Iran – Page 4

Obama warns U.S Congress against new Iran sanctions

January 21, 2015 by Nasheman

US President Barack Obama warned Congress on Tuesday that any move to impose new sanctions on Iran could scupper delicate negotiations aimed at reaching a comprehensive nuclear agreement.

“New sanctions passed by this Congress, at this moment in time, will all but guarantee that diplomacy fails,” Obama said in his State of the Union address to the Republican-controlled Congress.

As some lawmakers maneuver to try to draft a bill slapping new sanctions on Iran, Obama renewed his vow to veto any such legislation.

Talks between global powers and Iran to rein in its disputed nuclear program resumed last weekend in Geneva, with a new deadline looming at the end of June.

Negotiators, however, have said they would like to see a framework deal in place sometime in March, after two previous deadlines for a historic accord were missed.

“Between now and this spring, we have a chance to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran,” Obama told US lawmakers.

Such a deal would also secure “America and our allies, including Israel, while avoiding yet another Middle East conflict.”

The US president warned “there are no guarantees that negotiations will succeed,” and vowed to “keep all options on the table to prevent a nuclear Iran.”

But he warned new sanctions would “alienate” the United States from its allies and ensure that “Iran starts up its nuclear program again.”

“It doesn’t make sense. That is why I will veto any new sanctions bill that threatens to undo this progress,” Obama said, referring to an interim accord under which Tehran has frozen its uranium enrichment in return for limited sanctions relief.

Earlier in January, the US ambassador to the United Nations also stressed beefing up sanctions would isolate the United States in its strategy to address Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and weaken joint international pressure.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is another politician who has called on US senators to avoid introducing any new sanctions, saying that existing sanctions have led to the ongoing talks with Iran over its nuclear program, “and those talks at least have a prospect of success.”

Meanwhile, some Iranian lawmakers are considering a push toward resuming unlimited uranium enrichment if the United States imposes new sanctions on Tehran.

On January 15, in a speech in the Iranian religious city of Qom, Parliament speaker Ali Larijani warned the world powers they “cannot haggle with us,” saying they must “make correct use of the opportunities offered to them.”

“Recently some deputies have been considering a bill stipulating that Iran will pursue its activities at whatever level of enrichment… if the West decides to impose new sanctions,” he warned.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Jawad Zarif held intensive talks on January 14 and they discussed the main issues of the previous round of negotiations between Iran and world powers.

A new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program has started on January 18 in Geneva. The talks is at the deputy foreign ministerial level and aimed at finding a deal on the number and type of uranium-enriching centrifuges of Iran and the process for relieving sanctions against the country.

The West suspects Tehran may be trying to develop a nuclear weapon capability.

Iran denies it is seeking a bomb and says its nuclear program is solely aimed at producing atomic energy to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels, requiring a massive increase in its ability to enrich uranium.

(AFP, Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)

UN resolution on Iran mockery of justice

November 21, 2014 by Nasheman

by Ismail Salami

The not-very-independent UN body has made a mockery of justice by soldering a resolution on the so-called human rights violations in Iran.

The farce becomes more markedly absurd when you consider the plethora of human rights abuses going unpunished in the world with the UN laying a lid of ignorance on these blatant violations.

Late Tuesday, the United Nations voted to slam “Iranian human rights abuses”, singling it out for “executing upwards of 1,000 political opponents and prisoners in the past year”.

Iran has strongly lambasted the UN resolution, saying that “the UN’s legal mechanisms have turned into a tool in the hands of the West.”

The irony of the resolution is that the measure was initially drafted by Canada which has itself a disgracing history of human rights abuse against the aborigines in the country. Further to that, Ottawa has constantly and vehemently thrown its full-throated support behind Tel Aviv in its inconceivably ruthless crimes against the people of Palestine.

In July 2014, when Gaza was being pounded by Israeli bombs and the Palestinian women and children were consequently incinerated and brutally slaughtered, when human rights were being trampled in its most pernicious forms, Canadian government brazenly backed the Israeli regime and instead rubbed salt in Palestinian wounds. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement and said, “The indiscriminate rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are terrorist acts, for which there is no justification…. Failure by the international community to condemn these reprehensible actions would encourage these terrorists to continue their appalling actions. Canada calls on its allies and partners to recognize that these terrorist acts are unacceptable and that solidarity with Israel is the best way of stopping the conflict. Canada is unequivocally behind Israel.”

Yes, Canada is unequivocally and cravenly behind Israel. These are strange times. Those who are harbingers of terror and atrocity become the emblems of innocence and the downtrodden people of Gaza become terrorists. These remarks by Mr. Harper only relegate him to a very lowly level of humanity and leave no room for his exoneration from complicity in the crimes perpetrated at the hands of the Israeli regime against the Gazans.

Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran has even voiced his praise for Canada’s determining role in conducing to this mockery of justice about Iran, saying, “Canada’s leadership in this regard is highly appreciated.”

In May 2014, Canadian Liberal MP Irwin Cotler who served as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until 2006 embarked on a series of programs known as Iran Accountability Weeks in which they heard “testimonies highlighting Iranian political prisoners and other victims of Iranian human rights abuses.” Among those who testified was the notorious terrorist MKO leader Maryam Rajavi accompanied by a UN rights official and pundits from a hawkish American think tank.

Interestingly, Mr. Shaheed was a participant in the event. Although he says he asked his name to be withdrawn from the panel, there is barely an iota of truth in it as in his report on Iran. The sheer presence of Maryam Rajavi in the anti-Iran mudslinging campaign sheds light on the very nature of the UN-released resolution against Iran.

Besides, it is not a closed book to anyone that Irwin Cotler is a fervent advocate of Tel Aviv and his insistence on having Rajavi on the anti-Iran panel reveals the dirty hands behind the report. So, the pieces of the puzzle come together to make a meaningful whole in this regard.

