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Association Search OMID for victims of Islamic Republic human rights abuse Highlights from 2010: Nov. 17: FDI
joins Larry Klayman and Freedom Watch to
examine policy options for the incoming
112th Congress toward Iran. From left to right: FDMI President Kenneth R.
Timmerman, FDI Advisory board member Reza
Kahlili, Larry Klayman (speaking), FDI
advisory board member R. James Woolsey FDI briefs
incoming House intelligence committee
member Rep. Michele Bachmann on Iran.
(l-to-r: FDI president
Kenneth R. Timmerman, FDI Sec/Treasury Bill
Nojay, Rep. Bachmann, FDI Advisory board
member R. James Woolsey) e |
Dec. 10, 2023: Children of jailed pro-freedom activist Narges Mohammadi receive Nobel Peace prize. The teenage children of Narges Mohammadi, 51, flew to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of their mother, jailed almost continuously since 2010, and read a speech she succeeded in smuggling out from prison. Iran's young people "have transformed the streets and public spaces into a platform for widespread civil resistance," she wrote. "Resistance is alive, and the struggle endures." She reaffirmed her commitment to non-violence, calling it the "strong" strategy. "This is the difficult path that Iranians have taken until today, relying on their historical awareness and collective will. The Iranian people will dismantle obstruction and despotism with persistance. Do not doubt, this is certain."
The Tribunal, presided over by international
jurists Hamid Sabi and Regina Paulose, plans to
hear over 133 witnesses, including the families
of victims murdered by the regime testifying
remotely from inside Iran, the Persian Service
of Voice
of America reported.
Also known as the Aban Tribunal, for the Persian month of the protests, the Tribunal heard testimony on Thursday from Nahid Shirpisheh, whose 27-year-old son, Pouya Bakhtiari, was shot while protesting in Karaj, spoke to the panel by video from Iran. A data base of victims compiled by Amnesty International now lists 323 Iranians killed during the November 15-19, 2019 protests. Regime officials have admitted killing 200 protestors.
The Tribunal
wants the United States, the UK, and the
European Union to enact human rights sanctions
against Iranian regime officials it finds guilty
of crimes against humanity. Sabi leads a
recently-formed human rights group based in
London, Justice4Iran.
Nov. 3,
2021: Leaked Evin documents show abuse.
Internal documents from Evin prison, obtained
by a hactivist group known as Edalat-e Ali
(Alis's Justice), show that prison authorities
systematically punished prisoners for signing
open letters, going on hunger strike, or
otherwise seeking to make their treatment
known to the outside world. The documents were
made available
to Radio Farda. A separate batch of
documents, relating to the November 2019
protests and the murder of dissidents, was
reportedly leaked to the BBC. Edalat-e Ali
is the same group that leaked videos from
Evin Prison in August (see below).
Oct. 29, 2021: U.S. Treasury issues
drone sanctions. Treasury's
Office of Foreign Assets Control today imposed
sanctions on
a network of companies and individuals "that
have provided critical support to the Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle (UAV) programs of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its
expeditionary unit, the IRGC Qods Force
(IRGC-QF). In imposing the sanctions, Treasury
noted that the Quds Force has used and
proliferated lethal UAVs for use by
Iran-supported groups, including Hizballah,
HAMAS, Kata’ib Hizballah, and the Houthis, and
to Ethiopia, where the escalating crisis
threatens to destabilize the broader region."
The Quds Force has also used armed drones "in
attacks on international shipping and on U.S.
forces," Treasury
said.
April 8, 2021: FDI Protests German
government persecution of Iranian
activist.
The German government has taken unprecedented
steps to isolate Iranian activist Abolghassem
Mesbahi, 61, cutting off his ability to find
work, contact the media, maintain a bank account
or travel, in outright violation of German and
European Union law, international human rights
standards, the United Nations Charter, and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights.
The Foundation for Democracy in Iran urges all
like-minded human rights organizations to read
Mesbahi's declaration, which we publish below (Permalink here),
and to raise Mesbahi's case with members of the
Bundestag, the German government, and
international organizations.
If you are financially
able, please consider sending a donation to
the special
page we have set up to help Mesbahi
and his family. Contributions are not
tax-deductible.)
Mesbahi initially came to Germany in 1996 as a
political refugee, and subsequently acquired
German citizenship along with his family.
For many years, he was forced by the German
government to live a clandestine existence in
the witness protection program, as he was
assisting federal prosecutors in the Mykonos
case. Known as "Witness C" to the media during
the 1996 trial, his testimony ultimately led the
German court to indict top Iranian government
officials, including the Supreme Leader and
then-president Hashemi-Rafsanjani, for their
role in ordering the assassination of Kurdish
dissident leaders Sadegh Sharafkindi, Fattah
Abdoli and Homayoun Ardalan, and translator
Nouri Dehkordi, at the Mykonos restaurant in
Berlin on September 17, 1992.
(For more details on the Mykonos case, see the
report from the Iran Human Rights Documentation,
here).
He was also a witness in the Iran-9/11 case
(Havlish v. Osama bin Laden et al) in the
Southern District of New York that ultimately
led to more than $16 billion in damages against
the government of the Islamic regime in Iran.
Mesbahi and his family have been thrown out of
their apartment in Germany and are currently
living thanks to assistance from local churches.
The German government has denied him access to
health care and the social welfare safety net
afforded to all German citizens, in violation of
German law. As Mesbahi told FDI, "the German
government has placed me in a category of one.
No one else in this country is treated this
way."
When Mesbahi attempted to relocate to Canada
several years ago, the German government
intervened with Canadian authorities to get him
expelled from the country.
We believe this outrageous persecution of a
brave defector and human rights advocate stems
from the crass material interests of German
industry, which sees Iran as a cash cow for
German exports. But more important, it
demonstrates to abject political cowardice of
German leaders from 1999 until today. Shame on
you, Gerhard Schroeder! Shame on you, Angela
Merkel!
My name is Abolghasem Mesbahi. I was born on
Dec. 17, 1959 in Tehran, Iran.
I was an active member of the 1979 Islamic
revolution in Iran and became a high ranking
employee of the intelligence services and
foreign ministry in Iran
In 1996 I appeared as a prosecution witness in
the Mykonos trial in Berlin, Germany, where I
testified about my knowledge of the Iranian
government’s direct involvement in the
assassination of Iranian Kurdish dissidents at a
Berlin restaurant in 1992.
Out of concerns for my safety, the prosecutors
referred to me in public as Witness C.
Based largely on my testimony, the court found
that the Iranian regime Supreme Leader, the
President, and other top government officials
were legally responsible for the murders, and I
myself became a target of Iranian government hit
teams. The German ministry of interior
consequently placed me in their witness
protection program.
