Category Archives: Iran

Civil war, ruin, raging poverty… but Assad is guaranteed to win Syria’s fake election

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The sham election this week is designed to give the president a veneer of legitimacy at home and abroad

The last time Syria held presidential elections, in 2014, there was no question over whether President Bashar al-Assad would win – but with opposition forces in control of the country’s cities, as well as the suburbs of Damascus, his future was still far from certain.

Seven years later, after the regime’s Russian and Iranian allies intervened and turned the tide of the war, most of Syria is now back under Assad’s grip. On Wednesday, his citizens will return to the polling booths for a sham democratic display designed to give the president a veneer of legitimacy both at home and abroad.

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Iran says it will end UN watchdog’s access to nuclear sites

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A deal allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect images of nuclear facilities won’t be renewed

Iran’s parliament speaker has said that a three-month monitoring deal between Tehran and the UN nuclear watchdog has expired, escalating tensions amid diplomatic efforts in Vienna to save Tehran’s atomic accord with world powers.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf’s comments, aired by state TV, further underscored the narrowing window for the US and others to reach terms with Iran.

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Iran stunned by case of couple who drugged and dismembered son

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Parents admit murdering film-maker Babak Khorramdin and to killing daughter and son-in-law years before

An Iranian couple have been arrested for drugging, murdering and dismembering their film-maker son, Babak Khorramdin, 47, and also confessed to killing their daughter and son-in-law in the same way years earlier.

The case has stunned Iran, where it has been splashed across the front pages of newspapers with headlines including “Society in shock” and “Occupants of terror house”.

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Iranian asylum seeker cleared of Channel smuggling charges

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Man who took turn steering boat ‘because he didn’t want to die’ freed, with case opening way for others to appeal their sentences

An asylum seeker jailed on smuggling charges for helping to steer a boat filled with migrants from France to England has had his conviction overturned at a retrial after spending 17 months in jail.

Lawyers and campaigners say the verdict could lead to other migrants currently in jail on smuggling charges being freed, allowing the Home Office policy of prosecuting asylum seekers who play a role in piloting boats across the Channel to be challenged more widely.

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Hassan Rouhani criticises Iranian election criteria

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Dissidents and critics claim election campaign is charade

Iran’s outgoing president has criticised a sudden narrowing of the eligibility criteria for those hoping to succeed him as registration formally opened for candidates in the 18 June vote.

Dissidents and critics claim the campaign is just a charade and helps provide legitimacy to an autocratic regime but the tensions over who can stand – and the move by a powerful unelected body to exert greater control – has revealed the tensions in Iranian society over the outcome.

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US ship fires 30 warning shots after Iranian vessels approach fleet

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Coast guard vessel takes action after 13 Iranian fast boats come within 150 yards in strait of Hormuz

A US coast guard ship fired about 30 warning shots as a group of 13 Iranian fast boats sped toward US navy vessels in the strait of Hormuz, in what the Pentagon called “unsafe and unprofessional” maneuvers by the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGCN).

The incident marked the second time within the last month that US military vessels have had to fire warning shots because of what they said was unsafe behavior by Iranian vessels in the region, after a relative lull in such interactions over the past year.

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Hopes raised for two Americans jailed in Tehran being freed

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Morad Tahbaz and Siamak Namazi moved to cells where previously prisoners were held before release

Two high profile American-Iranian dual nationals detained in Tehran have been moved to a new location inside Evin prison in a procedure that has previously led to the release of detainees, according to sources inside the jail.

The moves could add credence to Iranian media reports at the weekend that a prisoner swap involving four unidentified detainees might be, or had been, imminent.

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Iran’s treatment of Zaghari-Ratcliffe amounts to torture, says Raab

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Foreign secretary says it is ‘difficult to argue against’ suggestion the dual national is being held state hostage

Iran’s treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe amounts to torture, the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said, as the Foreign Office downplayed an Iranian state TV report saying Britain would pay a £400m debt to secure her release.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said the family had “heard nothing” about a deal to secure her release, as hopes were raised by the suggestion that the long-running dispute had been resolved.

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Female political prisoners in Iran facing ‘psychological torture’, say campaigners

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Reports of deteriorating treatment of human rights activists, with an increase in moves to ‘dangerous’ jails often far from families

Female human rights activists imprisoned in Iran face increased jail terms and transfers to prisons with “dangerous and alarming” conditions, hundreds of miles away from their families, according to campaigners.

Warnings of the deteriorating treatment of female prisoners in Iran come days after Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian national who has served a five-year prison sentence in Iran, was sentenced to a further year in jail and a year-long travel ban by the Iranian courts.

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Biden’s world: how key countries have reacted to the US president’s first 100 days

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The new administration has signalled a sharp break in foreign policy from the Trump era – but how is that playing globally?

At the opening of Joe Biden’s online climate summit last week, Europe’s relief was was palpable: “It is so good,” gushed the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, “to have the US back on our side.”

