Category Archives: Iran

Canada to host meeting on Iran protests for world’s female foreign ministers

Posted on by

Canada’s foreign minister Melanie Joly said they will meet to discuss protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini

Canada is to host a virtual meeting of female foreign ministers to discuss Iran’s “brutal” crackdown on protests ignited by the death of a young woman who was detained by morality police for “improper” use of the hijab.

Canada’s foreign minister, Melanie Joly, said she and 14 others will meet virtually on Thursday to discuss the state of women’s and human rights in Iran, Joly’s office said, adding that it would give them an opportunity to coordinate efforts and discuss “ways to increase their collective support for the Iranian people”.

Continue reading...

Iranian climber who competed without hijab met by jubilant crowds in Tehran

Posted on by

Elnaz Rekabi says she did not intend to compete without headscarf amid fears among public over how regime will react

The Iranian competitive climber Elnaz Rekabi has received a hero’s welcome on her return to Tehran after competing in South Korea without wearing a headscarf as required of female athletes from the Islamic Republic.

Video shared online showed large crowds at Imam Khomeini international airport terminal outside Tehran despite the 4am arrival time of Rekabi’s flight. People clapped and chanted the 33-year-old’s name and handed her flowers inside the terminal.

Continue reading...

EU plans to impose sanctions on Iran military leaders over drones

Posted on by

Measures will also target firm that develops drones believed to have been used in Russia’s attacks on Ukraine

The EU plans to impose sanctions on three senior Iranian military commanders and the company that develops drones believed to have been used in Russia’s attacks on Ukraine.

The draft sanctions list, seen by the Guardian, is expected to be agreed within days, indicating EU ministers do not believe Iran’s denials that it has supplied Russia with the low-flying lethal weapons.

Continue reading...

Russia’s new Ukraine commander signals civilian evacuation from ‘tense’ Kherson

Posted on by

Sergei Surovikin says Russia’s defence of occupied southern city ‘not easy’ as Ukraine introduces local news blackout

The new commander of Moscow’s army in Ukraine has announced that civilians were being “resettled” from the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson, describing the military situation as “tense”.

“The enemy continually attempts to attack the positions of Russian troops,” Sergei Surovikin said in his first televised interview since being appointed earlier this month, adding that the situation was particularly difficult around the occupied southern city of Kherson.

Continue reading...

Iran agrees to supply missiles as well as drones to Russia

Posted on by

Defence secretary Ben Wallace flies to Washington to discuss dangerous new phase in invasion of Ukraine

Iran has deepened its commitment to supplying arms for Russia’s assault on Ukraine by agreeing to provide a batch of medium-range missiles, as well as large numbers of cheap but effective drones, according to US and Iranian security officials.

The surface-to-surface missiles are designed to supplement the severely run-down stock of Russian missiles, as part of a bid to systematically destroy Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure ahead of a brutal winter.

Continue reading...

Iran protesters need same western support as Ukraine, say exiles

Posted on by

Iranian opposition sign open letter calling for tougher measures over regime’s actions against protesters

A prominent group of Iranians in exile, human rights activists and families of dual-national political prisoners has called on the west to do more to help Iranians’ demands for freedom.

The EU, US and UK have imposed largely symbolic travel bans and asset freezes on a dozen security officials linked to a crackdown on people protesting in Iran after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in mid-September. The west has not broken off talks with the Iranian regime over the 2015 nuclear deal or downgraded diplomatic relations.

Continue reading...

Missing Iranian climber dropped headscarf by mistake, Instagram post claims

Posted on by

Friends of Elnaz Rekabi have been unable to contact athlete since Sunday, while embassy says she returned home with rest of team

A female Iranian climber who competed in an international tournament without a hijab did so because her headscarf had dropped by mistake, a post on her Instagram account has claimed.

Footage of Elnaz Rekabi, 33, scaling a wall without her head covered during an international tournament went viral, coming amid big female-led demonstrations against Iran’s clerical rulers sparked by strict Islamic rules on women’s clothing.

Continue reading...

Iranian schoolgirl ‘beaten to death for refusing to sing’ pro-regime anthem

Posted on by

Fresh protests ignited around Iran by 16-year-old Asra Panahi’s death after schoolgirls assaulted in raid on high school in Ardabil

Another schoolgirl has reportedly been killed by the Iranian security services after she was beaten in her classroom for refusing to sing a pro-regime song when her school was raided last week, sparking further protests across the country this weekend.

According to the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, 16-year-old Asra Panahi died after security forces raided the Shahed girls high school in Ardabil on 13 October and demanded a group of girls sing an anthem that praises Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Continue reading...

Iran breaching nuclear deal by providing Russia with armed drones, says UK

Posted on by

UK joins France in saying apparent drone supply for use in Ukraine leaves Iran in breach of 2015 JCPoA

Britain has joined France in viewing the Iranian supply of armed drones to Russia for devastating use in Ukraine as a breach of Iran’s obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal.

The joint view comes as EU foreign affairs ministers slapped human rights sanctions on the Iranian morality police over their handling of street protests and treatment of women.

Continue reading...

Iran says four dead in Evin prison fire as relatives gather outside

Posted on by

Family members and protesters demand answers over blaze that state media reports left 61 injured

Family members and protesters gathered outside the notorious Evin prison in Tehran on Sunday after a fire engulfed some of the building the night before, leading to the deaths of at least four prisoners and injuring a further 61.

The official death toll was released by Iranian state news agencies, which said the four died from smoke inhalation. Ten of the injured were hospitalised.

Continue reading...