In 1998, Gerhard Schröder, then head of the
Socialist Party (SPD), became the German
chancellor and invited Iranian president Khatami
to Germany. During this trip, based on the new
SPD policy toward Iran, Germany established
security and intelligence cooperation with Iran.
This had disastrous consequences for me and my
family.
Starting in early 1999, the
Bundesverfassungsschutz (BfV), German’s domestic
intelligence organization, put pressure on me
and my family so I decided to leave witness
protection program for my own safety.
At first, this pressure took the form of cutting
me off from all political and media contacts.
For example, every time I had a TV interview or
appeared in a court as a witness against the
Iranian regime, they would try to discredit me
and block me from those contacts. They also
contacted my employers in the energy sector and
got me fired from several jobs. Three times I
was forced to sleep in the streets because the
BfV had cut of my source of income.
In 2014 I had an interview in London with an
Iranian opposition television that was
rebroadcast by al Jazeera.
After that interview, the BfV closed my bank
account and issued a notice to all German banks,
ordering them not to open any new accounts for
me.
The BfV also informed the state unemployment
agency that I was ineligible for employment,
because I posed a security risk to potential
employers.
This effectively blocked my ability to earn a
living and to support my family.
From that time on, I have been unable to get a
job or to conduct private or political
activities. The BfV also blocked state welfare
agencies from providing public assistance to me
or my family, despite the fact that we had
become German citizens and were eligible for
public assistance.
They also blocked me from accessing the pension
credits I had earned.
They even prevented me from permanently leaving
Germany, despite offers from friends and even
government officials in other countries to help
me and my family leave Germany.
In effect, I became a prisoner of the state
without ever being charged with a crime or
brought before a court of law. In what type of
country can the government prevent a citizen
from leaving the country?”
Many people can testify to my situation.
In 2016, I wrote a private declaration
testifying to these criminal acts by the BfV
against me and my family and delivered it to
Kommissar Mettmann Hoher, an official with the
local police. He contacted the BfV and was told
that they were punishing me because of my
interview with Al Jazeera. Kommissar Mettmann
even showed me a copy of the interview the BfV
had given him.
But because of the power of the BfV, Kommissar
Mettmann said he could not help me, and the BfV
increased the pressure on me and my family,
isolating us from all outside contacts. I call
this type of isolation “white torture.”
The BfV was able to completely destroy my
ability to provide for my family. Now my
14-year-old daughter puts her head on my
shoulder and cries for fear of starvation.
I have become the sacrificial lamb of the BfV,
who punish me so the German government and
German industry can benefit from their close
relationship to the government of the Islamic
regime in Iran.
I call on all international humanitarian
organizations to come to my aid. Please help me
and my family to leave Germany for any other
country in Europe, the United States or Canada,
so that I can work and live again!
Abolghasem Mesbahi
- Witness C of the Mykonos trial
- Witness in the AMIA trial
- Witness in the 9/11-Iran case
Dec. 14, 2020: U.S. designates senior MOIS
operatives for abduction and detention of
Bob Levinson. Thirteen years after
retired FBI agent Bob Levinson went missing
on Kish Island, the Treasury Department
identified two senior MOIS officials,
Mohammad Baseri and Ahmad Khazai, and placed
them under U.S. sanctions. The two Iranians
"acted in their capacity as MOIS officers in
the abduction, detention, and probably death
of Mr. Levinson," a Treasury
Department statement read.
"Mohammad Baseri is a high-ranking MOIS officer involved in counterespionage activities in and outside of Iran, who has been involved in sensitive investigations related to Iranian national security issues. Baseri has worked directly with intelligence officials from other countries in order to harm U.S. interests. Ahmad Khazai is a high-ranking member of the MOIS who, in his role as a senior official of the MOIS, has led MOIS delegations to other countries to assess the security situation," according to the Treasury statement.
While Treasury provided no additional details,
a
2019 report from the Defense Intelligence
Agency noted that in the 1980s and 1990s
MOIS was involved in an assassination campaign
"that killed dozens of Iranian dissidents,
many of them in Europe," and more recently
"has been implicated in the murder of two
dissidents in the Netherlands and a foiled
plot [in 2018][ against an MEK rally in Paris.
"The MOIS changed its organizational structure
in 2017 by elevating its Bureau of Foreign
Intelligence, providing the organization with
a dirrect line of accounting in Iran's annual
budget separate from the rest of MOIS," the
DIA report concluded [p81].
Dec. 12, 2020:
Regime executes dissident journalist. The
former editor of Ahmadnews, Ruhollah Zam,
was executed on Saturday, Dec. 12, after the
Iranian Supreme Court upheld the death
sentence handed down against him by a trial
court in June. Zam was enticed to travel
from Paris to Baghdad last autumn, where he
was abducted by regime agents and taken to
Iran. (See our report
from Oct. 19, 2019, below, on his
abduction). The Judiciary claimed
Zam had confessed to leading the 2017
protests inside Iran through a council of 29
"regime change" media outlets.
His execution was widely
condemned by human rights
organizations, and by the New York-based
Committee to Protect Journalists. The French
foreign ministry announced
that its ambassador to Iran, as well as
other EU colleagues, was withdrawing from a
long-planned Europe-Iran Business forum in
protest. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
applauded the EU move. "The international
community must continue to hold the regime
accountable for its unconscionable actions,"
he said in
a tweet. Jake Sullivan, designated by
former Vice President Biden to become
national security advisor, tweeted
that Zam's execution was "another horrifying
human rights violation by the Iranian
regime. We will join our partners in calling
out and standing up to Iran's abuses."
Biden's secretary of state nominee, Tony
Blinken, retweeted the comment, although
both men have publicly called for the United
States to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal known
as the JCPOA.
Oct. 23, 2020: Iranian dissident found
dead in Toronto. The return of the hit
teams? An Iranian dissident, Mohammad
Mehdi Amin Sadeghieh was found dead in his
Toronto home on Friday. The York Police is
calling his death a homicide and put
out a bulletin seeking information on
a 2015 black Honda CRV they believe
connected to his murder. The apparent
assassination of the 58-year old Amin
prompted Hamed Esmaeilion,
the spokesman for victims of Ukraine
International Airlines Flight PS752 shot down
by Iran, to report
death threats he had received,
presumably from Iran, to the RCMP. After it
got caught assassinating dissidents in Europe
in 1996, the regime reigned in its hit teams
and focused on killing Iranian dissidents
inside Iran and in "friendly" countries such
as Iraq and Turkey, which have systematically
failed to investigate Iran's involvement. If a
regime-related hit team murdered Mr. Amin, it
shows a new level of brazenness from the
Iranian regime, which has shown itself desperate
to prevent the re-election of President
Donald J. Trump.
