Figures from Tehran province indicate extent of clampdown on protests sparked by killing of Mahsa Amini
Courts in and around the Iranian capital have jailed 400 people on charges related to recent protests, for terms of up to 10 years.
Ali Alghasi-Mehr, the judiciary chief for Tehran province, said judges had handed down the rulings to “rioters” – a term officials use for all demonstrators who defy Iran’s hardline theocratic rule.
Continue reading...MEPs vote to remove role from Eva Kaili, one of four charged in corruption and bribery investigation
The European parliament has voted to strip a Greek MEP implicated in a bribery and corruption scandal of her role as one of the body’s vice-presidents.
MEPs voted by 625 votes to one, with two abstentions, to remove Eva Kaili as one of the parliament’s 14 vice-presidents, following a decision in favour of the move by the assembly’s senior leaders.
Continue reading...Group says Moroccan and Spanish police failed to provide even basic first aid for hours after deadly crush at enclave
The “widespread use of unlawful force” by Moroccan and Spanish authorities contributed to the deaths of at least 37 people who perished during a mass storming of the border fence between Morocco and Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla in June, according to a report.
The Amnesty International report also accuses Moroccan and Spanish police of failing to provide even basic first aid to those injured in the crush as they were left “in the full glare of the sun for up to eight hours”. It says Moroccan authorities prioritised moving corpses and treating security officials above the needs of injured migrants and refugees.
Continue reading...Human rights group warns death of Majidreza Rahnavard ‘a significant escalation of violence against protesters’
Fears are growing that Iran is preparing to execute scores more protesters after authorities hanged a 23-year-old man from a crane, in a public killing carried out less than a month after he was arrested and following a secretive trial.
Majidreza Rahnavard was sentenced to death by a court in the city of Mashhad, a centre of the protests, for allegedly killing two members of the paramilitary Basij force and wounding four others. The Basij, affiliated with the country’s feared Revolutionary Guards, has been at the forefront of the state crackdown.
Continue reading...Majidreza Rahnavard accused of fatally stabbing security force members early in protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in custody
Iran has publicly hanged a man accused of killing two members of the security forces in its second use of capital punishment against anti-government protesters.
Majidreza Rahnavard’s family were woken early on Monday morning to be informed that he had been executed and that his body had been buried in a lot in the local cemetery.
Continue reading...Orwa Skafe, who fled Syria seven years ago, is among those given jobs and a home in attempt to revive rural areas
It’s been a long journey since Orwa Skafe fled the war in Syria seven years ago but thanks to an innovative resettlement scheme he’s found peace in a tiny village 900 metres (3,000ft) up in the Pyrenees. He is one of the first to benefit from a Catalan government programme to relocate refugees in depopulated villages.
The programme, called Operation 500 because it involves villages with fewer than 500 inhabitants, is being run jointly by the regional employment agency, the equality commission and the Association of Micro-villages.
Continue reading...Andrea Costantino says he has been in tiny room since release from prison on ‘totally unfounded’ charges of funding terrorism
An Italian man trapped for six months in his country’s embassy in the UAE has claimed he is the victim of a diplomatic spat between the two states and pleaded with Giorgia Meloni’s government to bring him home.
Andrea Costantino, 49, said he had been living a “Groundhog day-like” existence in a tiny room at the Italian embassy in Abu Dhabi since being released in late May from the emirate’s notorious maximum-security prison, Al Wathba, where he spent more than a year on charges of funding terrorism in war-torn Yemen after shipping a cargo of diesel to a client there.
Continue reading...Like the players, brands have in the end shied away from confrontation with the hosts during the World Cup
More than £100m will be spent by brands hoping to cash-in on World Cup fever, but when it comes to taking host Qatar to task over its human rights record protest marketing has taken a back seat to sales targets.
In the run-up to kick off of the football tournament in Qatar criticism of the gulf state was akin to shooting at an open goal.
Continue reading...Uncle of Mohsen Shekari, who was convicted of ‘waging war against God’, says family have not been told location of body
Iran has conducted the first known execution in relation to the anti-government protests that have rocked the country, hanging a man who was found guilty by a revolutionary court of “waging war against God”.
Mohsen Shekari was accused of blocking a street and wounding a member of the pro-regime Basij militia on 25 September, during the early phase of the protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Men and women coming in with shotgun wounds to different parts of bodies, doctors say
Iranian security forces are targeting women at anti-regime protests with shotgun fire to their faces, breasts and genitals, according to interviews with medics across the country.
Doctors and nurses – treating demonstrators in secret to avoid arrest – said they first observed the practice after noticing that women often arrived with different wounds to men, who more commonly had shotgun pellets in their legs, buttocks and backs.
Continue reading...If Qatar exploits all its reserves it will add 50bn metric tons of CO2 to atmosphere, more than entire annual emissions of whole world
Qatar’s longest lasting legacy following the World Cup won’t be football or even its human rights record – it will be the climate crisis, according to a new report warning that its huge expansion of gas extraction could push the planet into catastrophic global heating.
