The Latest - Iran - Human Rights
UN Appoints New Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran
The UN Human Rights Council on Friday appointed Javaid Rehman, a British-Pakistani lawyer and academic, as the new special rapporteur for human rights in Iran. Rehman assumes the role as the Islamic Republic continues to endure widespread protests stemming in part from the brutal repression that Rehman’s predecessors have punctiliously documented. more...
The US Must Put Minister of Justice on Sanctions List
In February 2018, as Iran’s clerical regime continued to suppress nationwide protests, Tehran’s minister of justice ascended the dais of the UN Human Rights Council and accused Western countries of hypocrisy. more...
US should sanction Iran’s notorious ‘hanging judge’
In mid-May, Iranian judge Abolghassem Salavati told a British-Iranian prisoner to expect a new conviction on fresh charges of “propaganda against the state.” Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whom Salavati first sentenced to five years in prison in 2016 on equally specious espionage allegations, constitutes one of more than a dozen known dual and foreign nationals — including at least seven U.S. citizens and permanent residents — languishing in Iran’s notorious jails for putatively seeking to overthrow the Islamist regime. more...
Tehran and its proxies are willing to sacrifice the welfare of ordinary Yemenis to keep the conflict
“There is no military solution to the conflict,” says the UN special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths. Iranian officials agree, at least in public, yet Tehran keeps sending weapons to the Houthi rebels, including ballistic missiles. Arming the rebels makes perfect sense when Iran does not want to resolve the conflict. more...
Israel Offers to Help Resolve Iran’s Water Crisis
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday presented what he described as “an unprecedented offer to Iran.” The Jewish state, he said, seeks to share its environmental expertise with Iran to help resolve the country’s increasingly dire water crisis. The Israeli proposal highlights the abortive – and ultimately self-defeating – policies of the clerical regime, which sabotages its own self-interests by fueling a problem that threatens not only its grip on power, but also the country’s survival. more...
Don’t Fear Regime Change in Iran
President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran deal, and to relentlessly pressure the Islamic Republic, has elicited a predictable response. Critics cite history, particularly a counterproductive 1953 coup, as a reason to oppose the strategy. But looking more closely at the past shows that a regime-collapse containment policy is the best way to effect change. more...
Iran’s Trucker Protests Reflect Continued Domestic Unrest
Iran’s truckers have gone on strike. The protests, which began on May 22 and reportedly spread to more than 250 cities in all of the country’s 31 provinces, largely reflect discontent with low wages, high costs for insurance and spare parts, and related hardships. Collectively, they have paralyzed large swaths of the country, leading numerous cities to face long lines at gas stations and delays in the delivery of goods. more...
NATO chief: Alliance won’t defend Israel in war with Iran
NATO will not side with Israel if the Islamic Republic of Iran attacks the Jewish state, the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization told a German magazine on Saturday NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Der Spiegel, “The security guarantee [of NATO] does not apply to Israel” because the Jewish state is not a member of the 29 country alliance. more...
Iran still seeking tech for weapons of mass destruction: German intel
Iran’s regime has not stopped its drive to secure technology and scientific knowledge to produce weapon of mass destruction, the intelligence agency of the German state of Baden-Württemberg disclosed in a report last week. more...
Trump Imposes New Human Rights Sanctions on Iran
The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed sanctions on six individuals and three entities responsible for major human rights abuses against the Iranian people. The designations reflect a reinvigorated U.S. effort to pressure Tehran for its domestic repression following Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s May 21 address articulating a new Iran strategy. more...
In Iran’s water crisis, Tehran sows the seeds of its own decline
“I have returned” to Iran, tweeted a newly appointed environmental official charged with resolving the country’s water crisis, “with the hope of creating #hope.” Within months, however, that hope evaporated – and he found himself arrested, interrogated, and facing a government-coordinated smear campaign. more...
Security Forces Kill Three Protesters in Southern Iran as Demonstrations Continue
Protests in Iran have largely faded from Western news reporting, but not from the country’s streets, with more than 400 in April alone. Last week in the southern city of Kazeroon, police opened fire on demonstrators, reportedly leaving at least three people dead and dozens injured. Authorities arrested more than 100 others. more...
Iran: The Shi’ite Imperial Power
The sectarian wars in Iraq and Syria have fundamentally changed the Islamic Republic. They have become arenas for a new militant Shi’ite solidarity that has crossed the Arab Persian divide: Iranian-led, non-Iranian militias, thousands strong, now fight in foreign lands. more...
Trump and Pompeo’s plan for Iran: It’s risky, but it has a chance of succeeding
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech on Monday outlining President Trump's new strategy to counter the Islamic Republic of Iran: Intensify the Iranian regime's ongoing liquidity and political crisis to induce fundamental changes in behavior across a range of malign activities. In short, maximum diplomacy backed by maximum pressure. more...
UN Extends Mandate of Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran
The UN Human Rights Council last week passed a resolution extending the mandate of the special rapporteur on human rights in Iran by one year. The measure, which cleared the global body by a vote of 21 to 7 with 19 countries abstaining, reflects a recognition that Tehran’s domestic repression constitutes an ongoing problem. At the same time, the large number of abstentions and opposing votes suggests that a significant percentage of the international community remains willing to overlook or deny the reality of Iran’s abysmal record on human rights. more...
Hit Ayatollah Khamenei in His Pocketbook
The Trump administration already has offered rhetorical support to Iran’s antigovernment protesters. Now, nearly a month after the demonstrations began, how can the U.S. provide material help? Follow the money. more...
Iran Protests Revive Bitter US Political Divides
President Donald Trump blamed former president Barack Obama Tuesday for "foolishly" giving Iranian leadership money as part of the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated by his administration, tweeting a claim the funds "went into terrorism and into their pockets." more...
Trump Reiterates Support for Iranian Protesters, but Also Criticizes Obama
President Trump has given full-throated support to the antigovernment protesters in Iran. But the rising tide of unrest there complicates an already vexing decision for him: whether he should rip up the nuclear deal struck by President Barack Obama. more...
Iran’s Theocracy Is on the Brink
Iran has a peculiar habit of surprising Americans. It has done so again with the protests engulfing its major cities. The demonstrations began over economic grievances and quickly transformed into a rejection of theocracy. more...
Iran’s Repression of Foreign Journalists Intensifies
Iran’s targeting of foreign journalists has intensified. In recent weeks and months, the regime has conducted cyber attacks against Iranian journalists abroad, launched a criminal investigation of BBC Persian, and falsely charged a British-Iranian for conspiring against the regime by teaching journalism. Tehran’s conduct reflects its longstanding fear that journalists constitute Western agents who seek to infiltrate the country with foreign ideologies contrary to Shiite Islam. more...
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