‘I write what they tell me to’: Iran’s crackdown on journalists intensifies

Posted on by

Independent media and human rights groups report arrests and physical assault as authorities try to suppress news of protests

As nationwide protests enter their fourth week in Iran, the government is increasing its crackdown on activists and journalists. On 22 September Niloofar Hamedi, an Iranian journalist, was arrested after posting a picture she took of the parents of Mahsa Amini hugging each other in a Tehran hospital on the day of their daughter’s death.

Amini, 22, died in police custody on 16 September after she was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly, which sparked the protests that then spread across the country.

Continue reading...

Blaze at Iran’s notorious Evin prison put out after fight and gunshots reported

Posted on by

Witness say special forces joined firefighters at prison blacklisted by US for human rights abuses

A blaze broke out at Iran’s notorious Evin prison, which holds political prisoners, as shots and an alarm could be heard on Saturday.

State media quoted a security official, who was not named, who said the situation at the prison in the capital, Tehran, was “calm” after unrest in a section of the jail holding “thugs”.

Continue reading...

Iran police investigate video of officer’s alleged sexual assault of protester

Posted on by

Footage appears to show member of riot police grabbing detained woman from behind

Iranian police have said they are investigating footage allegedly showing a member of their riot squad sexually assaulting a female protester in Tehran after widespread outrage over the video.

The footage, recorded during a protest in the capital’s Argentina Square on Wednesday, shows a woman being violently detained and taken towards a motorbike in a street crowded with protesters and riot police. She is surrounded by four armed members of the riot force, and one of them appears to grab her inappropriately from behind. She then slumps to the ground.

Continue reading...

Netanyahu used golf metaphor to turn Trump against Palestinians, book says

Posted on by

In new memoir, former Israeli PM describes efforts to turn US president against Palestinian leader Abbas

Benjamin Netanyahu used maps of Hezbollah missile sites and intelligence gained from a Mossad raid in Tehran to make sure Donald Trump backed Israel in Middle East peace talks and pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, the former Israeli prime minister writes in a new memoir.

But in unconventional scenes similar to those in countless books of reportage and Trump tell-alls, Netanyahu also says that to sway Trump from his desire to pursue peace between Israel and the Palestinians and to scotch his positive first impression of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, the Israelis deployed golfing metaphors and maps of New York City.

Continue reading...

‘They tried to wipe us out’: Kurds shelled as Iran seeks scapegoats for unrest

Posted on by

Exiled Kurdish forces in Iraq feel abandoned by west and say they need weapons like in Ukraine

Picking through a pile of twisted metal, Rebaz, a Kurdish Iranian fighter, stooped to cradle a jagged chrome piece that was dug from the ruins of his base. “This was part of a Fateh missile,” he said. “It’s one of the biggest that the Iranians have in their arsenal. It’s from the day they tried to wipe us out.”

The heap included other wreckage – of rockets and kamikaze drones that had devastated this small outpost, just east of Erbil in northern Iraq, a fortnight ago. Since then, jittery guards had looked from the ruins towards the east, from where more than two dozen ballistic missiles and another dozen kamikaze drones blazed from a blue sky a fortnight ago.

Continue reading...

Iran protests: Joe Biden says US stands with ‘brave women’ after Mahsa Amini death

Posted on by

President tells demonstrators that Iran’s protests ‘awakened something that I don’t think will be quieted for a long, long time’

Joe Biden has said he is “stunned” by the mass protests in Iran and that the US stands with that country’s “brave women”.

The US president said at a college in Irvine, California, during an address to a group of protesters holding “Free Iran” signs: “I want you to know that we stand with the citizens, the brave women of Iran.”

Continue reading...

Iran bans director Mani Haghighi from attending London film festival

Posted on by

The Subtraction director had his passport confiscated by Iranian authorities and was prevented from boarding his flight to the UK, allegedly with no reason given

Iranian film-maker Mani Haghighi has been banned from leaving the country and had his passport confiscated after attempting to travel to London, where his latest film Subtraction is screening at the London film festival.

In a video statement, Haghighi said: “I was prevented by the Iranian authorities from boarding my flight to London on Friday. They gave me no reasonable explanation for this utterly rude behaviour.”

Continue reading...

Iran’s youthful protests stoke uncertainty among political elite

Posted on by

While some insist the unrest will eventually peter out, others warn there is something more fundamental at play

A shaken Iranian political elite is struggling with whether to frame the protests shaking the country as primarily the product of a covert foreign intelligence conspiracy, or instead a dangerous warning that the values of the Islamic Revolution have lost sway over a new generation infected by a western controlled internet, analysts say.

The debate, in which there are many shades of grey, matters since it determines whether the response should be a security crackdown coupled with retribution against the outside forces of disruption or some kind of dialogue with the largely leaderless youth.

Continue reading...

Iranian regime’s giant poster of women in hijabs proves to be PR fiasco

Posted on by

Montage in Tehran taken down within 24 hours after prominent women and relatives denounce use of their photos

The Iranian authorities suffered a PR fiasco after being forced to take down a giant billboard in a central square in Tehran when women in the poster, or their relatives, objected to being depicted as supporters of the government and the compulsory-wearing of the hijab.

The billboard controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was a montage of about 50 Iranian women wearing the hijab under the slogan “Women of my Land”. It was taken down within 24 hours after at least three of the women pictured said they objected to their image being misused.

Continue reading...

‘It’s a revolution’: Iranian women in UK believe protests will bring freedom

Posted on by

Women who fled regime are working hard to expose abuses in Iran and say this time real change is possible

Iranian and Kurdish women living in the UK believe the prospect of freedom for millions of women in their home country has never been greater following protests after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested in Tehran for not wearing her headscarf correctly.

Many of those who fled the Iranian regime because of its attacks on human and women’s rights are working hard behind the scenes to support women in their home country to expose the abuses in the hope of encouraging the international community to act to bring about regime change.

Continue reading...