Should Qatar exploit all of its oil and gas reserves it will eventually add an enormous 50bn metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere once burned, which is more than the entire annual emissions of the whole world, the new research, shared with the Guardian, has found.
Continue reading...A Qatari whistleblower who was jailed after raising concerns about the mistreatment of migrant workers at World Cup stadium sites was tortured on the eve of the tournament, his family has claimed.
The human rights organisation FairSquare also released a letter from the family of Abdullah Ibhais, a former media manager in Qatar’s Supreme Committee, who accused Fifa of “callous indifference” for ignoring his case.
Continue reading...Chinese president’s three-day trip to Riyadh will lead to a ‘strategic agreement’ between the authoritarian powers
Xi Jinping will arrive in Riyadh on Wednesday on a long awaited visit to a regional ally that has readied full state pageantry and a round of agreements likely to cement ties between China and Saudi Arabia – and deepen alarm in Washington.
China’s president will meet more than 30 heads of state and business leaders during his three-day visit to the Saudi capital, which is set to lead to a “strategic agreement” between the authoritarian powers. The trip is the culmination of decades of cooperation once based on oil sales, which has grown into bilateral trade of close to $90bn a year.
Continue reading...Judge says Mohammed bin Salman entitled to sovereign immunity despite ‘credible allegations’ of involvement in journalist’s murder
A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman that claimed he conspired to kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying the crown prince was entitled to sovereign immunity despite “credible allegations” that he was involved in the murder.
Judge John Bates, a US district court judge with a long history of presiding over cases involving national security, acknowledged “uneasiness” in making the decision, but said that his hands were in effect tied by the Biden administration’s recent recommendation that Prince Mohammed be given immunity.
Continue reading...Mikhailo Podolyak says pressure on Tehran from overseas and distraction of civil unrest mean helping Moscow is not a priority
Iran has so far not delivered ballistic missiles to Russia and may not do so, as a result of diplomatic pressure and Iran’s own internal political turmoil, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser has said.
Mikhailo Podolyak also told the Guardian that Russian forces had run short of their first batch of Iranian drones – and only had enough of their own cruise missiles in their stockpile for “two or three” more mass strikes against Ukraine.
Continue reading...Network files formal request against Israel over shooting of Palestinian-American journalist in West Bank
Al Jazeera television network has filed a formal request to the international criminal court against Israeli forces over the killing of the veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Abu Akleh was shot in the head during an Israeli raid in a refugee camp on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in May, while wearing a helmet and flak jacket that clearly indicated she was a member of the press. Several investigations by human rights organisations, as well as international news outlets and the UN, have concluded that Abu Akleh, 51, was shot by an Israeli soldier. Her colleague Ali al-Samoudi survived after being shot in the shoulder.
Continue reading...Shopkeepers and lorry drivers from almost 40 cities are participating in mass walkouts
Iranian shopkeepers and lorry drivers staged a walkout in nearly 40 cities and towns on Monday after calls for a three-day nationwide general strike from protesters as the government declined to confirm a claim by a senior official that the morality police had been abolished.
Iranian newspapers instead reported an increase in patrols, especially in religious cities, requiring women to wear the hijab, and shop managers being directed by the police to reinforce hijab restrictions.
Continue reading...Al Saqi Books in London, which was established in 1978, blames closure on rise in prices of Arabic-language books and ‘detrimental’ effect of Brexit
Europe’s largest specialist bookseller for Middle Eastern books, based in London, has been forced to close because of the hike in prices of Arabic-language books and because Brexit has been “detrimental” to its business.
Al Saqi Books in Bayswater opened in 1978, and sells books on the Middle East and north Africa in English, and on all subjects in Arabic.
Continue reading...Officers say no one was at England footballer’s Leatherhead home when jewellery and watches stolen
Jewellery and watches were among items stolen at the Surrey home of the England footballer Raheem Sterling in a burglary that forced the winger to return to the UK from the World Cup in Qatar.
Surrey police confirmed they were investigating a burglary at a property in Oxshott, Leatherhead, after Sterling missed England’s win against Senegal in the knockout stages of the tournament on Sunday due to a “family matter”.
Continue reading...State media distance themselves from claim ‘morality police’ have been shut down after Mahsa Amini death
Protesters in Iran have called for a three-day strike this week amid conflicting reports that its “morality police” had been shut down, and as the US said the leadership in Tehran had locked itself into a “vicious cycle” that had cut it off from its own people and the international community.
The call steps up pressure on Iranian authorities after the attorney general said this weekend that the morality police – whose detention of a young woman triggered months of protests – had been shut down. There was no confirmation of the closure from the interior ministry, which is in charge of the morality police, and Iranian state media said the attorney general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, was not responsible for overseeing the force.
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