The U.S. and the U.K. dismissed reports coming out of Iran that they are thrashing out a prisoner exchange deal with Tehran that could see the imminent release of a British-Iranian woman, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and four Americans, among others. Iran was a key topic of discussions Monday between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his host in London, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab. Their meeting took place a day before the first face-to-face meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven leading industrial nations in two years, largely due to the coronavirus pandemic.
An Iranian diplomat sentenced to 20 years in prison for planning a bomb attack in France has dropped an appeal in Belgium and will serve his sentence, his representative said on Wednesday. Belgian authorities have said they will oppose any potential swap deal with Western prisoners, lawyers said. Assadolah Assadi was found guilty of attempted terrorism in February after a foiled plot to bomb a 2018 rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a French-based dissident group. It was the first time an Iranian official had been tried for suspected terrorism in Europe since Iran’s 1979 revolution.
Dozens of human rights experts, including former United Nations officials, in a Tuesday letter called on the UN to open an inquiry into a series of killings of Iranian political dissidents by Iran’s government in 1988. An open letter signed by more than 150 international legal and human rights experts, including former UN High Commissioner Mary Robinson and former deputy UN Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown, urges the “establishment of an international investigation” looking into the killings of followers of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran which occurred throughout 1988 on an order from Iran’s then-supreme leader.
Six United Nations rights experts are calling for the immediate release of imprisoned dissident Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad, who they say is reportedly so ill he risks “serious complications and possible death.” “We are seriously concerned at the mistreatment of Mohammad Nourizad and his continued imprisonment for expressing his opinion,” the independent UN experts said in a joint statement issued on May 4. “It is clear that Mohammad Nourizad is not in a medical state to remain in prison,” they said, adding that his continued detention and the denial of adequate medical care “may amount to torture.”
G7 foreign ministers concluded their first in-person talks in more than two years Wednesday, hitting out at China for human rights abuses and a crackdown on pro-democracy figures, and voicing concern about Russian aggression. The club of the world’s leading economies also called on Iran to release foreign and dual nationals who they said had been imprisoned arbitrarily, in a wide-ranging final communique after three days of meetings in London.
Mixing hope with fears of more disappointment, families of Western nationals held in Iran are anxiously following intense diplomatic contacts and recent rumours for signs their loved ones could be allowed home. Iran is holding over a dozen Western nationals — almost all of whom also hold Iranian passports — in prison or house arrest on charges their families say are absurd and in what activists say is a brazen act of hostage-taking to extract concessions.
British dual nationals such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe should not be used as “political leverage” by Iranian authorities, a Government minister has said. Foreign Office minister James Cleverly said ongoing legal disputes between the UK and Iran should be kept separate from the “arbitrary detention” of prisoners in Tehran It comes after Iranian state TV suggested Britain would pay a £400 million debt to secure the release of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, citing an anonymous official.
Iranian security forces have threatened to kill the brother of Navid Afkari, an Iranian wrestling champion whose execution for participating in anti-regime demonstrations caused global uproar. “After executing the innocent athlete Navid Afkari for protesting, authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran have now threatened to execute his jailed brother, Vahid Afkari, if he doesn’t agree to make forced confessions. His life is in danger,” said Masih Alinejad, a prominent Iranian human rights campaigner and founder of the United for Navid Campaign.
The Baha’i International Community is concerned that a recent intensification of the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran appears to be underway, signaling the implementation of a larger plan by the Iranian government to increase the persecution of the community, the largest non-Muslim religious minority in the country. A campaign of raids on Baha’i homes and baseless arrests of Baha’is is currently unfolding across Iran. So far, dozens of Baha’i homes have been raided by authorities in Baharestan, Isfahan, and Shiraz, resulting in the detention of over 20 Baha’is and more who can be called to prison at any time.
Mehdi Rajabian once had his own recording studio in Sari, Iran, boasting moody overhead lighting and blond wood walls. Now, he spends most of his time in the dark basement of his home, crouching on a pile of rugs in front of a computer and a keyboard. Despite being functionally under house arrest since August 2020, Rajabian has been obsessively piecing together an album that’s become his singular dream — one that could also land him back in the most notorious prison in Iran.
Horrifying fake footage of the US Capitol being blown up was released by Iran as Joe Biden comes under increasing pressure to take action from a GOP senator. The video leaked on state-controlled Iranian TV on Sunday before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s speech depicted a missile being fired as the Washington DC building is engulfed in flames. Biden is now under mounting pressure not to surrender to Iran’s threats by Republicans as tensions between both countries continue simmer.
