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Iran Media Warns of MEK Threat

Pooya Stone
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Iran Media Warns of MEK Threat

Infighting has only grown among the Iranian factions as the mullahs face increased international pressure and a people on the brink of uprising, but that is not even the beginning of their problems.

The state-run media continues to acknowledge that the biggest threat to the Iranian government is the opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

The Mostaghel daily wrote Tuesday: “This hardliner faction, which claims to be the heir of the revolution, seemingly does not understand that their actions to have more power at whatever cost and by attacking other factions have created a huge gap in the system. They do not see how the enemy cunningly plots against the [mullahs] in this gap.”

The paper then went on to talk about how the US House of Representatives recently co-sponsored a resolution that condemned Iran for terrorism and human rights abuses, while also supporting the democratic Iran that opposition leader Maryam Rajavi has called for in her ten-point plan. They advised that while Iran expels International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, the opposition is able to get bipartisan backing from the US that supports the MEK’s and the Iranian people’s desire for regime change.

The infighting reached a new high on February 4, following the terrorism conviction of Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi for trying to blow up an opposition rally in France in 2018 and kill Rajavi. The both warring factions, who are not all that different in reality, blame each other for the damage done to their terrorist apparatus.

The paper warned them again that the gaps between them are being exploited by the MEK, although quite how they think the MEK is to blame for the conviction was not clear. Providing evidence in a trial is not exactly bribing the judge.

However, the article does showcase exactly what the conviction means to the government and the West’s appeasement policy, with Mostaghel advising that the hope for the lifting of sanctions has been dashed.

It then warned that the MEK may well incite further anti-regime protests, as they did in 2017 and 2019, but this time much larger; large enough to overthrow the ruling system. In fact, Mostaghel even cited that this has been the aim of the MEK for the 42 years that the mullahs have been in power, with the group exposing the regime’s crimes to limit international and domestic support for the mullahs.

Iran Budget Approved, but Its Not a Good Thing

Jubin Katiraie
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Iran Budget Approved, but Its Not a Good Thing

The Iranian parliament (Majlis) has finally approved the government’s 2021-22 budget bill following a month of arguments between the members of the parliament and the members of President Hassan Rouhani’s cabinet.

On February 16, the parliament’s official news agency, Khan-e Melat, reported that Rouhani’s bill was rejected, so the cabinet “implemented Majlis’s opinions”, which allowed the bill to be passed, and that the parliament was satisfied with the budget reform.

So, what was holding up the passage of the bill? Well, there were two disputed issues:

  • The source of the regime’s income in the budget
  • The US dollar exchange rate specified by the government

Where is the money coming from?

MP Allahverdi Dehghani said that the budget was based on selling 2.3 million barrels of oil, with over half of the regime’s proposed income from that one source, but it does not look likely that international sanctions on Iran’s oil exports will be lifted, so how can the regime be relying on so much of this income?

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Iran’s 2021-22 Budget Bill, A Perfect View of Government’s Dilemmas and Crises

In a previous session, Budget and Planning Organization chief Mohammad Bagher Nobakht had objected to this concern, citing secret reports, but then admitted that the regime’s oil incomes have crashed dramatically in the past couple of years.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf replied: “If you know that our oil exports are at a minimum, why have you planned to sell 2.3 million barrels of oil? How has the government scheduled its expenses based on the revenue that does not exist?”

This discrepancy was not solved, however, as if the MPs just forgot about funding the budget.

How many rials to the dollar?

Back in 2018, the Iranian government artificially set the exchange rate at 42,000 rials per US dollar with the hope of steadying the economy. This didn’t work, which should have been obviously at the start, and now the free market is trading at 260,000 rials per US dollar.

This has led to a black-market trade for regime-affiliates who make huge profits borrowing at the government rate without paying back the necessary money.

The state-run Resalat daily wrote: “Since 2018, the profit generated from the 42,000-rial exchange rate is ten times larger than the entire yearly cash handouts being offered to the needy, and it has been deposited into the pockets of individuals who have access to this currency. The [regime’s affiliates who] had access to the 42,000-rial dollar were able to import their goods at this rate but sold it at free-market rates.”

There has been no resolution to the exchange rate difference or the problems it caused.

How was the budget ever approved?

As it turns out, it was an under-the-table deal, where the rial exchange rate would remain at 42,000 for six months, allowing the regime to profit at the expense of the people.