Oct. 21, 2020: Director of National Intelligence reveals Iranian effort at election interference. Director John Ratcliff in a joint press conference with FBI director Chris Wray on Wednesday revealed that Iranian cyber hackers had gained access to voter data bases in Florida and other states and have been "sending “spoofed” emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump." The scheme apparently involved emails from a so-called white supremecist militia, the "Proud Boys," to registered Democrats, warning them not to vote for former vice president Biden.
Oct. 8, 2020: USG seizes 92 Iranian
government-controlled websites.
In an unprecedented and historic move, the Department of Justice and the FBI on Wednesday seized control of 92 domain names they said were “unlawfully used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to engage in a global disinformation campaign.”
The scope of the Iranian disinformation campaign was global, and included four sites targeting American audiences and masquerading as authentic news sites. Other seized sites operated in Europe and through the Middle East and South Asia. The DoJ posted a full listing of the websiteshere. For more detailed information, see our analysis, here.
Sept. 29, 2020: Crown Prince calls for
civil disobedience. In a ground-breaking
address to Iranians via Instagram,
exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi called for
a "new pact" among Iranians, and for the
first time ever, addressed Balouchi and
Kurdish minorities as Iranians. FDI has long
argued that one reason the 2009 protests did
not succeed was that freezing out of ethnic
minorities by the Tehran-central Shiite
protest leaders. Pahlavi's direct
call to Balochi and Kurdish minorities, and
to Iran's workers, was a clear effort to
mobilize all branches of Iranian society
opposed to the ruling clerics.
There has
been tremendous activity over the past two
years in the Iranian opposition, both
inside Iran and in exile, with the
formation of the Iran Transition Council,
and calls for a Government in Exile. Now,
for the first time Pahlavi has taken off
the gloves and called for union of the
opposition in support of civil
disobedience. You can watch
the speech here.
Sept. 28, 2020: Zarif says killing
Soleimani left Iran "with only one arm." In
a domestic speech today, former minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif said
the American drone strike that killed Quds
Force commander General Qassem Suleymani on
Jan. 2, 2020 in Baghdad "hit so hard that we
are left with only one arm."
Sept. 17, 2020: Treasury sanctions
MOIS-backed hackers. Just two days
after the extraordinary releases from the
FBI detailing Iranian regime hacking tools,
Treasury identified some 45 MOIS-related
hackers and sanctioned
them by name. Most were related to
Advanced Persistent Threat 30 (APT39) and to
a front company, Rana Intelligence Computing
Company, and had been engaged in a
"years-long malware campaign that targeted
Iranian dissidents, journalists, and
international companies in the travel
sector." The Treasury designation alleged
that Rana and APT39 had been "conducting
computer intrusions and malware campaigns
against perceived adversaries, including
foreign governments and other individuals
the MOIS considers a threat."
To accompany the designation,
the FBI released two separate white papers
detailing the hacking tools used by a separate,
IRGC-associated
cyber network. These included: "Mimikatz,"
a program that "dumps passwords from memory, as
well as hashes, PINS, and Kerberos tickets;" and
NanoCoreRAT, a remote access Trojan that allows
the hacker to remotely access and control
computers to record user credentials and conduct
surveillance.
In virtually all cases, the Iranian hackers
gained access to victims' computers by embedding
a link with malicious code in a phishing email.
A second
FBI white paper included code used by Rana
and APT39 that had been used against "hundreds
of individuals and entities from more than 30
different countries" that had "targeted more
than 15 U.S. companies, primarily in the travel
industry." The tools were also used "to track
the movements of individuals whom the MOIS
considers a threat."
Sept. 15, 2020: US government identifies
Iran-based cyber-security actors. In
the first of several public alerts, the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
Agency, CISA, in tandem with the FBI, warned
that Iran-based hacking networks were
seeking to compromise U.S. federal
government agencies and private sector
targets. One report, "Iranian
Web Shells," examined Iranian
government efforts to penetrate U.S.
high-tech actors, as well as healthcare,
financial, and insurance companies across
the U.S. A second, "Iran-based
threat actor exploits VPN
Vulnerabilities," examined specific
hacking tools used by these networks,
including the "ChunkyTuna," Tiny,", and
"China Chopper" web shells; "Chisel," a
"fast TCP tunnel over HTTP... useful for
passing through firewalls;" "Nmap," for
"vulnerability scanning and network
discovery," Angry IP Scanner," a tool that
pings IP addresses, and "Drupwn," a
Pathon-based tool "used to scan for
vulnerabilities and exploit CVEs in Drupal
devices.
released a series
of technical papers identifying Iran-based
hacking networks and
Jan. 2, 2020:
The U.S. takes out Iranian
terror-meister. And here's why
it's unlikely the Iranian regime will strike
back. From
FrontPage mag.
Dec. 23, 2019: NIAC infiltrates Democrats
in Congress. Is it infiltration when
the interests coincide, and the penetration
is willingly accepted, even invited? Perhaps
not. But it is no coincidence.
The self-avowed "Iran lobby" (that is,
pro-Tehran-regime lobby) in Washington, DC,
NIAC, has placed members in the
Congressional offices of Reps Barbara Lee,
Ilham Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and even with the
DNC. And what have they done with that
influence? Lobbied the Treasury Department
to lift sanctions on Iran...! Read their
names and their misdeeds in
this terrific post from PJ Media.
(Note: even if the research comes from a pro-MEK
writer tied to a known MEK front, the
Organization
of Iranian-American Communities, facts
are facts. And these facts are positively
damning....)
Nov. 26, 2019: SecState Pompeo supports
Iran protestors, blames Iran for
assassination. In a press conference
this morning at the State Department in
Washington, DC, Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo blasted the Iranian regime for its
continued crackdown on protests, and for its
assassination last week of dissident Massood
Malavi in Istanbul, where he had defected
from the regime. The United States has
received "over 20,000 messages, videos,
photos, notes through the Telegram messaging
platform and hope we will continue to
receive them," he said. Watch the video here.
Nov. 16, 2019: Sweden arrests Hamid Nouri,
alleged executioner of MEK prisoners in
1988
Swedish authorities arrested
Hamid Nouri as he arrived in Stockholm on
November 9, and is considering prosecuting
him on charges of crimes against humanity
for his alleged role in the massacre of
thousands of MEK prisoners in 1988.
According to the
Center for Human Rights in Iran:
According to the Washington Post, Mesdaghi's sources in Iran provided the information on Nouri's travel plans that allowed the Swedish authorities to arrest him at Arlanda airport.US-based human rights activist Iraj Mesdaghi, who was a political prisoner in Iran from 1981 to 1991, described Nouri as “one of the highest-level suspects in connection with the 1988 massacre within the European legal jurisdiction.”