Over the past three decades, the MKO has initiated a series of deadly attacks on Iran and the Iranian population and has so far assassinated 12000 Iranians including the nuclear scientists. It is interesting to note that the assassinations of prominent Iranian characters including the politicians and scientists are basically conducted in cahoots with Israeli Kidon, the assassination unit within Mossad.

In 1986, the MKO headquarters were transferred to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam took them under his wings and funded them financially and militarily to fight against Iran. Long listed as a terrorist organization by the international community, the cult was delisted on September 28, 2012 by the US Secretary of State as an extension of their adage that a terrorist in need is a friend indeed.

Some of their sabotaging activities are as follows:

The series of mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids during 2000 and 2001 against Iranian government buildings; one of these killed Iran’s chief of staff
The 2000 mortar attack on President Mohammad Khatami’s palace in Tehran
The February 2000 “Operation Great Bahman,” during which MEK launched 12 attacks against Iran
The 1999 assassination of the deputy chief of Iran’s armed forces general staff, Ali Sayyad Shirazi
The 1998 assassination of the director of Iran’s prison system, Asadollah Lajevardi
The 1992 near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and institutions in 13 countries
Assistance to Saddam Hussein’s suppression of the 1991 Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish uprisings
The 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party and of Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei and Bahonar Support for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries
The 1970s killings of U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran

Viewed from an entirely different angle, the measure very bizarrely coincides with the nuclear talks between Iran and the world six world powers and the November 24 deadline. So, the move may be seen as a last-ditch effort by pro-Israeli lobbies to proceed with their scenario of Iranophobia on the one hand and to sabotage the nuclear talks and bring them to standstill on the other hand.

The UN consciously or unconsciously plays in the hands of the pro-Israeli pressure groups in Canada and only puts on an ugly show of duplicity in imposing a ruling against the Islamic Republic.

Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Middle East expert, Iranologist and lexicographer. He writes extensively on the US and Middle East issues and his articles have been translated into a number of languages.

Iran will do a deal with the west – but only if there’s no loss of dignity

November 20, 2014 by Nasheman

The US must understand how humiliation drove both the 1979 revolution and Iran’s wish for a nuclear programme

The former US embassy in Tehran. ‘What has taken years for many Americans to understand is the motivations behind Iran’s Islamic revolution.’ Photograph: Alamy Live News

by Hooman Majd, The Guardian

Iran and what we would once have called the great powers – the five permanent members of the UN security council plus Germany – have been engaged in negotiations over the Iranian nuclear programme for well over a decade now. At times the US has been directly involved, and at other less friendly times, indirectly – but never in the years since, to great alarm if not outright panic, the world discovered that Iran possessed a nuclear programme have we been as close to resolving its fate as we are now.

The reasons are myriad; certainly primary among them is the election of a pragmatist US president in 2008, one who, unlike his we-don’t-talk-to-evil predecessor, promised to engage directly with Iran on its nuclear program as well as on other issues of contention between the two countries, and the election of an Iranian president in 2013 who, unlike his predecessor, promised to pursue a “win-win” solution to the crisis. There are other reasons long debated in foreign policy circles. None of them, however, correctly stated or not, are important now.

What is important is to recognise that with only days left to reach a comprehensive agreement – one that would satisfy the minimum requirements of the US and Iran (and the truth is that it is only theirs that matter, despite the presence of other powers at the table) – there may not be another opportunity for a generation. This is the diplomatic perfect storm, if you will, to begin the process of US-Iranian reconciliation.

Such a reconciliation would entail a realignment of western interests – many shared with Iran – in the region that is far more important than numbers of centrifuges, kilograms of enriched uranium, months to theoretical “breakout”, or years that a deal will be in effect, that appear to be the last stumbling blocks. Those are technical issues that may be difficult, but not impossible, to resolve before 24 November. What has taken years – 35-plus to be precise – for many Americans to understand is the motivations behind Iran’s Islamic revolution. And it is these motivations which are behind what appears to be, if for peaceful purposes, an illogical nuclear ambition.

Beyond building the world’s first modern theocracy, which some revolutionaries and perhaps a large percentage of the then silent population never bargained for, the revolution was as much about Persian dignity and greatness as it was about overthrowing a despotic monarchy. It isn’t just pride, as some suggest, that governs popular support for the nuclear programme (or any other technical accomplishment), although Iranians are proud – perhaps overly so – of their 5,000-year history and culture, and can be accused of faith in Persian exceptionalism in much the same way the US has in its own.

It’s certainly a belief in exceptionalism, sometimes with racist undertones, that has rubbed Iran’s neighbours up the wrong way for centuries – far more so than the greatly debated Sunni-Shia divide – which partly explains why many Iranians, even those opposed to the Islamic system, are quick to ask that if lowly Pakistan and western-supported Israel can have nuclear weapons, why shouldn’t Iran have at least its own nuclear energy? Indeed, pride and a sense of exceptionalism can explain some Iranian behaviour, but more than anything it is dignity that drives the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy; a restored dignity that was promised its people in the revolution of 1979.

After at least a century of being dictated to by foreign powers, in 1979 the people of a once-great nation – arguably the world’s first multi-ethnic state – chose dignity over subservience, whatever the cost. It didn’t matter that the shah and his father before him had wrested, by force, their nation out of its 19th-century stupor and into a 20th-century modern state. What mattered was that they, and particularly the younger shah, had done so at the cost of their dignity. In the waning years of the second world war, the great powers had removed occupied Iran’s first Pahlavi king and replaced him with his unprepared 21-year-old son; it was decided at the Tehran conference in late 1943, attended by Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill – who couldn’t even be bothered to pay a courtesy call to the monarch he helped install, the self-proclaimed “king of kings” and “light of the Aryans”. Iran’s independence was guaranteed, but in the minds of most Iranians nothing could be as humiliating as having their fate decided by three farangis, or foreign powers. The 1953 CIA- and MI6-backed coup against the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh only confirmed their sense of helplessness. The Islamic revolution put an end to that notion – Iran was never again to play a subservient role, in the region or in the world.