It seems an odd choice because they know the people can see what they’re doing and hate it, as well as hating the regime for many other legitimate reasons. The people are getting angrier and the budget may push them over the edge.

EU Facing Backlash Over Iran Policy

Pooya Stone
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EU Facing Backlash Over Iran Policy

European Union foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday for extensive policy discussions, drawing commentary from various lawmakers about existing policies, most notably their policy on Iran.

The appeasement policy on Iran was already pretty contentious but has recently been put in sharper focus, following the conviction of an Iranian diplomat for terrorism in Europe earlier this month.

In 2018, Assadollah Assadi, who was then-stationed at the Iranian embassy in Vienna, smuggled 500g of the TATP explosive into Europe in his diplomatic luggage before driving to Luxembourg to personally hand it over to the Belgian couple he’d hired, along with specific instructions to place it as close to opposition leader Maryam Rajavi as possible at the Free Iran rally in France. A third accomplice was waiting at the rally to watch the explosion and report back.

Thankfully, the plot was thwarted by European police. Assadi was sentenced to 20 years in prison. All three accomplices were sentenced to between 15 and 18 years in jail, as well as losing their Belgian citizenship.

Prosecutors said that Assadi was not acting on his own volition, but on behalf of Iran’s highest-ranking members, including Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Iran critics say that this is a pattern of the Tehran’s  behaviour, but the EU has failed to act accordingly.

This led Iranian expats to gather outside the EU headquarters in Schuman Square, Brussels, on Monday, to call direct attention to the case and demand that the EU acknowledge it and condemn Iranian state-backed terrorism.

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Iran-EU Trade Summit Should Be Cancelled

However, this was far from the only push back that the EU has seen in recent days over its treatment of the Iranian government following Assadi’s trial.

Over 200 Iranian communities from a dozen EU countries, Britain, the US, Canada, and Australia have composed a statement to European Council President Charles Michel and EU head of foreign policy Josep Borrell, to notify them that Iran’s foreign terrorism is twinned with domestic human rights abuses, while also citing Iran’s ballistic missile development, nuclear weapons’ programmes, and regional warfare as issues of concern.

While British MPs, on behalf of the International Committee of Parliamentarians for a Democratic Iran, called on the UK and EU to take action against Iran’s terrorism and take steps to end it, rather than maintain ordinary diplomatic relations.

While Lord Alton of Liverpool, who was one of the signatories to that statement, also wrote to UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab, to advise that Britain must take a leading role in addressing Iran’s state terrorism. He further advised that the UK must take a tougher role on Iran, which means not attending the Europe-Iran Business Forum next week.

Iran: Officials Murder Baluch Fuel Porters and Protesters in Saravan

Hoshang Amiri
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Iran: Officials Murder Baluch Fuel Porters and Protesters in Saravan

On February 22, IRGC forces opened fire on a group of fuel porters at the border crossing city of Saravan, leaving several dead and wounded. Latest reports say that at least 40 people have died and more than 100 have been injured.

“At least 40 protesters have been killed in yesterday and today’s brutal attacks, and over 100 people wounded and hospitalized, some in critical condition. The IRGC also set fire to dozens of vehicles with which the porters transferred their fuel,” the Iranian opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) stated.

According to eyewitnesses and videos circulated on social media, the IRGC used heavy machine guns to fire on the porters and set several of their vehicles ablaze. The security forces later opened fire on a village near the area the incident took place, causing all residents to flee.

The Iranian opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI) described the situation in Saravan city as tense. “The IRGC has also dispatched several armed forces squads to the Saravan county to prevent potential protests by the families of the victims and the enraged citizens. More reports indicated that the IRGC had blocked roads to the Razi hospital and the morgue in Saravan, where the bodies of the victims were being held,” the MEK wrote on its website.

In response to the government’s blind crackdown on Baluch people, Saravan residents raided and occupied the local Governorate, venting their anger over the oppressive measures and bloodshed. They also overturned police vehicles and set them ablaze as a sign of their ire.

In such circumstances, it is imperative that the international community interferes with the issue, pushing the Iranian government to stop suppression, dissidents believe. The case of Tehran’s violation of human rights should be submitted to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and criminals must be brought to justice, they added.