“During many years of investigation, I discovered through my contacts inside Iran that Nouri had traveled to Europe many times,” Mesdaghi told CHRI on November 10. “A case was built against him in Sweden and as soon as he arrived, he was arrested by a prosecutor’s order. In Sweden, they don’t arrest anyone for no reason. You need sufficient cause.”
Nov 10, 2019: Former Hezbollah Sec/Gen
calls Khamenei a murderer.
In a rare videotaped message,
former Lebanese Hezbollah secretary general
Subhi Tufayli blasted Iran's "Supreme Leader"
Ali Khamenei and the security forces for killing
Iranians and Lebanese and fostering corruption
in Iraq. "You claim to be the leader of Muslims,
not just Iranians," Tufayli
said. "Does such a leader accept to kill
the hungry and protect the corrupt and the
criminals?" He accused Khamenei's security
forces of killing more than 250 people in the
current wave of unrest inside Iran. He also
blasted Khamenei for robbing Lebanon since 1972.
"Does our religion teach us to be dirty, corrupt
and murderous thieves?" Tufayli was Hezbollah
leader in the 1980s. A DEA report from 1988
asserted that he issued a fatwa that year
forbiding Hezbollah members from using drugs but
condoning the sale of drugs to nonbelievers, at
a time when Lebanon's Bekaa Valley was at the
center of the international drug trade. (Source:
Mednews, "Kuwaiti Airways Hijacking Bears
Mugniyeh Stamp," April 18, 1988).
Oct. 21, 2019:
Iran proposes prisoner swap with the U.S.
Iran's foreign ministry has announced that it recently sent the United States a list of people held in U.S. jails it wants released in a proposed prisoner swap, leading to speculation that Iran could be preparing to release retired FBI special agent, Bob Levinson. But Iran also made clear it holds lots of other westerners in its jails, including:
-former US Navy cook Michael R. White, of Imperial, CA, sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran
- Chinese-American graduate student Xiyue Want, sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly "infiltrating" the country
- Siamak and Bagher Namazi, arrested in 2015.
- Karan Vafadari and his wife, Afarin Neyssari, California art dealers sentenced to 27 and 16 year prison sentences, respectively.
- Morad Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist, arrested in February 2018 while leading a conservationist mission to protect endangered cheetas and leopards, along with eight other researchers. They were accused of using their watch cameras to spy on Iranian missile sites.
Iran holds
many other foreigners, mostly dual
citizens, from France, Austria, Britain,
and Canada, according to this list compiled
by the Associated Press.
Oct. 16, 2019: IRGC kidnaps Iranian
dissident, fails in attempt to capture 2nd
journalist.
The IRGC announced in Tehran on Monday, Oct. 14, that it had captured dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam, and brought him back to Iran. Zam ran the wildly popular AmadNews website and telegram channel, that helped Iranians coordinate street protests in 2017-2018.
According to Iranian government Press TV, the IRGC claimed it had run a “professional, smart and multifaceted operation” against Zam to maneuver him into a position where he could be brought back to Iran and arrested.
In fact, however, Zam was arrested by Iraqi security services upon his arrival at the Baghdad international airport from Paris, and delivered to Iranian intelligence officers without due process.
Zam’s wife, Mahsa Razani, told reporters about the arrest, but declined to comment on important details that were revealed by Iranian dissident reporter Ali Javanmardi, who claimed on AvaToday and on YouTube that Zam had been lured into traveling to Iraq by one of his employees, Shirin Najafi.
“Shirin
Najafi worked with Zam at AhmadNews,” Javanmardi
said. “She invited him to Iraq to visit
with Ayatollah Sistani, claiming that Sistani
was prepared to fund his project of transforming
AhamdNews into an opposition TV with a 15
million Euros grant. That is why he traveled to
Iraq in the first place.” Najafi denied
any involvement in his kidnapping.
“Zam was arrested pro-Iranian security agents at the Baghdad airport and taken by car to Najaf, and then to Iran,” Javanmardi said.
Javanmardi said that IRGC agents attempted to kidnap him in a parallel plot on the same day in Erbil, in northern Iraq.
“A woman named Samira Moradpour came to visit me in Erbil. She claimed to work for Rejman, a Kurdish Regional Government newspaper, as a professional journalist. In fact, we now believe she was an Iranian intelligence officer. She had tried to send us tips for three months with leaks from inside Iran, but we couldn’t publish any of her information, because we could not corroborate it. Just before the operation against Ruhollah Zam, she contacted me and said, I have lots of information for you, but we must meet in person.”
Javanmardi says he was
suspicious of her effort to meet him in person,
especially when she asked for him to come to her
hotel in Erbil at night, alone. “Instead, I
called the As-Ayish,” the Kurdish internal
security services. “They arrested her and
discovered that she was working with two men who
were planning to kidnap me when I came to the
hotel,” he said. Permalink.
April 27, 2019: FDI launches campaign to
help 9/11 witness
facing persecution.
A defector from Iranian intelligence has been
sentenced to 17 years in prison by the Republic
of Georgia on charges initiated by the
government of the Islamic State of Iran`, in
retaliation for his efforts to expose the
Iranian government's involvement in the 9/11
attacks. FDI President has launched a Fundrazr
crowd-funding page to raise money to pay
his legal defense, after attending a court
hearing for Alireza Soleimane-pak (aka Hamid
Reza Zakeri) earlier this month (photo at
right). Note: contributions are not
tax-deductible.
April
24, 2019: IRGC
intelligence
chief defects.
A
respected
Iranian
Internet news
agency reported
on April 19
that Supreme
Leader
Ayatollah
Khamenei has
just "fired" Brig.
Gen. Ali
Nasiri, Brig.
Gen. Ali
Nasirithe
chief of the
IRGC
protection and
intelligence
department.
Nasiri is
undoubtedly
the most
significant
and highest
ranking
defector since
General
Alireza Asgari
in March
2007. In
an unusual
step, the
Iranian regime
acknowledged
his defection
a few days
later. If
indeed he has
gone to the
U.S. or to
Israel, big
things could
result. Stay
tuned.
Feb.
11, 2019:
America should
hit Iran where
it hurts after
40 years of
undeclared
war, at FoxNews
opinion.
Jan.
27, 2019: Top
cyber security
advisor
defects.
A
respected
opposition
Internet site,
Avatoday,
is reporting
that Touraj
Esmaeeli, a
top advisor at
the Supreme
National
Security
Council
specializing
in cyber
security, has
fled the
country with
"hundreds of
classified
documents."
Iran's cyber
army is not
just targeting
domestic
dissidents,
but in recent
years has
launched
offensive
operations
aimed at
penetrating
the Pentagon,
U.S. defense
contractors,
and critical
infrastructure,
including U.S.
nuclear power
plants.
Jan.
