Open Technology Fund, which helped activists evade state surveillance and sidestep web censorship, sees $20m grant pulled
The Trump administration has stopped vital technical assistance to pro-democracy groups in Belarus, Hong Kong and Iran, which had helped activists evade state surveillance and sidestep internet censorship.
Related: Trump memo on Comey firing was 'tinfoil helmet material', Mueller prosecutor says
Continue reading...Antonio Guterres tells security council that it is ‘not clear’ whether US reimposition of sanctions on Tehran applies
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres has told the security council he cannot take any action on a US declaration that all UN sanctions on Iran had been reimposed because “there would appear to be uncertainty” on the issue.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said last month that he had triggered a 30-day process at the council that would lead to the return of UN sanctions on Iran on Saturday evening. He would also stop a conventional arms embargo on Tehran from expiring on 18 October.
Continue reading...New cases above 3,000 a day – as high as at any point since virus first hit country
Iran appears to be in the grip of a “third wave” of the coronavirus outbreak, with the number of new infections above 3,000 a day – as high as at any point since the virus first hit in February.
Iran was one of the first countries to be struck by the virus outside China. Its officials brought the disease under a form of control by early May, but then experienced an increase at the start of June that drifted down to fewer than 1,600 new cases a day in late August.
Continue reading...State department’s Nathan Sales says group ‘represents clear and present danger to the US’ and urges Europe to take tougher line
The US has accused Hezbollah of storing caches of weapons and ammonium nitrate for use in explosives across Europe in recent years, with the alleged aim of preparing for future attacks ordered by Iran.
The allegation was made by the state department’s counterterrorism coordinator, Nathan Sales, who called on European countries to take a tougher line on the Tehran-backed Lebanese Shia political movement and militia.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has warned that the US will retaliate with “1,000 times greater” force against any Iranian attack on its interests.
Related: ‘The US feels very volatile’: former ambassador warns of election violence
Continue reading...British-Iranian dual national said to be relieved but angry at surprise move
A new trial of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian dual national detained in Iran for the past four years, has been postponed at the last minute.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, confirmed the news, which came as a surprise to both his wife and her London-based family. Her MP, Tulip Sidiq, said Zaghari-Ratcliffe was relieved but also frustrated, angry and stressed.
Continue reading...Friends stage ‘Run for Kylie’ events for the Australian academic jailed on spying charges, as her family say they remain strong and hopeful
The family of the detained academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who faces 10 years in jail in Iran on espionage charges – have said they “remain strong and are far from giving up hope”, as hundreds of her friends marked the second anniversary of her detention on Sunday.
Moore-Gilbert, a dual UK and Australian citizen, was seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as she attempted to fly out of the country following an academic conference at which she had spoken.
Continue reading...Afkari had been convicted of killing security guard during anti-government protests in 2018
Iran has executed a champion wrestler convicted of murdering a security guard during anti-regime protests in 2018, state media said on Saturday, despite an international campaign to spare his life.
Navid Afkari, 27, was executed “this morning after legal procedures were carried out at the insistence of the parents and the family of the victim”, the Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the head of the justice department in the southern Fars province as saying.
Continue reading...On the golf course, Lindsey Graham urged restraint on Iran, while James Mattis slept in his clothes in case of emergency, book says
Four days before ordering a drone strike against the Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani, Donald Trump was debating the assassination on his own Florida golf course, according to Bob Woodward’s new book on the mercurial president.
Trump’s golfing partner that day was Senator Lindsey Graham, who had emerged as one of his closest advisers, and who urged him not to take such a “giant step”, that could trigger “almost total war”.
Continue reading...European ‘E3’ ministers reach consensus during Kent meeting hosted by UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab
Foreign ministers from the UK, France and Germany have agreed to hold out against US demands to snapback all UN sanctions on Iran, despite intensified pressure from the US specifically on the UK government to fall into line.
The US was left isolated at the UN security council last month when it said it wished to reimpose snapback sanctions, with the European nations – known collectively as the E3 – arguing that the US was no longer a participant in the deal and so unable to act unilaterally. The US, which left the deal in 2018, described the E3 position as crackers and pandering to terrorists. A further showdown on the issue at the UN is expected this month.
Continue reading...UK government urged to attend trial on Sunday of British-Iranian dual national
Iran’s decision to press fresh charges against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is illegal and shows she is being held as a hostage, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, has said.