For many years, the Iranian government’s systematic discrimination has led residents of border provinces like Sistan and Baluchestan in the southeast, Kurdistan in the west, and Khuzestan in the southwest to resort to hard and harmful jobs to feed their family members.

Undeniable evidence shows that officials’ mismanagement is the main reason for rampant poverty, unemployment, and even poor nutrition in these areas, inhabited by religious and ethnic minorities, observers say.

Instead, not only does the government not attempt to improve locals’ living conditions but also exerts more pressure on impoverished people. In this context, most social protests are shaped in these provinces.

These people, who apparently see that the government has abandoned them, have grasped that the protests are their sole instrument to achieve their inherent rights. Therefore, despite the government’s flagrant suppression, they diligently continue protests.

Transporting insignificant amounts of fuel is one of the hard and risky jobs in Sistan and Baluchestan province. Many people carry some gallons of gas in return for meager money. However, the government, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), frequently targets these people known as Soukhtbar [fuel porter].

Iran: “Public Rights”, the 96% of the Majority, Are the “Subset Right of the Special 4%”

Jubin Katiraie
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Iran: “Public Rights”, the 96% of the Majority, Are the “Subset Right of the Special 4%”

Mohammad Gharazi, one of the founders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and former Minister of Oil, named the leaders of the government and its affiliated aristocratic elements as ‘Agha’ (Sir), and called their children and grandchildren ‘Aghazadeh’ (official’s relatives) and said: ‘If there is no Agha, there will be no Aghazadeh.’

He acknowledged that the ‘Aghazadehs’ stole the people’s capital and moved to the United States and Europe, saying: A very reliable example is that 5,000 children of Iranian officials have left Iran and gone to the United States and taken billions of dollars with them. Agha and Aghazadeh are an issue, those who consider public rights to be a subset of their special rights.”

Continuing his remarks in the state-run daily Mostaghel on February 15, 2021, he acknowledged the laws of Iran’s parliament in order to ensure the interests of the regime’s leaders, their relatives and those around them, and stated in this regard:

Read More:

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“You have observed time and time again that laws are enacted in the parliament’s sessions that establish the rights of some people and in this situation the people are disappointed. By creating rent-seeking, Agha and Aghasadehs are formed, then they define a position for themselves that people hate very much.”

The former minister’s remarks on the plundering of the national wealth by the ‘Aghas’ and their children merely expose an aspect of the institutionalized political and economic corruption in Iran’s Velayat-e-Faqih (supreme religious rule).

Another important point in his interview was that the parliament is one of the main causes of corruption, which legitimizes and institutionalizes it in favor of the leaders of the system and their relatives.

Extreme class differences and the deprivation of the majority of the people in the face of the unlimited wealth of a few and a minority are inevitable consequences.

As a result, problems such as marginalization, homelessness, tomb sleepers, and many other social crises are affecting the deprived people.

Crises that have absolutely nothing to do with foreign origin and sanctions, while the leaders of the regime, led by Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani, are trying to relate these problems to sanctions.

While most Iranians live in poverty, in addition to these, ‘Aghas and their children’, there is also a parasitic nobility which is dependent on the government, as the state-run daily Aftab-e-Yazd on February 16, 2021 wrote:

“Now a class of novices has come to power and you can see them in Farmaniyeh and Saffaranieh. These people have become billionaires through economic and business swaps and rent-seeking even with the sanctions.”

Mansour Haghighatpour, a member of the parliament, also admits this fact: “Corruption is like a termite in the system.” (State-run daily Mostaghel, February 15, 2021)

Mohsen Rezaei also confessed to the looting of people’s property by 150 government agents in the capital market: “150 people plunder people’s capital in the stock market.” (State-run daily Entekhab, February 14, 2021)

Abbas Akhundi, the former Minister of Ministry of Roads and Urban Development of Hassan Rouhani’s government, announced the formation of a ‘transnational corruption network.’

An international network of corruption, which operates in the so-called informal market and thus has an annual trade value of $20 billion to $25 billion, has been involved in a deep corruption for 15 years.

The former minister of the Rouhani government pointed to a case of corruption that, “$100 billion stock was largely distributed among military entities.” (ISNA, February 8, 2021)

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said about this corruption in the presence of the so-called governmental ‘Economic activists’: “The corruption that we see in our country today is not due to the behavior of the private sector.” (State-TV, news channel, January 20, 2021)

Qalibaf is right because the regime has overset the real private sector. Because in the current situation, according to government experts, more than 60 percent of the economy is in the hands of institutions affiliated with Khamenei and the government, those who does not pay taxes and every year the government provides a large part of their budget from the pockets of the people.

