Iran news in brief, May 23, 2018

Iran news in brief, August 31, 2019

Conference Held in Paris’s District 1 City Hall to Call for Action Over Iran’s 1988 Massacre

An event commemorating Iran's 1988 massacre of political prisoners was held on Friday in Paris District 1's City Hall.
The conference, titled, “Iran: Massacred Human Rights: 31st anniversary of massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988,” brought together French lawmakers, mayors and human rights activists who appealed to the French government and the United Nations to hold Iranian officials accountable for their crime against humanity.
Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi sent a message to the conference, saying:
The time has come for the international community to end three decades of impunity for the clerical regime’s leaders in accounting for their crimes.
The dossier of human rights violations in Iran, particularly the massacre in 1988, must be referred to the UN Security Council.
Khamenei and other leaders of the Iranian regime must face justice for committing crimes against humanity.
The United Nations must launch an international mission to investigate the 1988 massacre in Iran.
And the world must recognize the Iranian people’s right to resist and fight for the overthrow of the ruling religious fascism.

Iran Regime Further Breaches 2015 Nuclear Deal

The Iranian regime has further breached its nuclear deal with world powers, increasing its stock of enriched uranium and refining it to a greater purity than allowed, a report by the United Nations atomic agency said on Friday.
The quarterly report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is policing the 2015 deal, confirms Iran's regime is progressively backing out of the deal.
In July, the IAEA said Iran's regime exceeded both a 202.8-kg limit on its enriched uranium stock and its 3.67% cap on the fissile purity to which it is allowed to refine uranium.
Friday’s quarterly report to member states obtained by Reuters said the Iranian regime has accumulated 241.6 kg of enriched uranium and is enriching at around the same level as before, up to 4.5%.

US Treasury Targets Oil Tanker Adrian Darya 1 and Its Captain

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control took action on Friday against Adrian Darya 1, an oil tanker transporting 2.1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil ultimately benefitting the Iranian Regime’s Revolutionary Guards Qods Force. The Adrian Darya 1 was sanctioned based on a law which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorism or acts of terrorism.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a tweet: Today, the US Treasury designated the Adrian Darya 1 and its captain for providing assistance to the IRGC to sell illicit oil from Iran to Syria. The U.S. will not idly watch the Assad regime use Iranian oil to terrorize its own people.

Irish Lawmaker Says Iran's Regime Is Dying; It Is Time to Support the Opposition

Iran's regime is in its dying days, and Europe should look to the Iranian Resistance as the democratic alternative to the mullahs' rule, former Irish Minister and lawmaker John Perry argues.
In an op-ed for the Eurasia Review on August 29, Mr. Perry pointed out that Iran's regime is "extremely unpopular among both Iranians and regional countries, and is today the greatest threat to a prosperous Iran and to stability and peace in the Middle East and the world."
The Iranian regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have systematically violated human rights, prosecuted, tortured and killed an uncountable number of Iranians over the course of 40 years.
"A key component that has been overlooked for too long is the organized Iranian opposition."
Mr. Perry pointed out that the NCRI has "both strong support among Iranians as well as politicians and parliamentarians from the US, Canada, Europe and the Arab world."
"Its progressive leader Maryam Rajavi has presented a 10-point plan for the future of Iran, which envisions and guarantees a free, democratic, secular, non-nuclear and peaceful Iran, with an independent judiciary system that respects the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Iran news in brief, August 30, 2019

Iranian Regime's Rocket Launch Ends in Failure

Satellite images show that an Iranian rocket appears to have exploded on the launch pad Thursday.
The satellite pictures were taken Thursday morning of the regime's Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran’s Semnan Province.
The photos show black smoke and part of a painted launch pad apparently scorched away.
David Schmerler, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told The Associated Press: “Whatever happened there, it blew up and you’re looking at the smoldering remains of what used to be there.”
The failure is the third by the Iranian regime this year. In January and February, the regime attempted to launch two rockets, both of which failed to reach orbit.

New Plan Enforced to Step up Suppression of Women for Improper Veiling

A new plan is going to be enforced across Iran this week to further step up suppression of women for improper veiling. The acting commander of Police, Ayyoub Soleimani, said the new plan, called Nazer 2 (or Observer 2), is going to be implemented.
The new plan is designed to put maximum pressure on women. According to the new plan, Police will be present in public places, major stores, and beaches to give warnings to women who are considered improperly veiled based on the regime’s standards.
Soleimani said, “The plan is going to be implemented this week (beginning on Saturday), and in every place which is more public, our presence and monitoring will be more serious.”
The Iranian Regime’s Police had already implemented the Nazer 1 plan to monitor women who remove their veils inside their cars.

