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Iran Human Rights Abuses Soared in January

Staff Writer
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Iran Human Rights Abuses Soared in January

Iran Focus

London, 07 Feb – Human rights abuses in Iran are plentiful, but this January has seen them soar as a result of the Iranian Regime’s crackdown on the protesters who called for regime change.

Iran Human Rights Monitor published a special report on the violations that the protesters were subjected to, but this article will do its best to cover both that and the unrelated human rights abuses.

Crackdown on protesters

Iran’s government started its crackdown with the first demonstrations, using tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowds.

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Did Iran Just Reveal Smart Bombs?

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Did Iran Just Reveal Smart Bombs?

Iran Focus

London, 06 Feb – Iran announced that it had begun mass-producing a new weaponised drone that is capable of carrying ‘smart’ bombs, which are capable of precision strikes.

At an unveiling ceremony in Tehran on Monday, Iranian Defence Minister and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Amir Hatami said: “”Drone Mohajer 6, [is] equipped with the smart Qa’em precision-striking bombs and different electro-optical explorers and different warheads, can trace, intercept and destroy the target.”

Also in attendance at the ceremony was Commander of the IRGC Ground Force Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour.

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Iran Continues to Harass Religious Minorities

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Iran Continues to Harass Religious Minorities

Iran Focus

London, 06 Feb – Iran boasts of its respect for religious freedom and tolerance for religious minorities, while President Hassan Rouhani even promises equal rights, but political scientist Dr. Majid Rafizadeh assesses that this is just empty words on the part of a dictatorship that is pretending to be a democracy.

Indeed, there are countless reports from human rights organizations that document systematic violations of religious freedom, as well as persecution and discrimination against religious minorities.

The largest religious minority in Iran in Sunni Muslims (5-10% of the population) but their religious leaders are frequently the targets of Iran’s attacks, according to Dr. Majid Rafizadeh.

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The Truth Behind the MEK in Iraq: Part 2

Jubin Katiraie
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The Truth Behind the MEK in Iraq: Part 2

This is a continuation of a piece posted last week about the fate of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in Iraq.

When we left off, the MEK had been granted protected persons status under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which means that they are officially recognized as people of concern by the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). However, when US troops withdrew from Iraq in 2009, the responsibility for protecting the unarmed MEK fell to the Iraqi government.

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Iran: Dervishes Community Attacked by Security Forces

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Iran: Dervishes Community Attacked by Security Forces

Iran Focus

London, 06 Feb – On Sunday, security forces in Iran besieged the house of one of the most well-known leaders of Shiite Sufism. Noor Ali Tabandeh’s residence was quickly surrounded with his supporters who gathered peacefully to protest the injustice. This, however, led to clashes with the security forces who opposed their presence.

News about the incident spread quickly and before long videos and pictures were circulating on the internet and on social media applications.

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Iran’s Defence of Nuclear Deal Shows Its Real Intentions

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Iran’s Defence of Nuclear Deal Shows Its Real Intentions

Iran Focus

London, 05 Feb – In mid-January, Donald Trump set a final deadline for Congress (and the five other countries who signed the Iran nuclear deal) to come together and fix it. If the deal has not been amended by May, Trump warns that he will pull out of the deal.

In late January, Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif wrote an op-ed for the Financial Times to argue that the deal was necessary to worldwide security and that amendments to the deal, risked jeopardising that security.

To translate from the language of diplomacy, Zarif basically said that if the deal was changed, Iran would withdraw, restart its nuclear programme, and build nuclear weapons to threaten the world with. That’s basically a declaration of war, in a newspaper, that many took as a reason to not renegotiate the deal.

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Iranian Christian Coverts Seek Asylum in Uk to Avoid Death Penalty

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Iranian Christian Coverts Seek Asylum in Uk to Avoid Death Penalty

Iran Focus

London, 05 Feb – An asylum seeker who fled Iran, fearing that he would be killed by the theocratic rule for converting to Christianity, has said that if he returned to Iran, he and his family would certainly be murdered.

Daniel ( a pseudonym) explained that he fled to the UK after the Iranian authorities discovered that he had been practising Christianity in secret as part of underground Christian movement known as “house churches”.

He officially converted from Islam, when he was baptised at a Cardiff church two years ago.

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Iran: Parliamentarians Visit Notorious Evin Prison in Tehran

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Iran: Parliamentarians Visit Notorious Evin Prison in Tehran

Iran Focus

London, 05 Feb – On Tuesday 30th January 2018, just over a month after protests and anti-government demonstrations swept across Iran, a group of Iranian parliamentarians were permitted to visit the notorious Evin Prison in the nation’s capital city. The eleven members of Iranian Parliament were able to spend several hours there.

The news of this visit comes after the death of Khaled Qaisari. Qaisari was tortured to death in Kermanshah Prison in western Iran. This brings the total of deaths because of torture following the recent uprisings to at least twelve.

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The Truth Behind the MEK in Iraq: Part 1

Jubin Katiraie
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0
The Truth Behind the MEK in Iraq: Part 1

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) have resided in two separate camps (Ashraf and Liberty) in Iraq from 1986 to 2016. This article will tell the story from 1986 until 2009.

In 1986, in addition to MEK members and sympathizers from Iran around 1,000 MEK members travelled from France to Iraq to build a new operations base for the Iranian Resistance. They were granted a small patch of barren land in the desert, near to the Iranian border, with only a handful of deserted and partially-constructed buildings that had no running water or electricity. It expanded rapidly as MEK supporters from the West, mainly students and professionals travelled to the remote area with hopes of bringing democracy to Iran.

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Iran: Celebration of the Revolution or Whistling Past the Graveyard

Staff Writer
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Iran: Celebration of the Revolution or Whistling Past the Graveyard

Iran Focus

London, 04 Feb – Celebrations for the 39th anniversary of the 1979 revolution have begun, less than a month after an uprising began in the holy city of Mashhad and spread across the nation, calling for regime change.

The recent unrest is different in quality to the ones that have gone before. These protesters rejected reform from within — they called for overthrow of the system.

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