Category Archives: Iran

UK looks clumsy and powerless in wake of Iran’s execution of Alireza Akbari

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Culturally insulting language used by Rishi Sunak and James Cleverly will increase tension between the two countries

Britain’s relationship with Iran has a fraught, unedifying history, dating back to the 18th-century imperial tussle between England, Napoleonic France, and tsarist Russia for control of Persia. Iranians have long memories. To this day, they blame the UK for many of their woes.

Britain invaded in 1941 to limit Nazi influence and protect the Anglo-Persian company’s oilfields. In 1953 it intervened again, mounting a coup, with US help, to overthrow a democratically elected government and bolster the rule of the autocratic, pro-western shah.

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Alireza Akbari’s grim fate seen as signal from Iran’s hardliners

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Whether Iranian intelligence services genuinely believed Akbari was a spy is up for debate

“I have to go. I am a soldier. It is my duty.” Alireza Akbari was explaining to his family why he felt he had to answer a call by his former boss, Ali Shamkhani to return to Tehran in 2019 to help advise on how the country should respond to the fateful decision of Donald Trump to withdraw America from the Iran nuclear deal.

Some family members advised it might not be wise to do so since by 2019 the climate in the intelligence services was turning against Akbari’s belief in the value of the nuclear deal and the lifting of western economic sanctions.

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Alireza Akbari appears in heavily edited confession aired on Iranian TV

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British-Iranian, who was sentenced to death for allegedly spying for MI6, gave reports on Iran’s nuclear programme, he says in TV interview

Alireza Akbari, the British-Iranian dual national sentenced to death for allegedly spying for MI6, gave his British handlers reports on Iran’s nuclear programme and efforts to evade western economic sanctions, according to an edited TV confession aired by news agencies close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

In the video, which was aired on Thursday and appeared to be heavily edited, Akbari was also asked about the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh who was shot dead in in Tehran in 2020.

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James Cleverly says Iran must halt execution of British citizen

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Foreign secretary warns Tehran over case of Alireza Akbari, an ex-Iranian minister accused of being MI6 spy

The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has urged the Iranian government not to press ahead with plans to execute a British-Iranian dual national found guilty of spying for MI6.

Alireza Akbari, a former Iranian deputy defence minister who has lived in the UK for more than a decade, could be executed within days after he was found guilty by the revolutionary courts of being a senior spy for M16. His appeal was rejected more than three months ago, but for reasons that are not clear the Iranian security services are now threatening to go ahead and impose the death penalty.

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Protesters gather at Iranian prison in attempt to stop ‘imminent executions’

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Alarm raised after two men found guilty of running over police officer are moved to solitary confinement

Protesters have gathered outside a prison near the Iranian capital in an attempt to prevent the rumoured imminent execution of two young detainees found guilty of running over a police officer in a car during protests in November.

Footage posted on social media showed the mother of one of the men, 22-year-old Mohammad Ghobadlou, pleading for her son outside Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj, a satellite city west of Tehran. She said it had been established that her son had not been at the scene when the police officer died.

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German police arrest Iranian man suspected of planning chemical attack

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Police detained 32-year-old man in town near Dortmund after tip-off from foreign agency believed to be the FBI

German police have arrested an Iranian man suspected of planning a chemical attack motivated by Islamic extremism.

The 32-year-old was seized at his flat shortly before midnight on Saturday in the town of Castrop-Rauxel, close to Dortmund in western Germany. The arrest followed a tip-off from a foreign intelligence agency that the man had obtained toxins, including cyanide and ricin, with which he planned to carry out a terror attack, authorities said on Sunday.

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Iran condemned for executing two men over alleged crimes during protests

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Campaigners call for greater global action after deaths of Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini

Iran drew international condemnation on Saturday after it executed two men for killing a paramilitary force member in November during protests sparked by the death in custody of a young woman.

The latest killings double the number executed so far in connection with the nationwide protests. Two men were put to death in December, sparking global outrage.

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Iran arrests celebrity chef in crackdown on protests

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Detainment of Navab Ebrahimi is speculated to be linked to post about cutlets, a possible taunt over general’s death

Iran has detained a prominent chef and Instagram influencer, known for his videos promoting Persian cooking, in its crackdown on nationwide protests, human rights groups and supporters have said.

Navab Ebrahimi was arrested in Tehran on Wednesday and taken to the city’s Evin prison, the Human Rights Activists News Agency said.

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Iran warns France over ‘insulting’ cartoons depicting supreme leader Ali Khamenei

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Publication by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo ‘will not go without effective response’, says Tehran foreign minister

Iran has summoned the French ambassador over publication of caricatures of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The weekly magazine published dozens of cartoons ridiculing the highest religious and political figure in the Islamic republic as part of a competition it launched in December in support of the protest movement that began in Iran last September.

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Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti released from jail after family post bail

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Alidoosti was arrested for support of women’s movement in Iran, including posing on Instagram without hijab

The celebrated Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti has been released from prison by the authorities after her friends and family provided bail. Pictures of her outside jail with campaigners holding flowers and without a hijab were shown on Iranian social media.

She had been arrested for issuing statements of support for the women’s movement in Iran, including by posing on Instagram without a hijab, the compulsory hair covering in the country.