He called on the British government to do everything possible to protect her, include demanding UK officials are allowed to attend her trial on Sunday.
Continue reading...State TV says British-Iranian dual national to appear in Tehran court on Sunday
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will appear in an Iranian court on Sunday after the country’s state media said she faced a new and unspecified charge.
The news came as a bombshell to the family of the British-Iranian dual national, who has been under effective house arrest ever since the coronavirus outbreak led to her release from prison after serving nearly four of her of her five-year sentence.
Continue reading...Majid Majidi’s cast of young toughs digging for treasure under a school deliver a heart-rending story with unexpected depth of emotion
Sun Children, by the Iranian director Majid Majidi, gives us a prison-break drama that is escaping to nowhere, and a knockabout school comedy gone horribly wrong. The acting is broad, the plot gears often creak, but it has guts and heart and a grubby, street-smart charisma. It’s one of the finest films playing in this year’s Venice competition.
Dedicated to “the 152m children forced into child labour”, this casts 12-year-old Roohollah Zamani as Ali, the pint-sized boss of a gang of thieves, a miniature wheel inside a much bigger machine, working for an unnamed local crime boss who skulks on the rooftop amid his pigeon coops. The boss wants Ali to retrieve a hoard of unspecified treasure, which is either buried in the local graveyard or in the drainage pipe that runs beside it. And the only way he can do it is to go back to school.
Continue reading...Debt seen as stumbling block for release of British-Iranians including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has for the first time acknowledged that he is actively seeking to pay a debt to the Iranian government that could finally help to secure the release of British dual nationals including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Wallace assured lawyers acting for the families that the government was exploring every legal avenue to pay the debt, which for the first time he formally acknowledged the government owes.
Continue reading...Sources say authorities make two prisoners follow the British Australian academic everywhere in the Covid-ravaged Qarchak jail
Kylie Moore-Gilbert has enough money to buy food and water inside Iran’s notorious Qarchak prison, but is closely surveilled everywhere she goes, sources inside the jail say.
Fellow prisoners report that the British Australian academic appears to have so far escaped infection in the wave of Covid-19 sweeping through the prison, but that her communications with the outside world are strictly proscribed, according to Roya Boroumand, executive director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center (ABC) for Human Rights in Iran.
Continue reading...Mother of 14-year-old victim expresses fury at lenient sentence as critics say Iranian law unfairly favours men
An Iranian man who beheaded his 14-year-old daughter has been sentenced to only nine years in jail, in a case that has sparked outrage at the way Iranian law appears to enshrine supposed male rights over women’s lives.
Rana Dashti, the mother of 14-year-old Romina Ashrafi, expressed fury at the lenient sentence in an interview with the Iranian Labor news agency (Ilna) on Friday and said the court’s ruling had “caused fear and panic for me and my family”.
Continue reading...Indonesia said no further action could be taken on US request because there was no consensus on 15-nation body
The US has suffered another humiliating diplomatic setback after the president of the UN security council rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to extend economic sanctions on Iran.
Related: Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security council unites against 'unpleasant' US
Continue reading...Officials say security investigations confirmed sabotage, with further details to be released later
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said on Sunday that “sabotage” was the cause of an explosion that damaged the Natanz nuclear facility last month.
“Security investigations confirm this was sabotage and what is certain is that an explosion took place in Natanz,” spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA. “But how this explosion took place and with what materials ... will be announced by security officials in due course.”
Continue reading...Letters from 13 of 15 members underscore US isolation as it seeks to ‘snap back’ measures against Tehran
The extent of US isolation at the UN has been driven home by formal letters from 13 of the 15 security council members opposing Trump administration attempts to extend the economic embargo on Iran.
The letters by the council members were all issued in the 24 hours since the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, came to the UN’s New York headquarters to declare Iran in non-compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal.
Continue reading...US to activate controversial ‘snapback’ procedure, which Britain, France and Germany say it doesn’t have the right to do
President Donald Trump has announced that secretary of state Mike Pompeo will activate a controversial mechanism aimed at reimposing UN sanctions on Iran, escalating a row with European allies that has huge repercussions for the Iranian nuclear deal.
Pompeo will travel to New York on Thursday to notify the UN security council that the US is triggering the so-called “snapback” procedure, which Britain, France and Germany say it doesn’t have the right to do.
Continue reading...