Iran Focus
London, 16 Oct – The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, has said that the United States is a “threat to the entire world”, so it is a strange thing indeed that he allows his daughter, Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, to live and study in Cleveland, Ohio.
Iran Focus
London, 16 Oct – The highest court in Iran has upheld the death sentence for an imprisoned Kurdish man, who faced an unfair trial and was tortured in custody, which has increased the number of Kurdish prisoner on death row in Iran to 100.
Hedayat Abdollahpour, 25, was arrested on June 15, 2016, in Oshnouyeh after clashes broke out between the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) forces and members of Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), but has always maintained his innocence. He has now exhausted all of his appeals.
Iran Focus
London, 15 Oct – In the past 20 years, since Iran’s cellular network infrastructure was first installed, the number of Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) has multiplied in line with consumer demand and now they crowd urban skylines, but some fear that the radiation emitting contraptions are a greater risk to human health than anyone imagined before.
Shirin, who wished for her last name to be kept secret, reported that a few months after she and her mother moved into an apartment with a rooftop BTS, her mother began suffering from headaches and fatigue. When they consulted a doctor, they were told to evacuate.
Iran Focus
London, 15 Oct – Lebanon is a crumbling Arab state, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah reign supreme and a once-rich country is failing to meet even the most basic needs of its people.
A Lebanese activist recently ran laboratory tests on the drinking water source in the southern suburbs of Beirut and found it was contaminated with human faeces. Thanks to a lack of supervision by the state, Lebanon’s once-rich water supply is now so scarce that the people do not have any other drinking options.
Iran Focus
London, 14 Oct – According to State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, India has decided to continue buying Iranian oil, and to purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system, just days after President Trump warned that New Delhi may be facing punitive measures. Responding to questions on reports that India will continue to purchase oil from Iran after November 4th, Nauert said this was “not helpful”.
Following Trump’s decision to exit the 2015 multilateral deal that eased global sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran’s suspected nuclear programmes and malign activities, the US seeks to reduce Iran’s oil imports to zero by the November 4th deadline.
Iran Focus
London, 14 Oct – “Brain drain” is defined as the emigration of highly trained or intelligent people from a particular country. Highly educated experts and at least 64 percent of Iranian students, including the winners of the Olympiad and the national math competition, have left the country during the past 14 years.
Former minister of transportation, and head of Engineering Organization Ahmad Khoram revealed that Iran loses about 150 billion dollars each year to brain drain. In June 2018, Khoram told the state-run ISNA news agency, “UNESCO says that 150,000 intellectuals leave Iran every year. The government spends one million dollars for every university graduate student before the student can enter the work cycle of the country. Thus, we lose 150 thousand million dollars per year and nobody cares.”
Iran Focus
London, 14 Oct – In January and February 2018, eight environmental activists were detained in Iran without clear charges. Human Rights Watch reports that Taher Ghadirian, Niloufar Bayani, Amirhossein Khaleghi, Houman Jokar, Sam Rajabi, Sepideh Kashani, Morad Tahbaz and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, have all been in detention for eight months, and have not yet been charged. Human Rights Watch says that Iranian authorities should either immediately release them, or charge them with recognizable crimes and produce evidence to justify their continued detention.
Iran Focus
London, 14 Oct – Political prisoners in Hall 10, Ward 4 of Gohardasht Prison in Karaj are experiencing increased pressure as their medical records are destroyed, which prevents them from being transferred to a hospital or even prison clinic. This is both physical and psychological torture.
– Political prisoner Majid Asadi suffers several diseases, especially an unbearably painful acute digestive disease.
Iran Focus
London, 13 Oct – The Donald Trump Administration’s push to pressure Iran through reimposing the second round of nuclear sanctions on Iran in November – this time targeting Iran’s central bank and oil industry – is facing challenges for European allies and even some in the Treasury Department, but the administration is fighting back, according to a leaked document.
A research memo that has been circulated among policymakers argues that cutting Iran off from SWIFT, a service that facilitates cross-border financial transactions, is essential and would be effective. After all, it worked in 2012, when President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did it.
Iran Focus
London, 13 Oct – Three Iranian political prisoners have penned a letter to United Nations Special Rapporteur Javaid Rehman on the World Day Against the Death Penalty (October 10), urging him to visit Iran and see the human rights violations for himself.
Maryam Akbari Monfared, Golrokh Irayee, and Atena Daemi, all held in the Women’s ward of the notorious Evin prison, gave him a brief, but chilling summary of the countless human rights violations that have taken place in Iran in just the last decade.
This includes the use of the death penalty for non-violent crimes like drug offences or political activism and against juvenile offenders, despite it being in violation of international law. Many of these people are subject to unfair trials, without legal representation, and forced to give “confessions” under torture.