What Gharazi has admitted is the product of a system in which corruption is institutionalized, systematic, and, as they say, automatic.

Iran Political Prison Dies After Being Denied Medical Treatment

Pooya Stone
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Iran Political Prison Dies After Being Denied Medical Treatment

An Iranian political prisoner died on Sunday, following abuse by the prison authorities that deprived him from getting the appropriate medical care that he needed.

Behnam Mahjoubi had been subjected to intense physical and psychological torture since his arrest earlier this year, which included being deprived of his epilepsy medication, even though it was provided by his family.

Despite his condition meaning that prison would be especially hard, the prison authorities refused to allow him out, even temporarily. Instead, they injected him with unknown drugs that actually caused his condition to get worse and led to him falling into a coma.

At that point, he was taken to Loghman Hospital, where he died just days later.

Maryam Rajavi, the opposition president, said: “What happened to Behnam Mahjoubi makes it imperative to send an international fact-finding mission to Iran to visit the prisons, political prisoners, and the detained protesters.”

This tragic tale is sadly far from unique. In fact, human rights abuses are systematic in Iran and many political prisoners have been killed by the authorities through the deprivation of medical care.

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Iran Executes Seven on Wednesday

One of them was Mohsen Dogmechi, a People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) supporter, who died in 2011 from pancreatic cancer. The prison authorities refused to send him to the hospital in the early stages of his illness, when treatment may well have helped, or release him into the care of his family.

There are also multiple political prisoners in Iran’s prisons right now who are dangerously ill and in need of proper medical treatment. This includes:

  • Arash Sadeghi, who suffers from Chondrosarcoma
  • 53-year-old MEK supporter Fatemeh Mosanna, who has been examined on several occasions by a doctor at Tehran’s Taleghani Hospital who said that Mosanna should be released. Authorities have consistently refused to give her furlough.
  • Massoumeh Senobari  was denied medical treatment by the authorities of the Central Prison of Tabriz earlier this month, even though she is suspected of having cancer.

These are just a few of the cases, but for each one mentioned, dozens more exist.

The Iranian Resistance wrote: “EU leaders should impose sanctions on the regime’s officials for their role in terrorism and human rights violations. The Iranian regime’s dossier of arbitrary executions, massacres of political prisoners, and killings of demonstrators should be referred to the UN Security Council, and its leaders should be brought to justice for four decades of crimes against humanity.

Pensioner Rally Shows Likeliness of Another Major Iran Protests

Jubin Katiraie
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Pensioner Rally Shows Likeliness of Another Major Iran Protests

Iranian pensioners have been holding protest rallies across the country for the past three weeks to demand their basic rights.

This culminated in a rally on Sunday in over 20 cities, including Tehran, Tabriz, Arak, Yazd, Neyshabur, Khorram Abad, Sari, Shushtar, Karaj, Ahvaz, Haft Tappeh, Ardebil, Qazvin, Rasht, Dezful, Mashhad, Kermanshah, Isfahan, Ilam, and Bojnurd.

At this fifth nationwide protest by retirees in two months, they chanted:

  • “Astronomical salaries [for government officials], misery for the public”
  • “We are fed of with this injustice”
  • “Our salaries are paid in rial, but we pay our expenses in dollars”
  • “Enough with the promises, our tables are empty”
  • “We will not back down until we get our rights”
  • “Enough with the tyranny, our tables are empty”
  • “The retirees fund has been hijacked by thieves”

With each passing protest, the number of demonstrators grows and the protests became more political, moving away from just their demands over increasing their pensions and onto protesting corruption, injustice, and tyranny.

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Protests have grown over the past year, even as the authorities attempted to use the coronavirus to keep people from the streets and avoid another protest like that of November 2019. That shook the government to its core and was crushed by the repressive forces, who killed at least 1,500 people in the streets.

Many officials and media outlets have warned that the situation is similar now.

