Category Archives: Iran

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe avoids being returned to jail

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British-Iranian dual national in court to hear fresh charges of undermining Iranian state

The detained British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has avoided being sent back to jail after after appearing in court to hear fresh charges of undermining the Iranian state.

There had been fears that she would be sent back to Evin prison in Tehran but the hearing was adjourned before she could present her defence, her British-based family told her local MP, Tulip Siddiq.

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Angry TV film-makers stop release of lauded Iranian documentary

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Coup 53, which charts MI6’s role in the shah’s restoration, has been blocked by makers of an 1985 show, who say it sullies their names

Coup 53 was heralded by critics this summer as a “powerful and authoritative” documentary “as gripping as any thriller”, and judged by historians as crucial to understanding Britain’s relationship with the Middle East.

Made over 10 years by Walter Murch, the celebrated editor of Apocalypse Now and The English Patient, in collaboration with the Anglo-Iranian director Taghi Amirani, it tells the story of covert British intervention in Iran after the second world war and stars Ralph Fiennes, left, as an MI6 spy in a reconstruction of a key incident.

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Zaghari-Ratcliffe: ‘Interrogators threatened to take my daughter away’

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British-Iranian dual national gives detailed account of interrogation after arrest

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s interrogators threatened to take away her daughter, claimed her husband was a spy and repeatedly misled her about the prospects of her release, she reveals in an account of her first interrogation in 2016.

The 40 days she spent in complete isolation in prison after her arrest by Iranian authorities, included days without sleep, panic attacks, fainting and repeated efforts to make her confess she was a spy. She became so distressed that at times she began to “doubt herself” and question whether their false accusations were correct.

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Man arrested over deaths of Iranian Kurd family in Channel sinking

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Iranian man held on suspicion of manslaughter following deaths of at least four people

An Iranian man has been held on suspicion of manslaughter following the deaths of four people, and the disappearance of a further three who are believed to have died, as they attempted to cross the Channel.

Iranian Kurds Rasul Iran Nezhad and his wife, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, both 35, and two of their children, Anita, nine, and Armin, six, drowned on Tuesday as they tried to reach Britain by boat after departing from near Dunkirk.

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Iran moves detained academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert back to Tehran prison

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Moore-Gilbert, who has Australian and British citizenship, had been held in Qarchak, widely regarded as the worst female prison in Iran

The detained British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been moved back to Tehran’s Evin prison, sources with knowledge of her case have confirmed to the Guardian.

Moore-Gilbert is understood to be back in the secretive ward 2A of Tehran’s largest prison, where she had spent much of the past two years under the control of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

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Four Iranians who died crossing Channel were part of same family

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Rasul Iran Nezhad and Shiva Mohammad Panahi drowned along with their children Anita and Armin

Four Iranian Kurds who died trying to cross the Channel in high winds were members of one family who paid smugglers thousands of euros after two failed attempts to reach Britain, the Guardian has been told.

Rasul Iran Nezhad and his wife, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, both 35, and two of their children, Anita, nine, and Armin, six, drowned as they tried to reach Britain by boat, according to a relative of the family and the Iranian-Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw.

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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to stand trial on fresh charges in Iran next week

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British-Iranian dual national told she will be returned to prison after Monday’s hearing

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman sentenced to five years imprisonment in Iran in 2016, has been told she will stand trial on fresh charges next Monday.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was released to house arrest in March due to the coronavirus outbreak, was also told she would be returned to Evin prison after the hearing.

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Muslim backlash against Macron gathers pace after police raids

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Iran calls Paris’s response to teacher’s killing ‘unwise’ amid protests across Muslim world

The backlash against Emmanuel Macron following his insistence that publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad is fundamental to freedom of speech has spread, with angry international protests, cyber-attacks against French websites and warnings that the president’s response is “unwise”.

Muslims in France – and elsewhere – are also furious at what they claim is a heavy-handed government clampdown on their communities in the wake of the killing 11 days ago of the high school teacher Samuel Paty.

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Iraq’s prime minister says country on tightrope between US and Iran

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Mustafa al-Kadhimi also urges Europe to assist the Middle Eastern nation’s debt-ridden economy

Iraq’s prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, has warned that he is being forced into an impossible balancing act between the US and Iran, as he urged Europe to come to the aid of his country’s debt-ridden economy.

Appointed as prime minister in June, Kadhimi – a British citizen and former journalist – came to power after unprecedented street protests over corruption, and has since governed with a simple programme of early elections, better security and preventing the collapse of his oil-dependent economy.

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Russia and Iran obtained US voter data in bid to sow unrest before election, FBI warns

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In rare news conference, the director of national security says Iran has sent spoofed emails to intimidate voters

Russia and Iran have obtained some US voting registration information and are attempting to sow unrest in the upcoming election, the government’s national intelligence director said in a rare news conference Wednesday night.