It has, over the years, paid a great price to maintain that one aspect of its revolution that still resonates with its populace – for both Islamic and republic aspects have been in question to many, if not from the regime’s birth then certainly since the “green” uprising of 2009. It is therefore unlikely that those who control power in Iran, whether conservative, moderate or reform leaning, will surrender the nation’s dignity, along with the vestiges of their own legitimacy, by accepting the dictates of western powers. No: any deal, nuclear or otherwise, will have to take that into account, and it is not a matter of allowing Iran a “face-saving” deal but affording it and its people the dignity they believe they deserve.

My own father, a supporter of Mossadeq who subsequently served the shah as a diplomat and a fan of all things American, only ever railed against the king – in private, of course – when he felt Iran’s dignity had been surrendered to the west, over matters both momentous and trivial. Late in his life, in exile in Britain and having been deprived of his Persian dignity by the revolution that discarded him, he said to me of the nuclear talks that were seemingly stalled forever that the Americans “harf-e zoor meezanan”, which translates roughly as the US “is talking with the language of imposition”. While on an extended stay in Tehran in the last years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency I heard my optician, ever cynical about the Islamic system, use exactly the same phrase when we discussed the nuclear crisis. Few Iranians, regime supporters or not, would willingly surrender to “harf-e zoor”, the “language of force” or “an unfair demand”.

For all this, it isn’t hard to imagine a nuclear deal. Iranians recognise that they can compromise without loss of dignity, and the US recognises it must make concessions which, while seeming to be appeasement by some, in fact make no real difference to whether Iran can rush to a bomb or not. It is also not hard to predict the effects of a deal and the subsequent normalisation on Iranian people. For more than 35 years they have yearned for an end of isolation and ostracisation by the west – some of it their leaders’ fault – and are as hungry as a people can be for interaction – business, social and cultural – with the farang.

Iranians have long looked to the Persian Gulf (and to Turkey) with some indignation. If it were not for the animosity with the west, Tehran would be a destination far more attractive to business than Dubai, they believe, and Isfahan to travellers than Istanbul. In an irony or ironies, Iran is also now, to quote Jimmy Carter from a different time, “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world”. Iranians look around them and don’t like what they see: revolution, unrest and civil war are not for them, but progress – social, political and technological – and healthy relations with the international community are.

Iranians, especially the young, the vast majority highly educated but whose prospects are bleak, have been patiently waiting for this day – promised by a president they elected a year-and-a-half ago. They have no doubt that happier times await them if the west engages Iran in détente, if not an entente cordiale. A nuclear deal, if it comes on 24 November, will bring dancing in the streets – forbidden by law – and many toasts – forbidden but enjoyed behind Persian walls – and dignity. On that day the authorities – themselves with smiles on their faces – will surely turn a blind eye.

British-Iranian woman jailed for a year for trying to watch volleyball game

November 3, 2014 by Nasheman

Law graduate from London found guilty of spreading ‘propaganda against regime’ following secret hearing in Iran

Ghoncheh Ghavami has already been detained for four months after being arrested at Azadi stadium in Tehran.

by Josh Halliday, The Guardian

A British-Iranian woman detained in Iran for trying to watch a volleyball game has been sentenced to one year in a notorious prison, according to her family and lawyer.

Ghoncheh Ghavami, 25, a law graduate from London, was found guilty of spreading “propaganda against the regime” following a secret hearing at Tehran’s revolutionary court.

Ghavami has been detained for 127 days in prison since being arrested on 20 June at Azadi (“Freedom” in Farsi) stadium in Tehran where Iran’s national volleyball team was scheduled to play Italy. Although she had been released within a few hours after the initial arrest she was rearrested days later.

Speaking to the Guardian, Ghavami’s brother Iman, 28, said the family felt “shattered” by the court verdict.

“We are really disappointed because we felt she would get out on bail immediately. She’s been through a lot and now it’s a full-year sentence and she’s already served four months,” he said.

No reason was given for the conviction, although Ghavami had been accused of spreading propaganda against the regime, an unspecific charge often used by Iran’s judiciary.

Ghavami’s parents, who have been based in Tehran throughout their daughter’s ordeal, were too distressed to talk after Saturday’s court hearing – which they were not allowed to attend.

“I found out the verdict from the lawyer. My parents were with him but were too emotional to talk. As we speak my parents are scrambling from one office to another to see if we can get leniency or bail,” said Iman.

Ghavami’s lawyer, Alizadeh Tabatabaie, was quoted in Iranian media as saying: “According to the verdict she was sentenced to one year.”

Asked if the sentence could be reduced, Tabatabaie, who has not been allowed to visit his client, said: “Considering that Ghoncheh Ghavami has no criminal record, the court can alleviate the verdict.

“In a meeting Ghoncheh had with her mother on Wednesday, she said no new charges have been filed against her.”

In early October Ghavami spent 14 days on hunger strike in protest at her detention. Her arrest has drawn condemnation from the highest political level. David Cameron underlined his concerns in a meeting with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, in September at the UN general assembly in New York.

Iman, from London, said he hoped his sister would be moved to another wing of the notorious Evin prison, where she has been held since June in relative solitary confinement in a jail known for housing high-profile political prisoners and activists.

He said: “She will be in the same prison but we hope she’s going to be transferred to a general section of it where she can interact with other people because now she’s being held in solitary confinement. It’s hell for everyone who is kept there.”

A petition on the site Change.org started by Iman has amassed more than 700,000 signatories calling for Ghavami’s release.