Iran Regime Collectively Executes 8 People in Gohardasht Prison

Eight people were collectively executed in Iran's notorious Gohardasht Prison in Karaj on August 29.
They were transferred to solitary confinement on August 26 to be prepared for execution.
On Wednesday morning, Iranian authorities executed a man who had killed the regime’s notorious Friday Prayers Leader in Kazerun.
Also, authorities in Babol, northern Iran, hanged a man in public during the early morning hours of Monday, the state media reported.
On the same day, the regime executed a woman in Mashhad prison.

Rights Group Publishes New Report on Enforced Disappearances in Iran

To mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on 30 August, the human rights group Iran Human Rights Monitor has published a new report, titled: "Enforced Disappearances in Iran and the 1988 Massacre".
The report says the Iranian regime has a history of cracking down on its opponents. Incommunicado detentions, arbitrary abductions, summary executions, torture and enforced disappearances are among practices commonly used against opponents.
Dissident intellectuals and students, ethnic groups and religious minorities, and members and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran have always been targeted.
The group urged the United Nations to take all necessary measures to end impunity for Iranian officials.
It said the time has come for referring the dossier of human rights violations in Iran, particularly the enforced disappearances and executions of the 1980s and the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, to the UN Security Council.
The full report is available on the Iran HRM website.

Iran news in brief, August 29, 2019

Man Hanged in Public in Iran for Killing a Notorious Mullah

Iran's regime on Wednesday publicly hanged a man for killing a notorious Friday prayers' leader of the city of Kazerun.
Hamid-Reza Derakhshandeh, who stabbed to death mullah Mohammad Khorsand on May 29, was hanged in public at the site of the murder.
Friday Prayer leaders are mullahs who represent the Iranian regime’s supreme leader in different cities, which makes them hated among the Iranian population who are fed up with the repression and corruption of regime officials.
Derakhshandeh, 47, had previously said he had punished the Friday prayers' leader for stealing from poor people.
In comments following the killing of the regime’s Friday Prayer leader in Kazerun, Derakhshandeh said: “Dear people of Iran, I love all of you, I love the poor people of Iran, those who don’t have bread to eat at night, those who have become sick of having to borrow money to make ends meet…”
“I had heard and seen cases of injustice. Hundreds of these cases. There’s only so much I can do to buy and give to the poor. I saw these crimes. I’m not a criminal. This was my first time. My friends know me. I’m not a criminal.”

U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Iranians It Says Are Linked to Regime's WMD Program

The U.S has placed sanctions on the leaders of two procurement networks it says are linked to the Iranian regime for engaging in undercover acquisition activities that benefited the Iranian regime's military.
The Treasury Department said Wednesday one of the networks is led by Iranian national Hamed Dehghan, the CEO and chairman of Pishtazan Kavosh Gostar Boshra, LLC, and manager and board chairman of Ebtekar Sanat Ilya.
The agency said the network operated by Hamed Dehghan used a Hong Kong-based company to evade U.S. and global sanctions, and to target U.S. technology and components for people linked to the Iranian regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The Treasury Department said the second network, led by Iranian national Seyed Hossein Shariat, purchased Nuclear Suppliers Group's aluminum alloy products for the benefit of the Iranian regime's military.

Iran Regime Sentences Woman to 24 Years for Protesting Compulsory Hijab

The Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Court in Tehran has sentenced civil activist Saba Kord Afshari to 24 years in prison for protesting the compulsory hijab and refusing to give a “televised confession.”
Ms. Afshari, in her early twenties, is presently detained in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.
Saba Kord Afshari was repeatedly pressured to make video confessions, something that she strongly resisted and refused to do. The Intelligence Ministry even arrested her mother to bring further pressure and force her to force her make false confessions.
Ms. Kord Afshari was first arrested on August 2, 2018 during street protests front of the Daneshjoo Park in Tehran.
The maximum sentenced to be implemented for her is 15 years for “promoting corruption and prostitution by removing her veil and walking in the streets without the veil.”

Amnesty International: UN Must Investigate Iran’s 1988 Massacre

In the lead-up to the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on 30 August, Amnesty International on Wednesday called on the United Nations to set up an independent investigation into Iran’s 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners.
The Iranian authorities’ “continued failure to disclose the fate and whereabouts of thousands of political dissidents who were forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed in secret during Iran’s 1988 prison massacres has sparked a crisis that for decades has been largely overlooked by the international community,” Amnesty International said on its website on August 28.
Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director at Amnesty International, said: “The families of those secretly killed in the 1988 prison massacres are still living through a nightmare. They and many others in Iran are haunted by the thousands of missing bodies, which have cast a spectre over the country’s justice system to this day.”
“It is misguided to view the 1988 mass killings as historical events. The enforced disappearances are ongoing and, 30 years later, victims’ families continue to be tormented by anguish and uncertainty over the fate of their loved ones,” he added.