Iran Focus
London, 25 Oct – The UN independent expert on human rights in Iran called on the mullahs on Wednesday to ban the death penalty for juveniles.
Javaid Rehman, special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, told a General Assembly human rights committee: “I appeal to the Iranian authorities to abolish the practice of sentencing children to death, and to commute all death sentences issued against children in line with international law.”
Iran Focus
London, 25 Oct – German bank Varengold is still conducting business with Iran Air, an airline that will come under US sanctions from November 4 for its role in helping Iran to aid Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The business links were confirmed by a highly reliable source and the Iran Air website.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies reports that members of Fatemiyoun, an Afghan militia under control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – a US-sanctioned terrorism group – are being flown on Iran Air to Syria, but the Iran Air website hides this by not listing Damascus on its official flight logs.
Iran Focus
London, 25 Oct – The Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih has said on Tuesday that his country, the leading member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is ready to increase its crude oil production and spare capacity to help maintain balance in the global market and prevent a sharp price rise.
At an investment conference in Riyadh, Falih said that OPEC and non-OPEC producers are expected to sign an “open-ended” agreement in December to continue cooperation in the energy markets.
Iran Focus
London, 25 Oct – On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia announced that it and Bahrain had added Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, as a whole, and three senior officers of its Quds Force to its terror watch lists.
The Saudi state news agency SPA reported that Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and operative Hamed Abdollahi and Abdul Reza Shahlai were specifically named on the Saudi Arabian list of people and organizations suspected of involvement in terrorism, citing a statement from the state’s security agency.
The IRGC and three men listed have provided financial or material support to Iranian terrorist activities, according to Saudi Arabia.
Iran Focus
London, 24 Oct – On Tuesday, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty published an article discussing the Iranian reaction to the apparent killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the Saudi Arabian government. The article began by stating that “Tehran spent weeks watching quietly as the international crisis unfolded over the killing.” It noted that Sadegh Larijani, the head of the Iranian judiciary, finally condemned the incident on Monday, but that this effectively broke the government’s weeks-long silence, standing as an exception to its strategy of simply allowing other international voices to take the lead in criticizing Iran’s leading regional adversary.
Iran Focus
London, 24 Oct – The US and six Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, have increased pressure on Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgency on Tuesday by designating eight people, including two Iranians linked to Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force, for support of the Taliban. The US-Arab coalition has imposed sanctions against the terrorist supporters.
The Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC) – a joint US-Gulf initiative to contain and counteract Iran’s support of terrorists in the Middle East and beyond – said that this highlighted Iran’s “regionally destabilizing behaviour” and justified the “U.S. maximum pressure campaign against Iran”. The TFTC was created in 2017 after Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia.
Iran Focus
London, 24 Oct – Following his summit meeting in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that Russia and the United States agree on the importance of expelling Iran from Syria. However, this may have been a slightly exaggerated claim because Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, has been talking extensively about Iran’s enduring presence in Syria as something that will not change in the immediate future.
Iran Focus
London, 23 Oct – The official channel for money transfers between China and Iran, Bank of Kunlun, will stop handling payments from the Islamic Republic as U.S. sanctions loom, according to what sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The sources, who include external loan agents and business officials who trade with Iran, claim that Kunlun verbally informed clients that it will stop accepting yuan-denominated Iranian payments to China beginning November 1st.
The financial arm of Chinese state energy group CNPC controls the bank, and had already suspended euro-denominated payments from Iran in late August, said the sources, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Iran Focus
London, 23 Oct – An Iranian MP from the city of Shiraz blasted President Hassan Rouhani in a speech to parliament on October 21 for suppressing Iran’s pre-Islamic history.
Bahram Parsaei, whose city is home to the 2,500-year-old ruins of Pasargadae, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, and the mausoleum of Cyrus the Great, proposed that October 29 should be named in honour of Cyrus, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire.
Iran Focus
London, 23 Oct – Five imprisoned Iranian environmentalists are now facing the death penalty after the ridiculous charges against them were changed from “espionage” to “Corruption on Earth”, according to one of the former lawyers of the accused.
Mohammad Hossein Aghasi told Radio Farda on Sunday, October 21, that the charges were changed after the examining magistrate received a letter from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and that the new charge of “corruption on earth” carries the death penalty under the Islamic Penal Code.