The hanging of Reyhaneh Jabbari: The Rashomon side of the story

October 27, 2014 by Nasheman

As the world bemoans the hanging of 26 year old Iranian woman Reyhaneh Jabbari, who was convicted of murdering physician and former Iranian intelligence officer Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, who she accused of allegedly attempting to rape her, the question of what exactly transpired on the day of the crime and the court’s reason to sentence Jabbari to death has come to surface. To give every Rashomon’s character a chance, we publish an interview of Justice Hassan Tardast, the former judge of this case who was interviewed by Iran’s Entekhab before the hanging.

Note: We are publishing this interview to only understand the case from the less discussed side, and not in support of the hanging.

This interview is long and we have extracted parts of it here:

Mr. Tardast, you have been the judge for the case of Reyhaneh Jabbari, after seven years, do you still believe that she is a murderer?

What can change my mind after close and profound inspection of the case which as specified by the law, was examined and handled by five judges.… Anybody who reads the 24 page report of the case will vote for its truth…. It was examined on top of all that by thirteen Supreme Court judges and not a single one voted against the verdict.

There is now the “campaign of supporting Reyhaneh,” have you seen their contents?

I have seen the articles and views and I am sorry for Iran’s weakness in responding to centers for spreading lies. I have personally done my best in every case to convince victims’ families to forgive the murderer and not demand execution; I have thanked God every time I have been successful in that in similar cases. But with the invasion of agenda-driven groups on this case and spreading lies and accusations against the victim, the victim’s family are now holding a grudge and won’t consent to forgiving the murderer.

Where does the family of the murdered stand on consenting to let off the death penalty?

Once in court, I told them that even if the defendant has chosen a poor way for defense and have upset and disturbed you this way, consider that your father has made a sin having an affair, so please forgive this poor girl. But they told me: “First of all, this lady is not regretful at all. Secondly, instead of the truth, they now call my father a rapist.”

Honesty and regret would have helped the family forgive and relieve her of death sentence?

Yes, if instead of lies to get foreign citizenship, Ms. Jabbari had shown honesty and regret, she would have a good chance like many other cases.

How was the state of mind of Reyhaneh Jabbari?

It was in a way that in an SMS to one of her boyfriends, she said she intended to murder her father. In court she said that she was a victim of her father’s violence when he drank.

Has the confessions of Reyhaneh been given under duress?

Almost none of the key evidences come from her statements during the first interrogation, rather from her statements in court at the side of her lawyers. She so easily and relaxed talked about her deeds.

In social media, her ex-lawyer Mr. Mostafayi has claimed that the door was locked, because the door is so filled with strikes of knife that it shows she couldn’t open the door. Is that true?

It is an absolute lie. This ‘Mr. I-am-human-rights’ acts like a corrupt politician. The accused has repeatedly stated in the court that the door was not locked. After plunging a 10-inch long blade that she bought two days prior to the murder, she left the scene pretty easily. The crime scene also shows that the door is not “filled with strikes of knife.” There is the evidence for one strike of a sharp object. When asked “why did you strike the door?” She said: “’cause I was excited and in a hurry.” When asked “was the door locked?” She replied: “No it wasn’t… After I plunged the knife, he threw a chair at me, I exited using the elevator and he used the stairs.” He died after climbing down two stories.

What did Reyhaneh do after she exited?

She says: “I hid in the street, and waited. When I saw the ambulance and the Police, I took a taxi home.”

Did the neighbors hear Reyhaneh cry for help or anything?

The crime scene is a five-story building such that the least bit of cry would be heard easily. In the questionings, the neighbors said that they only heard an object strike the wall which was the chair thrown by the victim.

Was the relationship of Reyhaneh with the murdered only concerning her job?

Ms. Jabbari said at least three times in the court that “I used to give him services in return for benefits.” It had nothing to do with interior decorations. In their slang, what they mean by “giving services” is to have sex. In addition to having a fiancé and a boyfriend, she also had affairs with multiple people simultaneously including the manager where she worked, which resulted to having disputes with her fiancé.… This is an SMS from her fiancé to her: “You said goodbye to me when you started sleeping with…, dirt. This was my last SMS to you.”

Given the age difference between them, why did they have a relationship?

As stated and recorded in the case, she says regarding her relation with an older man (the murdered): “I wanted to give some controlled services and get some benefits. I wanted to prove that I can be independent without my family’s help.” Regarding how they met, she says: “On the street, he had a Toyota Camry [Cars are four times more expensive in Iran than anywhere else.—AM]. He stopped for me and I got in.… We exchanged numbers.” They had an affair weeks before the murder, they went to restaurants, were in touch constantly as their symcard messages show. On the day of the crime, the murdered came to her work to pick her up as planned. Her colleagues testified that when a Toyota Camry came to pick her up, she told them that he is her father’s friend, and that they want to buy the car. They even brought eggs for good luck.

Considering your thirty years of experience what do you think her motivation was?

For a solid investigation of the case, I appointed a female psychologist to the case to closely examine and interview the murderess and comment. The psychologist believed that the murderess suffered from an extreme case of narcissism. Her mindset contributed to her murder, but she had not suffered from any form of insanity to be absolved. Plus, since the murdered travelled a lot for trading medical equipment, he had promised her with trips to Europe which he didn’t keep and resulted in her anger. He also had promised to give her the Toyota for a Thursday out-of-town picnic with her friends at work which he didn’t do; this also raged her a great deal. She said she was embarrassed in front of her friends.

Did Reihaneh plan for the murder?

Reihaneh is not in the habit of being manipulated and never tolerates “not receiving benefits in return for her services.” That day when the murdered asked: “Take off your scarf,” she refused. When asked if he did any act of coercion and if he turned and moved away from her, she replies: “He went to say his prayers.” The blood spatter analysis on the Sajaddeh and the chair also confirms that he was saying the prayer at the time of murder and had his back to her.

Was the plunging of the knife lethal?

The knife went into his lungs. Forensic results contradict Mr. Mostafayi’s claim that “she just had a simple strike to the shoulder.”… The murdered had bought condoms on the way there, which he had put on the table right in front of her.