8, 2019: Dutch
Foreign
Minister
accuses Iran
of ordering
hit teams to
assassinate
dissidents.
In
a move
reminiscent of
the failed
bombing
attempt
against then
Saudi
ambassador
Adel al-Jubair
at the
Watergate in
Washington, DC
in October
2011, the
Islamic State
of Iran now
stands accused
by the Dutch
government of
hiring an
organized
crime hit team
to gun down
two Iranian
dissidents in
Holland. The
announcement,
on Tuesday, by
Dutch Foreign
Minister Stef
Blok lifted
the veil on
the previously
murky
expulsion of
Iranian
diplomats by
Holland and
Denmark last
year. The
diplomats were
accused of
plotting to
kill another
dissident in
Denmark and of
plotting to
bomb an MEK
event in
France. Now it
appears they
were part of a
larger
intelligence
network whose
operations
included the
successful
murder of
Azeri
nationalist
leader Ahmad
Mola Nissi,
52, who was
gunned down by
a man who
emerged from a
BMW in front
of his home in
the Hague in
November 2017.
Two years
earlier, in a
similar
shooting, Ali
Motamed, aka Mohammad Reza Kolahi, was gunned down near Amsterdam.
Kolahi was
accused by the
Iranian regime
of having
masterminded
the MEK
bombing in
1981 that
killed
Ayatollah
Behesti and
wounded Ali
Khamenei, now
the Supreme
Leader.
Iranian
foreign
minister Javad
Zarif did not
deny the Dutch
charges, but
in a Jan. 8
tweet accused
the European
Union of "harboring
terrorists."
August
12, 2018:
Court is
Bousheir
sentences
Christian
converts to
prison.
A
Christian
couple was
sentenced
earlier this
month to one
year in prison
for
"propagating
against the
Islamic
Republic in
favour of
Christianity,"
a new human
rights
organization,
Article 18,
announced.
Article 18
says it is
dedicated to
supporting the
rights of
Iran's
Christian
minority,
especially
converts from
Islam, who
have
no legal
rights
under the
Islamic
regime's
constitution.
July
24, 2018: VOA
Farsi wants to
go 24/7. But
freedom-fighters,
beware.
The Ahwazi
Human Rights
Organization
rightly
pointed out
the outrageous
bias of VOA
Farsi in their
translation of
Secretary
Pompeo's 7/22
speech on
Iran.
Secretary
Pompeo
expressed
concern over
the arrest of
hundreds of
Ahwazi Arabs
and said,
"It's why the
regime arrests
hundreds of
Ahwazi's,
members of
Iran's
minority Arab
community,
when they
speak out to
demand respect
for their
language and
for their
basic
beliefs."
But watch
this. The
Persian
interpreter of
VOA
deliberately
mis-interpreted
the phrase,
translating
Ahwazis as
"Azhari," and
then failed to
translate
"Iran's
minority Arab
community."
Radio Farda
similarly
omitted
mention of
Pompeo's
comments on
the arrest of
Ahwazi. For
more, read the
AHRO
press release.
July
23, 2018:
President
Trump to
Islamic State
of Iran: Watch
out. IN
an early
morning tweet
in response to
Rouhani's
threat to shut
down the
STrait of
Hormuz,
President
Trump warned,
"Never, ever
threaten the
United States
again or you
will suffer
consequences
the likes of
which few
throughout
history have
ever suffered
before." FDI
President
Kenneth
Timmerman
calls it, the
new Trump
Doctrine in
this oped
at FrontPage
mag.
July
22, 2018: SecState
Pompeo wows
Iranian-American
audience. In
another
landmark
speech, this
time at the
Ronald Reagan
library in
California,
Pompeo shows
that he "gets
it" on Iran.
For the first,
time, we have
a leader at
the very top
of government
who
understands
there can be
no changing
the behavior
of the regime
without
changing the
regime itself.
Read the
full speech
here.
Apparently in
response to
Pompeo's
speech,
Iranian
unicorn Hassan
Rouhani threatens
to shut down
international
shipping in
the Strait of
Hormuz and
warned the
U.S., "Do not
play with the
lion's tale;
you will
regret it
forever."
July 21, 2018:
Regime
steps up
sentencing of
student
protestors. Regime
authorities
have handed
down steep
prison
sentences to a
number of
students
caught up in
protests over
the past six
months,
according to a
new
report
from Human
Rights Watch.
Students have
been hit with
jail terms of
between two
years and
eight years,
including a
two year
travel ban and
ban on social
media
activities
following
their release.
July
16, 2018: The
Coalition of
Iranian
Democrats
holds its
second session.
CID met over
the weekend in
Cologne,
Germany.
Spearheaded by
the Iranian
Democratic
Front, which
has
representatives
in Germany and
inside Iran,
it included a
broad spectrum
of
organizations
representing
Iran's broadly
diverse ethnic
population,
Kurds,
Balouch,
Azeris, Lurs
and others.
According to
a feature in
Al Arabiya,
"The
Council believes that no single party, or
organization, can single-handedly claim they are
able to topple the regime. They announced
solidarity and willingness to cooperate with all
the Iranian opposition groups from the entire
spectrum left to right."
Another group
aiming to
assemble
primarily
exiled
Iranians, the
Coalition of
Iranian
Opposition
Groups, met in
Washington in
June. CIOG has
been endorsed
by retired Lt.
General
Richard V.
Secord of
Iran-contra
fame, and is
backed by the
oddly-named
Institute for
an Open
Society in the
Middle East
which, despite
the George
Soros monikor,
proclaims on
its Facebook
"About" page that
"the World
supports The
Middle East
[sic], and
Donald Trump's
presidency."
On its
homepage,
it prominently
features Reza
Pahlavi. While
the conference
was apparently
well-funded,
with
participants
from overseas
flown over and
lodged at the
Ritz-Carlton
hotel, it was
far less
representative
than the CID
meeting in
Cologne.
Participants
at the meeting
tell FDI it
was mainly a
collection of
monarchists,
"some of them
so old they
needed help
standing up,"
and perennial
mischief-maker
Amir-Abbas
Fakhravar (See
also these
reports
from Aug. 27
and Aug. 12,
2012). Many
participants
walked out in
protest when
Kurdish and
Ahwazi
activists
spoke about
the need to
recognize the
rights of all
Iranian
citizens.
May
21, 2018: SecState
Pompeo to Tehran: stop spreading terror,
or else. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo's landmark speech on Monday to
the Heritage Foundation set out U.S.
policy for the post-JCPOA period. "No
more," he said. "No more wealth creation
for Iranian kleptocrats. No more
acceptance of missiles landing in Riyadh
and in the Golan Heights. No more
cost-free expansions of Iranian power. No
more."