Iranian police arrested 16 men and women at a mixed-gender party in the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday. Such parties are illegal under Iranian law. Drinking alcohol in is also illegal and Muslim men and women who are not related cannot mingle or dance together in public. The Tasnim report quotes a local prosecutor, Khalilollah Barzanuni, as saying that the 16 were detained while they were dancing at a party in a villa in Golbahar, a neighborhood in the city of Golmakan.
Iran is attempting to influence Scotland to split from the UK by using fake social media accounts to “promote disunity and division”, a think tank said. Tehran is putting “considerable effort” into developing a strong political relationship with Scottish nationalists who want independence, a report by the Henry Jackson Society in London said. It is understood that Iran, which has a long history of hostility towards Britain, would like to see Scotland break away as a means of undermining UK power.
Iranian prosecutors have issued an indictment against the former governor of the country’s Central Bank over the alleged mismanagement of tens of billions of dollars worth of funds. Tehran prosecutor Ali Alqasi-Mehr accused Valiollah Seif, who led the central bank from 2013 to 2018, of “wasting” more than $30bn and 60 tonnes of gold reserves, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday. Seif’s case, which has been ongoing since shortly after his sacking in mid-2018, will now head to a court set up to rule on economic crimes, with the banker being accused of “repeatedly violating regulations” and of “dereliction of duty”.
Western governments are overlooking Iran’s human rights record in their rush to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, activists told The National. Activists including pro-democracy campaigner Mariam Memarsadeghi and human rights lawyer Kaveh Shahrooz on Monday urged the US not to abandon Iran’s long-suffering women and minority groups. They spoke of Iran’s recent election to the UN’s top women’s empowerment body and the US State Department’s decision to overlook the treatment of Iranian journalists on World Press Freedom Day on Monday.
Protests are increasing in size and scale in Iran, leading many in the ruling system and in the opposition to speculate that a new uprising is coming. Indeed, this is something that the government has feared since the first nationwide protests broke out in December 2017, but despite attempts to quell the protests, the people have continued their acts of defiance as part of a campaign for regime change, even throughout the pandemic, although understandably tempered.
Just over a month ahead of the presidential elections in Iran and the regime is facing another crisis; this time over infighting. Granted, it’s not exactly the same as deliberately failing to control the pandemic or destroying the economy, but it’s still pretty damaging for the mullahs. So last week, an audio recording of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is from the so-called reformist faction, was leaked. Then, Government spokesperson Ali Rabie spoke on Saturday about a “destructive bipolar” in society and spying accusations.
Widespread protests took place across Iran in April, organised by enraged Iranian citizens, over the current conditions they are facing in the country. At every stage, the Iranian regime strived to quell the unrest. President-elect of the National Council of the Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Maryam Rajavi has spoken out in response to the ongoing protests. On April 11, retirees and pensioners protested outside government buildings and social security offices in Tehran, and 26 other cities, against oppression, dire living conditions, low salaries and the increase in prices that are making it impossible for them and their families to survive.
Fars news agency, an IRGC media outlet, said in a May 5 commentary that former reformist President Mohammad Khatami is no longer popular enough to rally Iranian voters behind potential reformist presidential candidate. Khatami who used to promote reformist candidates for presidential and parliamentary elections acknowledged himself in early 2021 that he is no longer able to push the voters to support those he names as candidates.
The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has effectively put an end to the election hopes of two of the three leading candidates named by Iran’s reform camp for the June presidential election. During the weekend, Iran’s reformists published a list of 14 potential candidates(link is external) named by the umbrella organization of Iranian reformists. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was the most popular figure with 37 votes, Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri came second with 35 votes, and former deputy interior minister Mostafa Tajzadeh was the third nominee with 32 votes. They were by far ahead of all other 11 political figures. However, those named in the list may present their plans for their prospective presidency to the umbrella organization.
When Ali Khamenei was appointed Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, he knew he lacked Khomeini’s charisma. He needed the power of the military to subdue his rivals and consolidate his position, and accordingly pulled the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) closer to himself. At the same time, newly elected president Hashemi Rafsanjani, who, as wartime supreme commander, had nurtured his own close relationships with IRGC generals, sought to exploit the public resources of the nation with fewer restrictions. He attempted to partner with the IRGC in his “privatization” movement, which was basically the mass transfer of public property, resources, and organizations from the government sector to regime insiders. The resulting Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Camp was the first, and remains the most notable, financial institution of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Another week, another round of failed diplomacy toward Iran. More than three months into its tenure, the Biden administration has made Iran the focal point of its Mideast policy, and seems intent on reviving the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, despite that agreement’s numerous flaws. The renewed push for engagement with Iran seems to be driven by a conviction on the part of the Biden White House that there is no non-violent alternative to diplomacy with Iran.