It is claimed that Reyhaneh’s drink was spiked. Did you send the glasses to the lab?

There were two glasses, both of which were tested. The reports show that one of the glasses contained Difnoxilat which is a laxative.

Do you concur with efforts to make the blood owner’s consent for lifting the death penalty?

Although I have retired and although it is their right to have the execution according to Islamic laws, I am ready to do everything within my means to get the blood owner’s consent.

UPDATE: The execution of Reyhaneh Jabbari has been postponed for another 10 days to give her a chance to get the consent of the victim’s family to let off the death penalty. The family have formally stated for quite a while that they are willing to forgive Rayhaneh Jabbari, provided that she comes out with the truth. Two nights ago, BBC Farsi brought a women’s activist to discuss the case. When asked “What does the son of Mr. Sarbandi mean by truth?” she replied:”What truth? Who knows what they mean?” Despite women’s groups lying through their teeth, the family has stated that they will ask for the death penalty to be rescinded if she comes out with the truth regarding the two following questions:

When she committed the murder, a male accomplice was waiting for her and entered the room, this is why the victim followed them. Reyhaneh has referred to this accomplice as “Sh.” The family demands his identity.

Secondly, the family demands the real reason for the murder as opposed to the false accusation of rape.

Why aren’t these “women’s groups” in support of getting these questions answered?

Hanged Iranian woman Reyhaneh Jabbari leaves heartbreaking last message

October 27, 2014 by Nasheman

Reyhaneh Jabbari, the Iranian woman who was hanged today by Iran after 7 years imprisonment had released her will in a voice message.

In a heart-rending message to her family in April, beginning with her mother Sholeh, 26-year-old Reyhaneh Jabbari tells how she trusted the law, but has faced death for the crime of defending herself against an agent of Iran’s intelligence who tried to abuse her.

English translation of Reyhaneh Jabbari’s will (translated by National Council of Resistance of Iran – NCRI).

Dear Sholeh, today I learned that it is now my turn to face Qisas (the Iranian regime’s law of retribution). I am hurt as to why you did not let me know yourself that I have reached the last page of the book of my life. Don’t you think that I should know? You know how ashamed I am that you are sad. Why did you not take the chance for me to kiss your hand and that of dad?

The world allowed me to live for 19 years. That ominous night it was I that should have been killed. My body would have been thrown in some corner of the city, and after a few days, the police would have taken you to the coroner’s office to identify my body and there you would also learn that I had been raped as well. The murderer would have never been found since we don’t have their wealth and their power. Then you would have continued your life suffering and ashamed, and a few years later you would have died of this suffering and that would have been that.

However, with that cursed blow the story changed. My body was not thrown aside, but into the grave of Evin Prison and its solitary wards, and now the grave-like prison of Shahr-e Ray. But give in to the fate and don’t complain. You know better that death is not the end of life.

You taught me that one comes to this world to gain an experience and learn a lesson and with each birth a responsibility is put on one’s shoulder. I learned that sometimes one has to fight. I do remember when you told me that the carriage man protested the man who was flogging me, but the flogger hit the lash on his head and face that ultimately led to his death. You told me that for creating a value one should persevere even if one dies.

You taught us that as we go to school one should be a lady in face of the quarrels and complaints. Do you remember how much you underlined the way we behave? Your experience was incorrect. When this incident happened, my teachings did not help me. Being presented in court made me appear as a cold-blooded murderer and a ruthless criminal. I shed no tears. I did not beg. I did not cry my head off since I trusted the law.

But I was charged with being indifferent in face of a crime. You see, I didn’t even kill the mosquitoes and I threw away the cockroaches by taking them by their antennas. Now I have become a premeditated murderer. My treatment of the animals was interpreted as being inclined to be a boy and the judge didn’t even trouble himself to look at the fact that at the time of the incident I had long and polished nails.

How optimistic was he who expected justice from the judges! He never questioned the fact that my hands are not coarse like those of a sportswoman, especially a boxer. And this country that you planted its love in me never wanted me and no one supported me when under the blows of the interrogator I was crying out and I was hearing the most vulgar terms. When I shed the last sign of beauty from myself by shaving my hair I was rewarded: 11 days in solitary.

Dear Sholeh, don’t cry for what you are hearing. On the first day that in the police office an old unmarried agent hurt me for my nails I understood that beauty is not looked for in this era. The beauty of looks, beauty of thoughts and wishes, a beautiful handwriting, beauty of the eyes and vision, and even beauty of a nice voice. My dear mother, my ideology has changed and you are not responsible for it. My words are unending and I gave it all to someone so that when I am executed without your presence and knowledge, it would be given to you. I left you much handwritten material as my heritage.

However, before my death I want something from you, that you have to provide for me with all your might and in any way that you can. In fact this is the only thing I want from this world, this country and you. I know you need time for this. Therefore, I am telling you part of my will sooner. Please don’t cry and listen. I want you to go to the court and tell them my request. I cannot write such a letter from inside the prison that would be approved by the head of prison; so once again you have to suffer because of me. It is the only thing that if even you beg for it I would not become upset although I have told you many times not to beg to save me from being executed.

My kind mother, dear Sholeh, the one more dear to me than my life, I don’t want to rot under the soil. I don’t want my eye or my young heart to turn into dust. Beg so that it is arranged that as soon as I am hanged my heart, kidney, eye, bones and anything that can be transplanted be taken away from my body and given to someone who needs them as a gift. I don’t want the recipient know my name, buy me a bouquet, or even pray for me. I am telling you from the bottom of my heart that I don’t want to have a grave for you to come and mourn there and suffer. I don’t want you to wear black clothing for me. Do your best to forget my difficult days. Give me to the wind to take away.