Pompeo
listed no fewer than 12 U.S. demands of
the Tehran regime. They are worth listing
here, since these are the benchmark
demands for evaluating the new policy of
the Trump administration.
The list "is pretty long," Pompeo acknowledged, "but if you take a look at it, these are 12 very basic requirements. The length of the list is simply a scope of the malign behavior of Iran. We didn't create the list, they did."
May
20, 2018: New
videos of
violent regime
crack-down
against
peaceful
protestors in
Kazeroun. Our
friends at the
Islamic State
of Iran Crime
Research
Center have
done an
amazing job,
pulling
together
graphic
evidence of
the regime's
murderous
assault on
peaceful
protesters
over the past
three days.
Please look at
their report,
"This
is not Gaza,
this is Iran!"
May 17, 2018: Pro-Tehran lobbyist
resigns from his lobbying group.
Trita Parsi says farewell. But his sudden
departure raises questions. Just a coincidence,
or FBI bust? Go
here for the latest on Parsi and his
outrageous, anti-American activities; and view
FDI's special NIAC
Resources page.
May 15, 2018: Treasury
reimposes sanctions on Bank Markazi
(the central bank). And this, as Bank
Markazi is going bankrupt inside Iran for
years of insider lending at annual rates of
26%
May
14, 2018:
Former
Sec/State John
Kerry caught
in the act in
Paris. In
addition to
his very
public
meetings to
oppose the
official
policy of the
United States
of America in
Italy and
elsewhere
(arguably a
violation of
the Logan Act,
if anyone
actually
cares), Kerry
was caught
lunching just
across the
street from
the George V
hotel in Paris
with former
Iranian
foreign
minister Kamal
Kharazzi. Photos are here.
May
10, 2018:
Israel
gives Iran a
lesson in
strategic
deterrence.
From FoxNews
opinion.
May
8,
2018:Attempted
assassination
of Iranian
dissident in
New York. If
confirmed,
it's the first
such attack in
the U.S. since
1981. From Frontpage
mag.
- President
Trump ends the
Iran deal and
reimposes U.S.
sanctions. Read
the details
from the White
House here
and here.
May 4, 2018: The
Iran Deal is Dead:
Iran killed it.
From
FoxNews
opinion.
April 24, 2018: State Must
Demand Iran Free Hostages,
Congress says. A
bipartisan letter sent to Acting
Secretary of State John Sullivan today
requested detailed information on
efforts by the Trump Administration to
secure the release of six U.S.
hostages currently held by Iran. The
letter, spear-headed
by California Democrat Ted W. Lieu,
was signed by Republicans Mike McCaul
of Texas, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of
Florida, and 43 other members of
Congress. "The United States has a
moral responsibility to devote
resources to these hostages and make
their return a priority," the letter
states.
March 21, 2018: Bernie Sides
with Iran's Mullahs.
The Senate today debated a motion
introduced by Vermont Socialist Bernie
Sanders that would force the
withdrawal of U.S. troops from Yemen,
where they have been helping Saudi
Arabia in its proxy war with Iran. As
FDI CEO Kenneth Timmerman wrote in
today's Frontpage mag: "The surprising
support the resolution won from 44
U.S. Senators handed a big win to
Iran, which is engaged in a hot war
with Saudi Arabia on the Arabian
Peninsula. It was a huge slap in the
face to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad
bin Salman, who was meeting with
President Trump in the White House as
the Senate debated the motion on the
floor. It also showed the extreme
damage recent scandals involving NSA
snooping and political bias at the FBI
have done to the credibility of the
United States government." If
successful, Timmerman went on, the
Sanders-Lee resolution "would put the
dysfunction U.S. Senate in charge of
U.S. foreign and military policy."
Read the full story here.
March
19, 2018: President Trump on
Nowruz. In
a strongly worded and emotion
appeal on Nowruz, President Trump
recalled Darius the Great, who
"asked God to protect Iran from
three dangers: hostile armies,
drought, and falsehood. Today, the
Iranian regime's Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)
represents all three."
President Trump went on: "First,
the IRGC is not Iranian in name or
deed. It is a hostile army that
brutalizes and steals from the
Iranian people to fund terrorism
aboad... Second, the IRGC's
corruption and mismanagement have
exacerbated the effects of an
on-going drought and created an
ecological crisis. Unregulated dam
constructon under its companies
like Khatam al-Anbia has dried
rivers and lakes and helped create
unprecedented dust storms that
threat Iranians' jobs and lives.
Third, deceit has become official
state policy. The IRGC employs
propaganda and censorship to hide
the factg that the Iranian regime
plunders Iran's wealth and abuses
its people."
President Trump's message was
starkly different from those
issued by his predecessor, who
once pointedly claimed that Iran's
unelected clerical dictator
expressed the will of the Iranian
people. This year's historic
message also shows that the
President has swept his
administration from the last
vestiges of the Rex Tillerson
accomodationists, including State
Department Iran desk officer and
NIAC infiltrator Sahar
Nowrouzzadeh, who was fired at the
same time as Tillerson.
Nowrouzzadeh was caught
out for penning several
anti-Trump articles - apparently
vetted by Tillerson appointees! -
which she signed as a State
Department employee. We applaud
the president for firing both her
and Tillerson.
Feb.
19, 2018: Police clash with
dervishes in Tehran; at least 3
police dead. Dervishes
of the Gonabadi denomination
clashed with security forces
in front of a police station
in northern Tehran today to
demand the release of arrested
Sufis, Reuters and
BBC Persian are
reporting. Cellphone videos
show a bus driving in a
formation of police charging
protestors in full riot gear.
Regime officials have acknowledged
that three policemen died
in the clashes. YouTube video
of the clashes is available here
and here.
Feb 11, 2018: Reza Pahlavi says
regime supporters have
infiltrated US-government funded
Voice of America and Radio
Farda. In
a Skype interview with an
Iranian exile television
station in London, the oldest
son of the former Shah accused
pro-regime "moderates" and
"reformers" of slanting the
coverage of U.S. government
Persian-language media in
favor of the regime. Speaking
with former VOA host Bijan
Farhoodi, Pahlavi said that
VOA and Radio Farda needed
to be purged of such
persons, because the Iranian
people want to get rid of the
regime and not reform it.
"The main issue with these outlets is the
infiltration of reformists in their ranks
[who] try to perpetuate the reformist
discourse, which helps the regime stay in
power," Pahlavi said. "There needs to be a
complete purge of these reformist elements in
these outlets, because the Iranian people have
called the legitimacy of the entire theocratic
system into question and are no longer
interested in reforming it," he
added.
Pahlavi's
comments set off a twitterstorm in farsi and
in English, many of them using the hashtag
#ReformBBG.
Jan.
