By Pooya Stone
Iran’s renewed embrace of Iraq, shows that the US sanctions on Iran are working, according to political scientist Dr Majid Rafizadeh.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Iraq last week for the first time since becoming president in 2013 and this is a clear indication of how renewed US sanctions have damaged Iran because the mullahs are now desperate to find other countries willing to do business deals with the increasingly isolated Iran.
Iran Focus
London, 18 Mar – US President Trump must soon decide whether or not to end sanctions waivers granted to several nations. US officials have affirmed that the global oil market can withstand the removal of all Iranian crude exports this year.
Four officials who spoke on condition of anonymity say that with the current oil supply, along with the potential of the US and Saudis to ramp up production, “going to zero” could happen this year, without compromising affordable crude supplies.
By Jubin Katiraie
According to Amnesty International’s R. Bahreini, the situation in Iran is only getting worse. No one is safe from being detained under vague laws that criminalize most forms of expression in Iran.
She says, “At the moment there is no sign from the Iranian authorities that they intend to improve their appalling human rights record in this area. We have noticed that people are determined to claim their rights more and more including workers, students and civil society activists, who are taking to the streets and to social media to express their demands.”
By Mehdi
It has been over 400 days since a group of nine environmental activists were arrested and charged with espionage in Iran. Now, one has died under suspicious circumstances in prison and eight are facing trumped-up national security charges, some of which result in the death penalty.
By Pooya Stone
Iranian operatives are compiling “target packages” as part of their planning for prospective future assassinations and terrorist attacks, according to more than half a dozen former U.S. intelligence officials.
The assembly of these detailed dossiers is common practice for intelligence services, but Iran is the only country that uses them to plan terrorist attacks, that could be carried out if overt hostilities were to break out between Washington and Tehran.
Iran Focus
London, 15 Mar – On Wednesday the United Nations issued a shocking announcement: Iran, seen as one of the top human rights abusers in the world, was awarded a seat on the United Nations committee that oversees complaints about the global abuse of women.
By Jubin Katiraie
A top Treasury Department official told a Congressional subcommittee on Tuesday that the US has been very clear with Europe about the “significant risks” of providing Iran with a special mechanism to facilitate trade.
US Treasury undersecretary Sigal Mandelker, the head of Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI), told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services that the government continues “to maximize economic pressure on Iran to combat its weapons proliferation, terrorism, and regionally destabilizing activities”.
By Mehdi
Iranian businesses that are sanctioned by the United States for links to the Revolutionary Guards Corps have been caught unloading shipments at Syria’s Latakia port, which is raising concerns that the dormant maritime trade route has been revived and could be used to smuggle weapons.
Iran Focus
London, 13 Mar – There are increased fears over the safety of Christians in Iran following the arrest of three more worshippers in Rasht, Gilan Province, during what activists describe as an “ongoing official campaign of repression” against the religious minority.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), an advocacy group, explained that some of those arrested for merely practising their faith are from the Church of Iran, one of the largest evangelical church movements.
By Pooya Stone
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is often portrayed as a reformist and a moderate by the western media, but his credentials have deteriorated during his two terms of office. He has presided over the execution of 4,000 people, many of them political prisoners and many of them women. These executions are often public. Iran has the highest rate of executions per-capita of any country in the world, and the UN has condemned the theocratic dictatorship that rules Iran no fewer than 65 times.