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Boris Johnson accused of ‘dismal failure’ to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

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Tulip Siddiq MP says PM did not even send UK officials to recent trial where Iran jailed dual national for further year

Boris Johnson has been accused of a “dismal failure” in his diplomatic efforts after Iran sentenced Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to a further year in jail on top of the five-year sentence she has already served.

Labour’s Tulip Siddiq, the British-Iranian dual national’s MP, questioned the effort the prime minister had put into releasing Zaghari-Ratcliffe, telling the Commons: “From where I’m standing, I’ve seen no evidence on the part of the prime minister so far.

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Iran sentences Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to further one-year jail term

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British-Iranian aid worker has also been banned from leaving country for a year, her lawyer has said

An Iranian court has sentenced the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to a one-year jail term and banned her from leaving the country for a year after, according to her lawyer.

She had been charged with attending a demonstration outside the Iranian embassy in 2009 and speaking to a BBC Persian journalist at the gathering.

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Iran foreign minister criticises power of Qassem Suleimani in leaked interview

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Javad Zarif says the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander assassinated in 2020 dominated Iranian diplomacy

Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has criticised the dominance of the assassinated Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Suleimani in Iranian diplomacy, and admitted his own influence over Iranian foreign policy was sometimes zero in a leaked audio recording.

The remarks are from an interview the Iranian foreign ministry admits Zarif gave last March, but it says has been distorted through selective quotes. The leak was claimed as an exclusive by Iran International, a Persian language network viewed by Tehran as hostile and owned by Saudi Arabians.

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At least three killed as Iranian fuel tanker attacked off Syria

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State news agency says fatal fire broke out after ambush thought to have involved drone

At least three people died when an Iranian fuel tanker was attacked off Syria’s coast on Saturday, in the first assault of its kind since the Syrian civil war started a decade ago, a war monitor said.

“At least three Syrians were killed, including two members of the crew,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

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Canada judge delays extradition hearings in win for Huawei executive

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Meng Wanzhou’s team had sought more time to review new documents after Hong Kong settlement with HSBC

A Canada judge has agreed to delay Meng Wanzhou’s US extradition hearings for three months, according to a ruling read in court on Wednesday, handing the Huawei chief financial officer’s defense team a win.

Meng, 49, was arrested at Vancouver international airport on charges of bank fraud in the US for allegedly misleading HSBC about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran, causing the bank to break US sanctions.

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Iran sets trial dates for dual nationals before nuclear deal talks in Vienna

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Trials coincide with Iran announcing desire for ‘all for all’ simultaneous prisoner exchanges with west

Iran has set trial dates for two dual nationals, one British-Iranian and the other German-Iranian, in cases that may increase the pressure before the next stage of talks on the future of the Iran nuclear deal in Vienna.

The news of the trials set for next Wednesday comes as the lead Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said at a Clubhouse event on Tuesday that Iran wants a big “all for all” prisoner exchange.

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Iranian activists at increasing risk in former haven Turkey

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Five Iranians are in Turkish detention, the latest in an apparent wave of arrests and deportation orders

Iranian dissidents in Turkey are unsure whether the country is still a refuge after what appears to be a new wave of arrests and deportation orders targeting asylum seekers from the Islamic Republic.

Afshin Sohrabzadeh, 31, a Kurdish political activist, faced torture and solitary confinement during seven years in prison in Iran before he managed to escape during a hospital visit and flee across the border to Turkey in 2016, followed by his wife the following year.

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Shadow warrior: Benjamin Netanyahu takes a dangerous gamble with Iran

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Israel’s prime minister is creating a climate of fear and crisis as his best hope for holding on to power

In a region famous for warmongers and tyrants, who is the most dangerous man in the Middle East right now? Not Bashar al-Assad, the isolated gauleiter of Damascus. Not disgraced Mohammed bin Salman, the princely Saudi executioner. Not even Turkey’s misogynist-in-chief, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the local neighbourhood bully.

Step forward Benjamin Netanyahu, easily the most convincing contender for the “danger man” title. Israel’s prime minister has outdone himself of late, threatening war with Iran, ordering one-off attacks, assassinating a top scientist, sabotaging international fence-mending, and defying the US, his country’s indispensable ally.

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Iran names suspect in Natanz nuclear plant attack

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State television identifies suspect in 11 April sabotage as 43-year-old Reza Karimi vowing to repatriate him

Iran has named a suspect in the attack on its Natanz nuclear facility that damaged centrifuges there, saying he had fled the country “hours before” the sabotage happened.

While the extent of the damage from the 11 April sabotage remains unclear, it comes as Iran tries to negotiate with world powers over allowing the US to re-enter its tattered nuclear deal and lift the economic sanctions it faces.

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France, Germany and UK raise concern over Iran’s nuclear plans

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Three European countries say there is no ‘credible civilian need’ for enriching uranium to 60%

France, Germany and the UK have warned that Iran took a dangerous step towards the production of a nuclear weapon by enriching uranium to levels for which there is no “credible civilian need”.

Tehran, which claims its nuclear ambitions are limited to creating energy, announced this week it was boosting its levels of uranium enrichment to 60%, just short of weapons-grade purity. The 2015 nuclear deal only allows enrichment to a purity level of 3.67%.

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