25, 2018: "#Where_Is_She?" The
woman who took off her headscarf and
waved it atop a stick like a white
flag on the first day of the Iran
protests on Dec. 27 has reportedly
been arrested a second time and has
since disappeared in Iran's Islamic
Gulag. Amnesty International, citing
three eyewitnesses, believes
she was taken to a detention center in
Tehran known as Kalantari 148 on
December 27. According to human rights
lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, the woman was
"initially released after her arrest
but was subsequently detained again,"
and is currently facing criminal
charges. According to Soutoudeh, the
woman is 31 years old and has a
19-month old infant. Social media
users: Tweet #Where_Is_She? to demand
her release.
Jan.
20, 2018: Timmerman on
#IranProtests#. Listen
to FDI President & CEO Kenneth R.
Timmerman with John Loeffler on
the Steele on Steele radio show
today. Timmerman calls the Iran
protests the biggest and most
significant since 1979.
Jan. 17, 2018: The Internet imperative.
A
lead editorial in today's
Wall Street journal picks up
demands we have been hearing for the
past two weeks from Iranian activists
that the U.S. government can provide
real assistance to pro-freedom
activists by providing unjammable free
Internet service.
Jan. 11, 2018: FDI at the
European Parliament. FDI
President and CEO Kenneth R.
Timmerman with current and former
leaders of PJAK at the
European Parliament for a
conference on Iran's
minorities and #IranProtests.
Jan. 10, 2018: More than 420
arrested; protests hit half of
Iran. Iran
Human Rights activists today
published a report listing 420
persons arrested during the first
seven days of the protests. They also
published a breakdown of where the
protests occured.
Jan.
9, 2018 - Day 13 of
#IranProtests
-
Khamenei goes to Qom seeking support
from traditional clergy, but reportedly
finds no one to back a
government crackdown on protests.
Jan. 8, 2018 - Day 12 of
#IranProtests
- Hundreds of videos of renewed protests all across Iran circulate on Twitter, despite regime claims that protests are dying down.
-
Large
protests in Ahwaz
(Khuzestan) on Monday night
- In this
brief video, students
ordered by the regime to chant
pro-regime slogans, instead
chant "death to bassijis."
- Here, an Iran-Iraq war
veteran, Mostafa Debashizadeh,
explains
why he is burning his bassij
card and the regime is
doomed.
- Another student activist,
Soheil Aqazadeh, dies
in Evin prison,
"suicided" by his jailors;
this after #TheyKilledSina
Ghanbari, aged 23.
- General strike in
Urmia, in northwestern
Iran.
Jan. 7, 2018: Day 11 of
#IranProtests
- The People's
Fedaii Guerillas claim that Ahmadinejad
was detained by regime security
agents on the 2nd day of the protests,
and remains in some form of custody
today. Mojtaba Khamenei, son of
ayatollah Khamenei, is negotiating
with him to obtain the resignation of
Majlis speaker Ali Larijani.
- VOA's pro-regime bias attracts a
wider attention, with BBG Watch criticizing
VOA for posting a "victory
statement" by the Iranian regime "with
a Pravda-like top VOA headline."
Jan.
6, 2018: Day 10 of
#IranProtests.
-
Protests spread to more than 79
cities across Iran. This
Radio
Farda video is from Mahshahr (h/t Farnaz
Fassihi).
- Iran's "Reformists" show
their true colors: they
are with the regime, not the
pro-freedom movement.
Jan. 5, 2018: Day 9 of
#IranProtests.
- Owner of AhmadNews webchannel,
Roohollah Zam, tells
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
he is not linked to any political
group in Iran, but seeks to "serve
the Iranian people's interests"
against the regime.
- At
the United Nations Security
Council, Russia and France joined
the Iranian regime representative
in blasting the U.S. for
interfering in Iran's domestic
affairs. Meanwhile, U.S. officials
including Nikki Haley and SecState
Rex Tillerson broaden
the Trump administration support
for the rights of the protestors.
Jan.
3, 2018: Day 7 of #IranProtests.
- Long-time friend of FDI, Iman
Foroutan, reveals
for the first time how the Iran
protests are being coordinated. This
ground-breaking story should be
circulated widely. A former senior
regime official, codenamed "Behrouz,"
explains to the New Iran the
underground command structure of the
movement. Most importantly, he notes
that movement leaders have understood
that they must use nonviolence and
civil disobedience, since the regime
has a monopoly on violence. This
is key for preventing Iran from
descending into a Syria-style civil
war. FDI is proud to be an early
support and member of The
New Iran.
-
FDI Executive Director Kenneth
Timmerman in Frontpagemag.com:
"The US doesn't have to lose the
information war on Iran." The Voice of
America has been worse than inadequate
in its coverage of the Iran protest
movement. President Trump urgently
needs to fire VOA leadership and
replace them with his own team
- Watch
the amazing press conference of
U.S. ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley
(hint: you won't find the link on
VOA...)
Jan.
2, 2018: Day 6 of #IranProtests.
-
The Internet messaging service
Telegram has shut down a key channel,
AmadNews, used by protestors.
#ShameOnYou, Pavel Durov. Read the
full report from
Politico.
- Voice of America shamelessly
parrots Iranian regime propaganda,
while relegating President Trump's
tweet in support of #IranProtests to graph
16 of a lead story. VOA coverage
just keeps getting worse
and worse, despite some catchup
on social media. #ShameOnYou,
@VOANews.
- FDI President & CEO
Kenneth R. Timmerman has sent a
memo to the White House and to
key leaders in Congress on why VOA
coverage needs to change, and how to
accomplish this. READ
THE MEMO (pdf document).
- We are told that a group of former
and current VOA broadcasters met with
a top NSC official at the White
House last week to protest the
firing of Mandarin service
journalists. At the last minute, two
members of the Broadcasting Board of
Governors board arrived. One of them
read from a draft BBG strategy
document that "VOA news must always be
unbiased." (This is not, by the way,
what the VOA Charter says).
Thankfully, the NSC staffer shut down
the BBG board member saying that VOA
news should be biased -
in favor of democracy.
Dec.
31, 2017: Day 4 of
#IranProtests.
Protests
spread throughout Iranian Kurdistan,
Ahwaz, Balouchestan, and elsewhere.
This is not 2009. Also: President
Trump weighs in again over the
weekend over twitter, while former
Obama officials call for U.S. to
keep quiet in the face of regime
killing. Disgraceful! (graphic below
courtesy of HRNA,
h/t Salman
al-Ansari. Video updates
available here:
Dec. 30, 2017: The Regime
strikes back.