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Iranian sports minister accuses UK of ‘sedition plot at World Cup’

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Tehran parliament told plan was for national football team to defect on pitch in Qatar but plot was foiled

The UK was plotting for the Iranian national football team to defect on the pitch at the World Cup in Qatar, the minister of sport and youth has told the Iranian parliament, without providing any evidence.

The sports minister, Hamid Sajjadi, told MPs the country’s enemies had attempted “the height of sedition”. He said the “Old Fox”, by which he meant the UK, had planned for Iran’s players to walk off the pitch at specified moments and seek to defect.

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Iranian police detain top footballers at New Year’s Eve party

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Players briefly held after raid on mixed-gender party, as elsewhere dissident Keyvan Samimi is released from prison

Iranian police briefly detained several top-tier football players in a raid on a New Year’s Eve party east of Tehran, where men and women allegedly mingled and alcohol was served in violation of an Islamic ban, according to Iranian media reports.

News of the brief arrests of the players, who were not identified, came as the release was announced of the Iranian dissident journalist Keyvan Samimi, who was jailed in December 2020 for “plotting against national security”.

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Iran’s supreme court accepts protester’s appeal against death sentence

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Sahand Noor Mohammadzadeh is accused of damaging public property during anti-government riots and ‘waging war against God’

Iran’s supreme court has accepted a protester’s appeal against his death sentence for allegedly damaging public property during anti-government demonstrations, and sent his case back for review, the judiciary said on Saturday.

Sahand Noor Mohammadzadeh, 25, was arrested on 4 October and sentenced to death two months later on the charge of “waging war against God” for allegedly trying to break a highway guardrail in Tehran and setting a rubbish bin on fire.

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Actor, doctor, engineer: stories of Iranians sentenced to death over killing at protest

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Five men apparently unknown to each other were probably forced to give false confessions

An actor, a radiologist, a poultry business employee, a karate champion, an engineer – these are five men sentenced to death in Iran for alleged crimes linked to anti-regime protests. The charges raised against them included murder. With court hearings held largely in secret, their trials have been widely condemned as a sham.

All are due to be executed in connection with the killing of an agent from the country’s feared paramilitary forces, the Basij. The court says Ruhollah Ajamian, 27, was stripped naked and murdered on 3 November. But the circumstances of Ajamian’s death are opaque. The alleged attack occurred at a protest commemorating a demonstrator, Hadis Najafi, who had been shot dead by security forces at a rally demanding rights for women.

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Iranian chess player ‘moving to Spain’ after competing without headscarf

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Sara Khadem and family plan to set up residence in an unnamed Spanish city, according to reports

One of Iran’s top-ranked female chess players is reportedly planning to settle in Spain after photographs emerged of her taking part in an international tournament without a headscarf.

Sara Khadem, ranked 804 in the world and 10th in her home country, was not planning to return to Iran after the tournament due to fear of reprisals, two sources told Spanish newspaper El País.

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French open suicide investigation after Iranian found dead in river

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Mohammad Moradi posted video online saying he would kill himself to highlight Iran’s crackdown on protests

French authorities are investigating as suicide the drowning of an Iranian man in the south-eastern city of Lyon who had said on social media he was going to kill himself to draw attention to the protest crackdown in Iran.

Mohammad Moradi, 38, was found in the River Rhône that flows through the centre of Lyon late on Monday, a police source told AFP.

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MP urges Britons to leave Iran after arrest of ‘British linked’ suspects

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Foreign affairs committee chair says holding of men allegedly involved in protests part of ‘industrialised taking of hostages’

All British people still in Iran should leave immediately because of the “industrialised” level of people being taken state hostage, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee has said.

Alicia Kearns made her call after the Iranian government said it had arrested seven “British linked” suspects including some dual nationals allegedly involved in the country’s anti-government protests, which began 100 days ago.

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Seven people with British links arrested in Iran over protests

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UK Foreign Office is seeking further information about detainees, who include several dual nationals

Seven people with links to Britain have been arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards over anti-government protests that have snowballed across the country in recent months, according to reports.

The people arrested, some of whom are dual nationals, were detained while trying to leave Iran, according to Reuters, citing a statement published by state media.

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Kurdish rapper wins appeal against death sentence in Iran

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Saman Yasin had denied charges of attempting to kill security forces

Iran’s supreme court has accepted an appeal by rapper Saman Yasin against his death sentence even as it confirmed the same sentence against another protester.

Yasin, a well-known and acclaimed Kurdish artist and rapper, has been a vocal critic of the Iranian regime amid the current unrest. He wrote messages of support for protesters on his social media channels and has written several protest songs.

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Russia plans to boost military links with Iran, says UK defence secretary

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Ben Wallace says Putin regime will supply military technology in return for drones used to attack Ukraine

Russia plans to deepen its military cooperation with Iran in return for Shahed drones that have been used to bomb Ukraine’s cities and energy network since September, according to Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace.

The west must hold Russia’s “enablers to account”, he said, in a Christmas update in which he was also forced to admit the UK had not completed a Ukraine “action plan” by the end of the year as promised.

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