  • Feb 18, Tehran City Council head Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani warned that the people’s tolerance was reaching a “threshold”
  • Feb 20, the Setareyeh Sobh daily and the Vatan-e Emrooz daily warned of declining purchasing power and increased liquidity
  • Feb 21, the Kar va Kargar daily warns that food prices have increased by between 6% and 9% over the past year

While on February 20, MP Moussavi Larigani admitted that $70 billion has disappeared in the stock market, a reference to the huge dip that followed a bubble growth, when many small investors were convinced by officials to invest in stocks run by government gangs

He said: “A paper company with 2 trillion rials worth of assets was sold on the stock market at a 32 trillion rial valuation. This is while this company doesn’t even have a physical office and its stock was nothing but a piece of paper.”

The Iranian opposition, People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) has warned that these protests show how angry the society is and how likely it is that another major protest is coming.

The Coronavirus Artillery in Iran, Taking Children As Victims

Pooya Stone
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The Coronavirus Artillery in Iran, Taking Children As Victims

Children and adolescents are the victims of the fourth wave of the Coronavirus in Iran. Reports from Iran indicate the widespread prevalence of the fourth coronavirus wave in Iran. The president of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences announced the death of two one-year-old and nine-year-old children in Khuzestan province due to the coronavirus.

The coronavirus artillery is active

Farhad Abulnejadian, president of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences in Khuzestan province, wrote on his Twitter account on February 19: “Unlike previous peaks where more clashes took place in higher age groups, but in the recent peak with the spread of the English coronavirus, children and adolescents are also victims.”

The president of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences continued his tweet: “Parents should take care of themselves and their children, the coronavirus artillery is active outside the house.”

Iraj Haririchi, the Deputy Minister of Health, also warned about the decrease in the age of the disease and the spread of the new virus among the youth on the evening of February 18, while confirming the outbreak of the coronavirus virus throughout the country.

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Haririchi added: “The incidence of the coronavirus has increased at the age of five to 17 years, so that this statistic in Tehran province has increased from 4 to 11 percent. He also admitted that the number of hospitalizations for people under 12 has increased.

218,000 people have died in Iran due to the coronavirus

Deputy Minister of Health Qassem Babakhani also announced a fivefold increase in the number of patients with coronavirus in the country and warned about the exhaustion of hospital capacity of the province’s hospitals.

Meanwhile, according to the Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), more than 218,000 people across the country have died as a result of the coronavirus.

Government officials put the death toll at less than 60,000, but their numbers are strongly disputed by doctors inside Iran.

Harirchi admitted: “Today we had more than 8,000 new cases. Given that the percentage of positive tests has increased, we must assume that the virus is present everywhere in the country. Young people and children are more likely to get this type of mutated virus. The British coronavirus has been seen more in the provinces of Tehran, Alborz, Khuzestan and Qazvin.”

More deaths as Khamenei bans import of the vaccine

Minoo Mohrez, a Member of the National Taskforce for Combating the coronavirus in Iran, said: “The rate of the disease in the country is increasing. If this continues, we will have to wait for the fourth wave of the disease in the country. Currently, the rate of the disease is rising badly. The mutated virus that has mutated in Britain is on the rise. The speed of transmission of this virus is very, very high. It can increase the number of critically ill patients and the mortality rate by increasing the number of patients per person.”

Meanwhile, government officials are reporting the outbreak of the fourth coronavirus wave, while people around the world are buying and injecting vaccines with astonishing speed. But Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has increased mortality by banning the purchase of an effective and credible vaccine from the US, Britain or France. In this regard, Mohammad Reza Zafar Ghandi, head of the Medical System Organization, reiterated that vaccination should be free of political issues and a priority for officials.

Iran, Khamenei, Engineered Election and Hard Days

Jubin Katiraie
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Iran, Khamenei, Engineered Election and Hard Days

‘Elections’ and ‘people’ are two words that have been transformed from their original concepts under the religious tyranny ruling Iran. What is called elections in the clerical culture is not synonymous with the common definition of the word in democratic societies.

The regime has taken the name of democracy in its political vocabulary and replaced it with ‘religious democracy’. This religious democracy is anything but democracy and the rule of the people. When we explore the concept of this composition, we finally come to the mobilization forces of the Revolutionary Guards, which in the eyes of this government is an excellent example of religious democracy. When this is the fate of democracy, the state of elections in religious tyranny is clear.

Guardian Council and Approved Supervision

In the medieval tyranny, elections do not take place in the usual sense. Because of the absolute rule of the supreme leader, people are not supposed to be selective and influential. Such a role is not defined for them. The Vali-e-Faqih (Supreme Leader) selects a number from among the surrogates and who have showed themselves loyal to him then pulls one out of the box in an engineered show.

