Iran Focus

London, 30 Jan – The Iranian Regime often uses a carrot and stick approach to foreign policy, promising minor reforms that mean very little, whilst threatening that major reforms would lead to instability in the Middle East.

This can be seen most recently in the disgusting visit of Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Chairman of the Iranian Committee for Foreign Policy and National Security, to the European Parliament on 23-24 January.

The European Parliament didn’t hold Boroujerdi to account over the Iranian Regime’s policies- most notably their human rights policies in the wake of an ongoing violent crackdown to anti-regime protests- and allowed him instead to spread Iranian propaganda and use the favoured ‘carrot & stick’ policy.

Iran Focus

London, 30 Jan – The European Union has been roundly criticised for allowing a member of the despicable mullahs’ regime to visit their Parliament during a violent crackdown on protesters in Iran. The MEPs failed to hold Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Chairman of the Iranian Committee for Foreign Policy and National Security, to account for the crackdown, the war in Syria, or any number of other problems during his two-day visit.

Instead, they allowed him to take control of the meeting, before bending over backwards to appease him, praise the Regime, and keep quiet about the issues that matter. But why would the EU do this?

Perhaps it’s time to revisit an op-ed written by Iranian-American political scientist Dr. Majid Rafizadeh in December 2016, called ‘Why is the EU defending Iran?’

Iran Focus

London, 30 Jan – It is no secret that since it stole power in 1979, the Iranian Regime continually attempts to discredit the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) both domestically and globally.

There are numerous accounts, by both the MEK and various Western institutions, of Iran’s so-called Intelligence Ministry (MOIS) targeting the MEK’s reputation in a “long-running and sophisticated information campaign”, “coordinated and financed by the Iranian intelligence services” to discredit the MEK.

Iran Focus

London, 29 Jan – The widespread protests across Iran have now been suppressed by the Iranian Regime’s so-called security forces but it is far from over. As such, the international community should be wary of writing this off as an anomaly and preparing to condone the Regime again.

These anti-regime protests that so disturbed the Regime didn’t spring up out of nowhere. In fact, they are the continuation century-long struggle for democracy and freedom in Iran and it should be expected that the protests will occur again and again until democracy is realised in Iran.

Iran Focus

London, 26 Jan – When Donald Trump took office in 2017, he promised to strengthen old US alliances and create new ones, but there was one quasi-alliance that he couldn’t wait to get rid of: Iran.

Trump’s key policies in the Middle East are to limit Iranian influence in the region and to renegotiate or scrap the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, but how is he achieving this?

The Nuclear Deal

A long-time critic of the deal, Trump promised to fix it or rip it up whilst on the campaign trail. During his time in office, his administration has repeatedly cited violations of the deal by the Iranian Regime, which culminated in Trump declaring the Regime non-compliant in October 2017. In January, Trump stated that if the flaws of the nuclear pact are not fixed by May, he will pull the US out of the deal altogether.

Iran Focus

London, 26 Jan – A group of Iranian politicians plan to visit the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, on Sunday, January 28, to inspect the conditions that dozens of political prisoners are living under, but we shouldn’t expect this to be anything more than a PR exercise on behalf of the Regime.

Allahyar Alishahi, the head of the parliamentary judiciary commission, announced the visit in the wake of calls for an investigation into five suspicious deaths in custody in January alone, as well as reports of mistreatment and torture of other political prisoners.