The world did not love us. It did not want my fate. And now I am giving in to it and embrace the death. Because in the court of God I will charge the inspectors, I will charge inspector Shamlou, I will charge judge, and the judges of country’s Supreme Court that beat me up when I was awake and did not refrain from harassing me. In the court of the creator I will charge Dr. Farvandi, I will charge Qassem Shabani and all those that out of ignorance or with their lies wronged me and trampled on my rights and didn’t pay heed to the fact that sometimes what appears as reality is different from it.

Dear soft-hearted Sholeh, in the other world it is you and me who are the accusers and others who are the accused. Let’s see what God wants. I wanted to embrace you until I die. I love you.

Reyhaneh,
April 1, 2014

Iran hangs woman despite international uproar

October 25, 2014 by Nasheman

Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged on Saturday for killing a man she says tried to abuse her, despite international outcry.

– by Al Jazeera

Iran has executed a 26-year-old woman convicted for killing a man whom she said tried to sexually abuse her.

Reyhaneh Jabbari was arrested in 2007 for the murder of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former employee of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence.

She was hanged at dawn on Saturday, the official IRNA news agency quoted the Tehran prosecutor’s office as saying

A message posted on the homepage of a Facebook campaign that was set up to try to save her, but which now states “Rest in Peace,” appeared to confirm the report.

Efforts for clemency had intensified in recent weeks. Jabbari’s mother was allowed to visit her for one hour on Friday, Amnesty said, a custom that tends to precede executions in Iran.

Jabbari was sentenced to death by a criminal court in Tehran in 2009 in what Amnesty International said was a “deeply flawed investigation and trial”.

Her execution was due to be carried out on 30 September but was postponed for 10 days.

A UN human rights monitor had said the killing of Sarbandi was an act of self-defence after he tried to sexually assault Jabbari, and that her trial in 2009 had been deeply flawed.

Iranian actors and other prominent figures had appealed for a stay of execution, echoing similar calls in the West.

Jabbari apparently admitted to stabbing Sarbandi in the back. She said he had tried to sexually assault her.

However, she said that another man who was also in the house at the time killed him. Her claims do not appear to have ever been properly investigated, Amnesty said.

Calls for retrial

The UN and international rights groups had said Jabbari’s confession was obtained under intense pressure and threats from Iranian prosecutors, and she should have had a retrial.

Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s human rights rapporteur on Iran, said in April that Sarbandi had offered to hire Jabbari to redesign his office and took her to an apartment where he sexually abused her.

However, Sarbandi’s family insists that the murder was premeditated and that Jabbari had confessed to buying a knife two days before the killing.

Iran’s judicial authorities were reported to have pressured Jabbari to replace her lawyer, Mohammad Ali Jedari Foroughi, for a more inexperienced one, in an apparent attempt to prevent an investigation of her claims, Amnesty reported.

History of key document in IAEA probe suggests Israeli forgery

October 20, 2014 by Nasheman

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on 18 February 2014 on the margins of the nuclear-related talks between the E3+3 and Iran. IAEA Vienna, Austria (Photo: Dean Calma / IAEA)

by Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service

Western diplomats have reportedly faulted Iran in recent weeks for failing to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency with information on experiments on high explosives intended to produce a nuclear weapon, according to an intelligence document the IAEA is investigating.

But the document not only remains unverified but can only be linked to Iran by a far-fetched official account marked by a series of coincidences related to a foreign scientist that that are highly suspicious.

The original appearance of the document in early 2008, moreover, was not only conveniently timed to support Israel’s attack on a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran in December that was damaging to Israeli interests, but was leaked to the news media with a message that coincided with the current Israeli argument.

The IAEA has long touted the document, which came from an unidentified member state, as key evidence justifying suspicion that Iran has covered up past nuclear weapons work.

In its September 2008 report the IAEA said the document describes “experimentation in connection with symmetrical initiation of a hemispherical high explosive charge suitable for an implosion type nuclear device.”

But an official Iranian communication to the IAEA Secretariat challenged its authenticity, declaring, “There is no evidence or indication in this document regarding its linkage to Iran or its preparation by Iran.”

The IAEA has never responded to the Iranian communication.

The story of the high explosives document and related intelligence published in the November 2011 IAEA report raises more questions about the document than it answers.

The report said the document describes the experiments as being monitored with “large numbers of optical fiber cables” and cited intelligence that the experiments had been assisted by a foreign expert said to have worked in his home country’s nuclear weapons programme.

The individual to whom the report referred, Ukrainian scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko, was not a nuclear weapons expert, however, but a specialist on nanodiamond synthesis. Danilenko had lectured on that subject in Iran from 2000 to 2005 and had co-authored a professional paper on the use of fiber optic cables to monitor explosive shock waves in 1992, which was available online.

Those facts presented the opportunity for a foreign intelligence service to create a report on high explosives experiments that would suggest a link to nuclear weapons as well as to Danilenko. Danilenko’s open-source publication could help convince the IAEA Safeguards Department of the authenticity of the document, which would otherwise have been missing.

Even more suspicious, soon after the appearance of the high explosives document, the same state that had turned it over to the IAEA claimed to have intelligence on a large cylinder at Parchin suitable for carrying out the high explosives experiments described in the document, according to the 2011 IAEA report.

And it identified Danilenko as the designer of the cylinder, again basing the claim on an open-source publication that included a sketch of a cylinder he had designed in 1999-2000.

The whole story thus depended on two very convenient intelligence finds within a very short time, both of which were linked to a single individual and his open source publications.

Furthermore, the cylinder Danilenko sketched and discussed in the publication was explicitly designed for nanodiamonds production, not for bomb-making experiments.

Robert Kelley, who was the chief of IAEA teams in Iraq, has observed that the IAEA account of the installation of the cylinder at a site in Parchin by March 2000 is implausible, since Danilenko was on record as saying he was still in the process of designing it in 2000.