It is interesting that in order to take over this process, the regime by placing a number of clerics in a clerical institution called the Guardian Council and institutionalizing approving supervision, the same hand-picked people are often passed through a filter and the most loyal to the supreme leader are taken out. He who passes through this mechanism must be  “committed in the heart and in practice” to the Velayat-e-Faqih as written in the regime’s constitution.

End the instrumental use of elections

Where are people in this process? Basically, what is the place of their choice among this process? In this medieval view, people are only good at queuing up at the ballot box on election day to portray that the regime has a popular base and that the people accept its authoritarian rule.

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Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei desperately needs this kind of propaganda to give his government a facelift. He called it ‘the authority of the system.’ The regime has taken many steps in recent years to show itself as democratized and bring a mass of people to the ballots, but all of them have failed.

Because people have realized the nature of this scandalous show and boycotted it. Hence, as the life of this system progresses, its popularity becomes smaller and smaller. What was proved in February 2020 is that such government demonstrations can no longer mobilize even the regime’s supporters.

Weakening the rule of the system and Khamenei’s deceit

Khamenei’s speech on February 17, 2021 is the best evidence of the fact that the clerical dictatorship sees its fall and its rule. In part of his speech, the following parameters are significant.

1- The efforts to democratize and show the prosperity of the election show has failed. This can be seen in his desperate statements as well as his plea to participate in the election show.

“When people participate in the elections and show their revolutionary passion, it causes security and repulses the enemy, and reduces greed for the country. The more passionate and popular the election, the greater the effects on the country and the people. But the enemy does not want this.” (State-run daily Entekhab, February 17, 2021)

At the end of his speech on the elections, he again points out that the cure for the chronic pains of his system is to deal with the sluggishness of the election show.

“I have a lot more to say about the election in the coming months. I am currently saying the same sentence: The cure for the chronic pains of the country is the enthusiasm of the elections and the public presence of the people, and then the selection of the right and appropriate person in the presidential elections.” (State-run daily Entekhab, February 17, 2021)

2- What Khamenei calls ‘choosing the right and appropriate person’ for the presidency is to appoint a loyalist to this position while he is trying to contract his government. The Supreme Leader has repeatedly addressed this ‘suitable figure’ and said that what he meant by “a young government of Hezbollah” is a “person with the characteristics of Qassem Soleimani.” Trying to contract the system and removing the people of the opposite faction from the government is also to achieve such a purpose.

3- Khamenei admits in advance the engineering of the election show and its coldness and sluggishness, so he is preparing the ground for confronting the socio-political consequences of this bankrupt show.

“They always start saying things close to the elections, such as that elections are not free, there is interference, engineering, and so on. In order to discourage people.” (State-run daily Entekhab, February 17, 2021)

Hard days

According to what Khamenei said in the speech about the apathy and defection of the regime forces with the terms ‘do not be afraid, do not get tired, do not despair, do not be lazy, do not knowingly be on the enemy’s plan’, it can be said that difficult days await him and the clerical system. The days when their pulse beats with riots and uprisings on the streets of Iran.

Confident in Its Impunity, Iran Tried to Leverage Multiple Hostages for the Same Terrorist

Pooya Stone
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0
Confident in Its Impunity, Iran Tried to Leverage Multiple Hostages for the Same Terrorist

Last November, the Iranian judiciary moved one of its dual-national detainees into solitary confinement to suggest that the implementation of his death sentence was imminent. Ahmadreza Djalali was arrested in 2016 after traveling back to his homeland from his residence in Sweden. He was later issued a capital sentence on unsubstantiated charges of spying, which Djalali himself described as retaliation for his refusal to collaborate with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

The move to implement that sentence in 2020 was evidently retaliation of a different kind, coming right around the time that a Belgian court was putting a high-ranking diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, on trial for his leading role in an attempted bombing on European soil. The target of that plot was a gathering of Iranian expatriates just outside Paris, but two of Assadi’s co-conspirators were arrested before leaving Belgium with the bomb he had provided, and that became the venue for their prosecution.