Iran’s state news agency reported a few days ago that the Biden administration has agreed to release $7 billion of frozen Iranian assets and four Iranian prisoners in exchange for four American prisoners falsely accused of espionage in Iran. While the Biden administration denied the report, Iranian security forces have reportedly already removed American prisoners from Evin Prison’s general ward in advance of an imminent swap. I hope the prisoners will all return home soon, but the likely prisoner swap is far from reassuring. If the Biden administration repatriates any funds to Iran in connection with the release of American hostages, regardless of how the Biden administration may spin it, the Iranian regime will regard it as ransom and arrest more Americans as hostages for new rounds of extortion.
گروه «عدالت برای قربانیان کشتار ۱۳۶۷ در ایران» با صدور بیانیهای اعلام کرد بیش از ۱۵۰ مقام سابق سازمان ملل، وکلا، و کارشناسان حقوق بشر با امضای نامهای سرگشاده از ميشل باشله، کمیسر عالی حقوق بشر سازمان ملل متحد، درخواست کردند کمیتهای را برای تحقیق در مورد «قتل عام هزاران زندانی سياسی در ايران» در سال ۱۳۶۷ تشکیل دهد. در این بیانیه که نسخهای از آن روز سهشنبه ۱۴ اردیبهشت در اختیار بخش فارسی صدای آمریکا قرار گرفت، از «خانم مری رابینسون کمیسر عالی پیشین حقوق بشر سازمان ملل متحد و رئیس جمهوری سابق ایرلند، یک معاون سابق دبیرکل سازمان ملل متحد، ۲۸گزارشگر ویژه سابق سازمان ملل متحد در مورد حقوق بشر و رؤسای کمیسیون های تحقیق پیشین سازمان ملل متحد در مورد نقض حقوق بشر در اريتره و کره شمالی» و «دادستان ارشد سابق دادگاه های کیفری سازمان ملل متحد برای یوگسلاوی سابق و رواندا، دادستان سابق دادگاه ویژه لبنان، و اولین رئیس دادگاه ویژه سازمان ملل برای سیرالئون» به عنوان امضاکنندگان این نامه سرگشاده یاد شده است.
وزرای خارجه «گروه هفت» روز چهارشنبه پس از سه روز به اولین دیدار حضوری خود در دو سال گذشته پایان دادند. این نشست در عمارت «لنکستر هاوس» واقع در لندن برگزار شد که جزو مقرهای وزارت خارجه بریتانیا است. دیپلماتهای ارشد هفت کشور قدرتمند جهان در بیانیه خود خصوصا از سه دولت انتقاد کردند: روسیه، چین و ایران. نقض حقوق بشر و سرکوب چهرههای دموکراسیخواه از سوی چین، حرکتهای تهاجمی از سوی روسیه و گروگانگیری شهروندان دوتابعیتی از سوی ایران از جمله دلایل اشاره به این سه کشور بود. به گزارش خبرگزاری فرانسه، گروه هفت از ایران خواست شهروندان دوتابعیتی و خارجی بازداشت شده را آزاد کند.
شش گزارشگر حقوق بشر سازمان ملل در بیانیهای از وضعیت سلامت محمد نوریزاد، زندانی سیاسی در ایران به شدت ابراز نگرانی کردهاند و درباره “احتمال مرگ” او در صورت ادامه وضعیت کنونی هشدار دادند. جاوید رحمان، گزارشگر ویژه حقوق بشر ایران در سازمان ملل و پنج نفر از همکاران او گفتهاند که “به شدت از بدرفتاری با محمد نوریزاد و ادامه حبس او به دلیل ابراز عقیده” نگران هستند و خواهان آزادی فوری آقای نوریزاد شدهاند. این گزارشگران هشدار دادهاند که عدم دریافت مراقبتهای پزشکی کافی و بیتوجهی به نظر پزشکان درباره سلامت محمد نوریزاد “میتواند به معنای شکنجه و سایر رفتارهای ظالمانه، غیرانسانی و تحقیرآمیز باشد….