And Kelley, an expert on nuclear weapons, has pointed out that the cylinder would have been unnecessary for “multipoint initiation” experiments. “We’ve been taken for a ride on this whole thing,” Kelley told IPS.

The document surfaced in early 2008, under circumstances pointing to an Israeli role. An article in the May 2008 issue of Jane’s International Defence Review, dated Mar. 14, 2008, referred to, “[d]ocuments shown exclusively to Jane’s” by a “source connected to a Western intelligence service”.

It said the documents showed that Iran had “actively pursued the development of a nuclear weapon system based on relatively advanced multipoint initiation (MPI) nuclear implosion detonation technology for some years….”

The article revealed the political agenda behind the leaking of the high explosives document. “The picture the papers paints,” he wrote, “starkly contradicts the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released in December 2007, which said Tehran had frozen its military nuclear programme in 2003.”

That was the argument that Israeli officials and supporters in the United States had been making in the wake of the National Intelligence Estimate, which Israel was eager to discredit.

The IAEA first mentioned the high explosives document in an annex to its May 2008 report, shortly after the document had been leaked to Janes.

David Albright, the director of the Institute for Science and International Security, who enjoyed a close relationship with the IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen, revealed in an interview with this writer in September 2008 that Heinonen had told him one document that he had obtained earlier that year had confirmed his trust in the earlier collection of intelligence documents. Albright said that document had “probably” come from Israel.

Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei was very sceptical about all the purported Iranian documents shared with the IAEA by the United States. Referring to those documents, he writes in his 2011 memoirs, “No one knew if any of this was real.”

ElBaradei recalls that the IAEA received still more purported Iranian documents directly from Israel in summer 2009. The new documents included a two-page document in Farsi describing a four-year programme to produce a neutron initiator for a fission chain reaction.

Kelley has said that ElBaradei found the document lacking credibility, because it had no chain of custody, no identifiable source, and no official markings or anything else that could establish its authenticity—the same objections Iran has raised about the high explosives document.

Meanwhile, ElBaradei resisted pressure from the United States and its European allies in 2009 to publish a report on that and other documents – including the high explosive document — as an annex to an IAEA report. ElBaradei’s successor as director general, Yukia Amano, published the annex the anti-Iran coalition had wanted earlier in the November 2011 report.

Amano later told colleagues at the agency that he had no choice, because he promised the United States to do so as part of the agreement by Washington to support his bid for the job within the Board of Governors, according to a former IAEA official who asked not to be identified.

Saudi Arabia sentences Shia leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr to death

October 17, 2014 by Nasheman

A protester holds up a picture of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr during a rally at the coastal town of Qatif, against Sheikh Nimr’s arrest in this 8 July 2012 file photo. (Photo: Reuters – STR)

– by Deutsche Welle

A Saudi court has sentenced prominent Shia leader Nimr al-Nimr to death for sedition. The verdict is likely to escalate further the tensions between the kingdom’s Shia minority and the Sunni-led authorities.

Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who is 54 years old, was found guilty of “disobeying” the kingdom’s rulers and of seeking “foreign meddling” in the country’s affairs, a thinly veiled reference to Iran, whose regime is dominated by Shias.

Al-Nimr had denied ever carrying weapons or calling for violence. He can appeal the sentence.

The well-known cleric was accused of being a driving force behind protests against Saudi Arabia’s Sunni authorities in the Eastern province that began in 2011. This followed an outbreak of violence between Shia pilgrims and religious police in Medina, the Muslim holy city.

He was shot in the leg and arrested by security forces in 2012, leading to more protests.

Shias feel marginalized

Al-Nimr’s family said the verdict set a “dangerous precedent for decades to come.”

Saudi Arabia’s roughly two million Shias live mainly in the east of the country, where the majority of oil reserves are located. Despite the region’s wealth, Shias in Saudi Arabia say they feel marginalized and discriminated against.

Protests, which are banned in Saudi Arabia, escalated after the Saudi regime intervened in neighboring Bahrain to support its Sunni monarchy.

In June this year, a Saudi court sentenced two people to death for “taking part in forming a terrorist group” and other crimes linked to the protests by Shias. Several others have received multi-year jail sentences.

Public beheadings

According to Human Rights Watch, more than 1,040 people were detained in Shia protests between February 2011 and August 2014. There are at least 280 still imprisoned.

Last year the conservative Islamic kingdom executed more people than any other country except China and Iran, most of them by public beheading.

(AFP, Reuters)

The Saudi oil war against Russia, Iran and the U.S

October 17, 2014 by Nasheman

A fisherman pulls in his net as an oil tanker is seen at the port in the northwestern city of Duba.(Reuters / Mohamed Al Hwaity)

– by Pepe Escobar, RT

Saudi Arabia has unleashed an economic war against selected oil producers. The strategy masks the House of Saud’s real agenda. But will it work?

Rosneft Vice President Mikhail Leontyev; “Prices can be manipulative…Saudi Arabia has begun making big discounts on oil. This is political manipulation, and Saudi Arabia is being manipulated, which could end badly.”

A correction is in order; the Saudis are not being manipulated. What the House of Saud is launching is“Tomahawks of spin,” insisting they’re OK with oil at $90 a barrel; also at $80 for the next two years; and even at $50 to $60 for Asian and North American clients.

The fact is Brent crude had already fallen to below $90 a barrel because China – and Asia as a whole – was already slowing down economically, although to a lesser degree compared to the West. Production, though, remained high – especially by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – even with very little Libyan and Syrian oil on the market and with Iran forced to cut exports by a million barrels a day because of the US economic war, a.k.a. sanctions.

The House of Saud is applying a highly predatory pricing strategy, which boils down to reducing market share of its competitors, in the middle- to long-term. At least in theory, this could make life miserable for a lot of players – from the US (energy development, fracking and deepwater drilling become unprofitable) to producers of heavy, sour crude such as Iran and Venezuela. Yet the key target, make no mistake, is Russia.

