to reengage with Tehran, and to demolish the “maximum pressure” policy of its predecessor in the process. That policy reversal has already entailed major political and economic sweeteners on the part of the United States, ranging from stalled enforcement of existing sanctions to the potential unfreezing of up to $1 billion as a goodwill humanitarian gesture toward Tehran. Administration officials have even signaled they are prepared to abandon other punitive measures (such as those levied in response to Iran’s persistent support of terrorism and its egregious human rights abuses) inconsistent with the 2015 nuclear deal they’re seeking to revive.
The leaked audiotape of Islamic Republic Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has elicited much fanfare in recent weeks. Among the less scrutinized aspects of the tape has been Zarif’s reference to the Islamic Republic’s ongoing support of the Bashar al-Assad regime, including the fact that Iran Air—the flag carrier of the country—continues to transport arms and fighters into the Syrian conflict. As the Joe Biden administration negotiates a potential return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, Tehran’s backing of the Assad regime should not be left off the table.
کنشگر مدنی و سیاسی از ۵۰ شهر ایران در نامه سرگشادهای انتخابات ریاستجمهوری پیشِرو را «نمایشی» خواندهاند و برای پایان دادن به حکومتِ به گفته آنها «ضد مردمی»، خواهان تحریم انتخابات شدهاند. امضاکنندگان این نامه که شامل افرادی از طیفهای مختلف سیاسی، اقلیتهای دینی و خانوادههای قربانیان سرکوب در ایران هستند، گفتهاند هدفشان گذار بدون خشونت به نظامی دموکراتیک و سکولار است. مریم افشنگ گزارش میدهد..
عفو بینالملل از مقامات ایران خواست قوانین موجود در قانون مجازات اسلامی مبنی بر جرمانگاری همجنسگرایی را لغو کنند. سازمان عفو بینالملل، همزمان با روز جهانی «مقابله با دگرباشهراسی»، بار دیگر از جمهوری اسلامی خواست قوانینی را که از طریق تعیین مجازاتهای مرگ و شلاق روابط جنسی رضایتمندانه میان افراد همجنس را جرمانگاری کردهاند و قوانینی را که نحوه پوشش، آرایش مو، و سایر اشکال بیان جنسیتی ناهمخوان با هنجارهای اجباری مبتنی بر دوگانهجنسیتی زن و مرد را ممنوع کردهاند، لغو کنند.
ایجاد گورهای جدید در آرامگاه خاوران که محل دفن گروهی از قربانیان اعدامهای جمعی جمهوری اسلامی است، با موجی از اعتراض بازماندگانی همراه شده است که معتقدند جمهوری اسلامی ایران میکوشد مدارک مربوط به گورهای جمعی را از بین ببرد. از زمان پیروزی انقلاب ۵۷ در ایران، مکان دفن بسیاری از اعدامشدگان یا افراد درگذشته در زندانهای جمهوری اسلامی به بازماندگان آنها اعلام نشده است و با وجود افشاگریهای صورت گرفته در خصوص اعدامهای گسترده و فراقانونی، جمهوری اسلامی ایران تاکنون از پاسخگویی در زمینه کشتار گسترده مخالفان حکومت در دهه ۶۰، خودداری کرده است..