“We have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails, designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President Trump,” said John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence.

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Even if Biden wins US election, time is running out to save Iran nuclear deal

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Events in the US are being watched closely as Iran’s presidential election looms in early 2021

Even if Joe Biden triumphs at the polls, Iran’s weakened government may only have a few months to negotiate a revived nuclear deal before facing its own electoral challenge by hardliners who oppose any engagement with the west.

The narrow window has prompted calls for Biden to offer a phased approach to rejoining the Iran nuclear deal abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018, in order to show progress before the Iranian presidential election.

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Iranian woman arrested for cycling ‘without hijab’

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Unnamed cyclist in Najafabad detained for breaking Islamic law on veils for women

A young woman has been arrested in central Iran for “insulting the Islamic hijab”, state media said on Tuesday, after a video appeared to show her cycling without a veil.

“A person who had recently violated norms and insulted the Islamic veil in this region has been arrested,” Mojataba Raei, the governor of Najafabad, told the IRNA news agency.

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Global report: record Covid cases and new lockdowns across Europe

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Parts of Spain and Italy facing restrictions as Ireland set to become first EU country to reimpose national lockdown

Regions in Spain and Italy have returned to lockdown and Ireland will do so from Wednesday as countries across Europe continue to report new Covid infection highs and governments struggle to contain the second wave of the pandemic.

The northern Spanish Navarre region, where the number of cases per 100,000 people is 945 against 312 nationally, announced a two-week lockdown from Thursday that will be stricter than measures imposed on Madrid by central government.

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Iran hails lifting of 13-year UN arms embargo as ‘momentous day’

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Immediate shopping spree is unlikely after end to military sanctions despite US protests

Iranian officials have hailed the lifting of a 13-year UN arms embargo on their military as a momentous day, claiming they were once again free to buy and sell conventional weapons in an effort to strengthen their country’s security.

The embargo was lifted on Sunday morning despite US protests and was in line with the five-year timetable set out in the Iran nuclear deal, which was signed in 2015.

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13,300 new infections in Spain – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. We’ve launched a new blog at the link below:

Hi, Helen Sullivan here. We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:

Related: Coronavirus live news: France reports record new cases as WHO warns Europe's case surge is 'of great concern'

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Trump and Biden offer starkly different visions of US role in world

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The world is anxiously watching the election, with the candidates far apart on issues such as the climate crisis and nuclear weapons

Foreign policy barely gets a mention in this US election, but for the rest of the world the outcome on 3 November will arguably be the most consequential in history.

All US elections have a global impact, but this time there are two issues of existential importance to the planet – the climate crisis and nuclear proliferation – on which the two presidential candidates could hardly be further apart.

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Iran at breaking point as it fights third wave of coronavirus

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Trust in government of exhausted and impoverished country is diminishing as death toll continues to rise

Iran, the crucible of coronavirus in the Middle East, smashed two grim records this week, reporting its largest number of deaths in a single 24 hours since the outbreak started in March, and the largest number of new infections.

Iranian health officials openly admit Iran is deep into its third, and biggest, wave of the disease, and evidence suggests an exhausted and impoverished country is struggling to cope as trust in government diminishes, sanctions weaken the economy and hospitals report overcrowded intensive care units.

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Mohammad Reza Shajarian embodied the timeless beauty of Persian music

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The singer, who has died aged 80, was silenced in his home nation for his outspoken criticism – but his artistry played on in the hearts of Iranians at home and abroad

I vividly remember the first time I met Mohammad Reza Shajarian on a summer afternoon in Berlin in 2011. He was touring Europe, along with his daughter Mojgan and an ensemble of young musicians. For Iranians, this was – along with North America – the only place they could experience their great idol on stage, given that the outspoken maestro of Persian classical music had been banned from performing inside Iran two years earlier.

Related: Iranian singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian dies aged 80

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Iran: prominent human rights activist released over health concerns

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Narges Mohammadi suffers from neurological condition and was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison

The most prominent human rights activist imprisoned in Iran, Narges Mohammadi, has been released from jail after her sentence was reduced amid renewed fears for her health.

Iran has been hit by a third wave of coronavirus that has seen the daily numbers of new infection break records, with a new high of 4,392 on Thursday.

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‘A threat from within’: Iraq and the rise of its militias

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Shaped by the fight against Isis and a fateful US drone strike, the factions now pose a danger to Baghdad’s weak government

The dust had barely settled on the fall of Iraq’s second city when the call came. It was June 2014 and Islamic State had just captured Mosul, the prize in a fight for control of a country already scarred by more than a decade of war.

Just four days after the city’s capture, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shia cleric in Iraq, issued a fatwa urging Iraqis to volunteer in the fight against the militants. Tens of thousands of mostly young men from the poor Shia south and Baghdad suburbs flocked to recruiting centres, military camps and militia headquarters.

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