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The relationship between Assadi’s and Djalali’s cases stems from the fact that the Iranian-Swedish dual national had previously resided and worked in Belgium, as well. Among the several Western nationals being held hostage in Iran, this made him the closest thing the regime had to a direct source of leverage over the Belgian government. Accordingly, that government did respond to the threat on Djalali’s life, albeit not in the way that Tehran would have hoped.

Far from offering to release Assadi or downgrade his prosecution, Brussels declared that if Djalali’s hanging went forward as planned, diplomatic ties between the two nations would be severed and Iran would be subjected to increased pressure and isolation for the foreseeable future. The Islamic Republic seemingly backed down soon thereafter, announcing that the execution had been delayed and casting Djalali’s case into a different kind of uncertainty.

Little has been heard from the prisoner since then, but it stands to reason that Tehran still views him as a potential source of leverage, even if it doesn’t have a precise new goal in mind. In the meantime, the regime has evidently been looking elsewhere for ways to strong-arm European governments into releasing Assadi.

Tehran’s chances of success grew especially remote on February 4 when the former third counsellor at the Iranian embassy in Vienna was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison for plotting to commit terrorist murder. But just ahead of that sentence, the judiciary set its sights on two new Western nationals, one from Germany and another from France. At least one of these is reportedly a dual national like Djalali, but little else is known apart from the fact that the Franco-Iranian was arrested for flying a drone in the desert.

The circumstances of that arrest were reminiscent of the 2019 case of Jolie King and Mark Firkin, a pair of Australian travel bloggers who were arrested and threatened with national security charges after using a drone to take photos of the Iranian leg of a world tour. The couple was released after several months, but not before the Australian government decided to refuse an American extradition request for an Iranian scientists accused of violating sanctions to obtain sensitive materials for the Islamic Republic.

That decision gave King and Firkin’s release the appearance of a prisoner swap, thereby putting it in the same category of a number of other exchanges that have taken place over the years, such as the 2016 release of four Americans from Iranian custody at the time of implementation for the seven-party Iran nuclear deal. To secure that release, the Obama administration apparently agreed to release or drop charges for 21 Iranians, as well as to deliver 700 million dollars in cash as partial repayment for an outstanding debt for arms sales to the pre-revolutionary Iranian government.

Such incidents have the unfortunate effect of leading Tehran to believe that hostage-taking is a viable means of securing its interests. And this no doubt helped motivate the regime to try using multiple hostages as leverage against the desperate situation faced by their terrorist-diplomat. The threat on Djalali’s life was a sufficiently alarming example of this phenomenon, but the regime’s decision to proceed from that failure to the contrived arrest of two other Western nationals was a sure sign of confidence in its own impunity.

The news of the latest two arrests was only very recently broken, but it came as no surprise to serious critics of the Iranian regime. They have long recognized Western policies as tending toward conciliation and appeasement, and thereby giving rise to an Iranian mentality that lets the regime threaten the West with little fear of reprisal. Imbalanced prisoner swaps are a key example of this appeasement, but they are far from the only example.

In fact, multiple statements from European lawmakers and former government officials have made the case that the European Union’s silence on the Assadi case is a prime example of this trend. The Brussels-based NGO the International Committee in Search of Justice issued one such statement on Wednesday and described that silence as “catastrophic capitulation to the Iranian regime’s attempts to bomb and kill people on European soil.”

The statement also reiterated longstanding calls for more assertive Western policies toward the Islamic Republic, including policies that favor isolation over un-earned diplomatic engagement and potentially lead to the closure of Iranian embassies, pending serious Iranian commitments to dismantling of terrorist networks and disavowal of all terrorist activity on European soil.

Unfortunately, current trends are heading in precisely the opposite direction, as evidenced by the recent announcement that a Europe-Iran Business Forum would be going forward at the beginning of March, less than three months after it was cancelled over the Iranian judiciary’s execution of an opposition journalist, Ruhollah Zam.

None other than Josep Borrell, the EU’s head of foreign policy, is slated to deliver a keynote speech in that online conference, right alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. In agreeing to the schedule, Borrell signaled his willingness to overlook the fact that Tehran had neither atoned for Zam’s killing nor acknowledged any wrongdoing whatsoever. If he were to go forward with the speech now, he would similarly be turning a blind eye to the recently-announced arrests, which help to demonstrate that the full range of Iran’s malign activities remain as much a concern as they were several weeks ago when Zam was killed, as well as three years ago when Iranian operatives nearly set off a bomb in the heart of Europe.

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