A strategy that simultaneously hurts Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Ecuador and Russia cannot escape the temptation of being regarded as an “Empire of Chaos” power play, as in Washington cutting a deal with Riyadh. A deal would imply bombing ISIS/ISIL/Daesh leader Caliph Ibrahim is just a prelude to bombing Bashar al-Assad’s forces; in exchange, the Saudis squeeze oil prices to hurt the enemies of the “Empire of Chaos.”

Yet it’s way more complicated than that.

Sticking it to Washington

Russia’s state budget for 2015 requires oil at least at $100 a barrel. Still, the Kremlin is borrowing no more than $7 billion in 2015 from the usual “foreign investors”, plus $27.2 billion internally. Hardly an economic earthquake.

Besides, the ruble has already fallen over 14 percent since July against the US dollar. By the way, the currencies of key BRICS members have also fallen; 7.8 percent for the Brazilian real, 1.6 percent for the Indian rupee. And Russia, unlike the Yeltsin era, is not broke; it holds at least $455 billion in foreign reserves.

The House of Saud’s target of trying to bypass Russia as a top supplier of oil to the EU is nothing but a pipe dream; EU refineries would have to be reframed to process Saudi light crude, and that costs a fortune.

Geopolitically, it gets juicier when we see that central to the House of Saud strategy is to stick it to Washington for not fulfilling its “Assad must go” promise, as well as the neo-con obsession in bombing Iran. It gets worse (for the Saudis) because Washington – at least for now – seems more concentrated in toppling Caliph Ibrahim than Bashar al-Assad, and might be on the verge of signing a nuclear deal with Tehran as part of the P5+1 on November 24.

On the energy front, the ultimate House of Saud nightmare would be both Iran and Iraq soon being able to take over the Saudi status as key swing oil producers in the world. Thus the Saudi drive to deprive both of much-needed oil revenue. It might work – as in the sanctions biting Tehran even harder. Yet Tehran can always compensate by selling more gas to Asia.

So here’s the bottom line. A beleaguered House of Saud believes it may force Moscow to abandon its support of Damascus, and Washington to scotch a deal with Tehran. All this by selling oil below the average spot price. That smacks of desperation. Additionally, it may be interpreted as the House of Saud dithering if not sabotaging the coalition of the cowards/clueless in its campaign against Caliph Ibrahim’s goons.

Compounding the gloom, the EU might be allowed to muddle through this winter – even considering possible gas supply problems with Russia because of Ukraine. Still, low Saudi oil prices won’t prevent a near certain fourth recession in six years just around the EU corner.

Reuters / Hamad I Mohammed

Go East, young Russian

Russia, meanwhile, slowly but surely looks East. China’s Vice Premier Wang Yang has neatly summarized it; “China is willing to export to Russia such competitive products as agricultural goods, oil and gas equipment, and is ready to import Russian engineering products.” Couple that with increased food imports from Latin America, and it doesn’t look like Moscow is on the ropes.

A hefty Chinese delegation led by Premier Li Keqiang has just signed a package of deals in Moscow ranging from energy to finance, and from satellite navigation to high-speed rail cooperation. For China, which overtook Germany as Russia’s top trading partner in 2011, this is pure win-win.

The central banks of China and Russia have just signed a crucial, 3-year, 150 billion yuan bilateral local-currency swap deal. And the deal is expandable. The City of London basically grumbles – but that’s what they usually do.

This new deal, crucially, bypasses the US dollar. No wonder it’s now a key component of the no holds barred proxy economic war between the US and Asia. Moscow cannot but hail it as sidelining many of the side effects of the Saudi strategy.

The Russia-China strategic partnership has been on the up and up since the “epochal” (Putin’s definition) $400 billion, 30-year “gas deal of the century” clinched in May. And the economic reverberations won’t stop.

There’s bound to be an alignment of the Chinese-driven New Silk Roads with a revamped Trans-Siberian railway. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit last month in Dushanbe, President Putin praised the “great potential” of developing a “common SCO transport system” linking “Russia’s Trans-Siberian railway and the Baikal-Amur mainline” with the Chinese Silk Roads, thus“benefiting all countries in Eurasia.”

Moscow is progressively lifting restrictions and is now offering Beijing a wealth of potential investments. Beijing is progressively accessing not only much-needed Russian raw materials but acquiring cutting-edge technology and advanced weapons.

Beijing will get S-400 missile systems and Su-35 fighter jets as soon as the first quarter of 2015. Further on down the road will come Russia’s brand new submarine, the Amur 1650, as well as components for nuclear-powered satellites.

Reuters / Hamad I Mohammed

The road is paved with yuan

Presidents Putin and Xi, who have met no less than nine times since Xi came to power last year, are scaring the hell out of the “Empire of Chaos.” No wonder; their number one shared priority is to dent the hegemony of the US dollar – and especially the petrodollar – in the global financial system.

The yuan has been trading on the Moscow Exchange – the first bourse outside of China to offer regulated yuan trading. It’s still at only $1.1 billion (in September). Russian importers pay for 8 percent of all Chinese goods with yuan instead of dollars, but that’s rising fast. And it will rise exponentially when Moscow finally decides to accept yuan under Gazprom’s $400 billion “gas deal of the century.”

This is the way the multipolar world goes. The House of Saud deploys the petrodollar weapon? The counterpunch is increased trade in a basket of currencies. Additionally, Moscow sends a message to the EU, which is losing a lot of Russia trade because of counter-productive sanctions, thus accelerating the EU’s next recession. Economic war does work both ways.

The House of Saud believes it can dump a tsunami of oil in the market and back it up with a tsunami of spin – creating the illusion the Saudis control oil prices. They don’t. As much as this strategy will fail, Beijing is showing the way out; trading in other currencies stabilizes prices. The only losers, in the end, will be those who stick to trade in US dollars.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.