Regime
security officials met on Saturday
morning, the third day of nation-wide
protests, and issued orders to
suppress the uprising, according to
Mansour Osanloo, the former head of
the Tehran bus-driver's union. In an
interview with FDI Executive
Director Kenneth R. Timmerman,
Osanloo said riot-control police
were using rubber bullets and water
cannons with scalding water in
unsuccessful attempts to disperse
some 5,000 protestors at Tehran
University, as they started to move
toward the Supreme Leader's
compound. The protestors chanted
slogans calling on Khamenei to leave
Iran, and for an end to the Islamic
Republic, he added. The BBC Persian
service has been leading the way in
posting
verified videos of the
protests, but the Voice of America
is slowing catching
up.
Dec. 29. 2017: #IranProtests
explode on Twitter. The
second day of nation-wide anti-regime
protests has been propelled
by on-scene Twitter videos reposted
and spread by Iranians
overseas. This is a huge
development. Protestors are chanting
"Death
to the Dictator," and
anti-clerical slogans. In
Kermanshah, in northwestern Iran,
riot police have cracked down on
protestors, but in other cities they
have stood by and observed. Will
freedom-loving countries come out in
support of the people of Iran? Stay
tuned!
Dec. 20, 2017: UN human rights
experts call on Iran to annul
death sentence. Four
experts with the United Nations
Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights issued a
statement today calling on Iran to
rescind the death sentence a
kangaroo court handed down on
Swedish-Iranian academic and
disaster medicine expert, Dr.
Ahmadreza Djalali. The experts
signing the
statement included the
current UN Special Rapporteur for
Human Rights in Iran, Pakistani
human rights advocate, Ms. Asma
Jahangir.
Dr.
Djalali was arrested in April
2016 during a visit to Iran
and held for ten months
without charge, when he was
repeatedly "threatened with
torture and other forms of
ill-treatment," the statement
read. In January 2017, he was
taken before Branch 15 of the
Revolutionary Court in Tehran
without a lawyer, and informed
he was being accused of
"espionage."
Since then, the Iranian regime has
fabricated charges that Dr.
Djalali was spying for Mossad
against Iranian nuclear scientist,
and forced him recently into what
appeared to be a drug-induced
confession aired on Iranian state
television earlier this week (see
photo). According to Djalali's
wife in Sweden, Vida Mehran-nia,
the forced confession came after
he wrote her from prison that he
had been arrested for "refusing to
spy for the [Iranian] intelligence
ministry."
"I
don't understand why they insist
on accusig him of spying for
Israel," she
said. "I think they aired
this [his videotaped 'confession']
after Ahmadreza's letter was
publishing stating that he was
arrested because he did not agree
to cooperate with Iran's
intelligence ministry."
FDI
joins the United Nations
OHCHR, Amnesty
International, and other
human rights organizations,
in calling on the Iranian
regime to FREE DR.
DJALALI, yet another
innocent pawn in the hands of
cynical intelligence
operatives seeking to put
pressure on Iranian
expatriates and their host
governments.
Dec. 15, 2017: Nikki Haley Blasts Iran for Missile Exports to Houthis.
In a dramatic press conference held at Andrews Air Force base on Thursday, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Nikki Haley, accused Iran of violating its commitments under UN Security Council resolution 2231, the instrument that officializes the deadly “Iran deal” known as the JCPOA. Standing in front of a giant piece of fuselage from an Iranian Qiam missile shot down by Saudi Arabia as it was hurtling toward the Riyadh civilian airport recently, Haley said, “Just imagine if this missile had been launched at Dulles Airport or JFK, or the airports in Paris, London, or Berlin. That’s what we’re talking about here. That’s what Iran is actively supporting.”
Iran
delivered Qiam missiles to Houthi
rebels in Yemen, who have launched
it repeatedly against civilian
targets in Saudi Arabia. “What is
most revealing about this missile is
what’s not here,” Haley said. “It is
the large stabilizer fins that are
typically present on these kinds of
missiles. The Iranian Qiam missile
is the only known short range
ballistic missile in the world that
lacks such stabilizer fins and
includes nine valves that you will
see running along the length of the
missile. Those valves are
essentially Iranian missile
fingerprints.”
Haley
invited reporters to walk around an
array of parts from the Qiam missile,
including pumps bearing the tell-tale
stamp of Shahid Bagheri Industires,
the Iranian manufacturer (see photo at
right).
The full text of her remarks is here.
A Pentagon spokesperson, Laura Seal, provided more detail about three other Iranian weapons systems captured by the Saudis from Houthi rebels: an anti-tank guided missile, the Toophan; the Qasef-1 armed attack drone; and the guidance system from an Iranian Shark-33 boat.
“This is an
explosive-laden, unmanned boat used in an
attack the Saudi Arabian frigate HMS al
Madinah,” Seal
said.
The Department of Defense has made additional
videos and images of the captured Iranian
weapons available
here.
Dec.
12, 2017: Quds Force Commander
Dares U.S. and Israel to Act.
Quds Force commander Qassem
Suleymani has been acting with
increasing brazenness in recent weeks,
ever since he established a new
command headquarters just inside the
Syrian border with Iraq at Abu Kamal.
Earlier this month, he dispatched
Iraqi Shiite militia chief Qais-al-Khazali
on a tour of Syria and Lebanon, to
demonstrate the opening of Iran’s
long-sought “land bridge” across Iraqi
territory through Syria and Lebanon to
Israel’s northern borders. (See
photo, left)
Khazali was detained by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2007 for his role in murdering American soldiers but was subsequently released by Prime Minister Malaki at the insistence of Suleymani.
Khazali traveled in
an armed convoy on open roads during
daylight hours, accompanied by
Hezbollah troops. He visited Damascus,
then Beirut, where he met with
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Then he accompanied Hezbollah
militiamen to their positions along
the Israeli border, even filming a
portion of his tour and broadcasting
it in Iraq. According
to the Israeli-based Debkafile,
Suleymani sees Khazali’s trip as the
first step toward sending some 15,000
Iraqi Shiite fighters to positions
facing Israel’s northern borders.
In a second brazen
move, Suleymani ordered Hamas military
leader Marwan Issa on Monday
to begin a new wave of missile attacks
against Israel, purposefully using an
open phone line to deliver the
message. “The Iranians wanted the
Israeli and Egyptian intelligence
agencies eavesdropping on incoming and
outgoing phone calls to and from Gaza
to hear Soleimani pledge full Iranian
support for any military action
conducted against Israel,” according
to the Debkafile.
Suleymani continues to travel outside
of Iran in defiance of a UN travel
ban, reaffirmed in UN Security Council
Resolution 2231, that forbids him and
other Quds Force leaders from leaving
Iran.
Dec.
7, 2017: Student Day marked
by anti-Rouhani protests. On the
anniversary of Iranian Student Day and a
hundred days into his second term in office,
President Hasan Rouhani has yet to fulfill
many of the promises he made to university
students during his 2013 election
campaign, such as relaxing restrictions on
university students who express dissent.
Student Day is the anniversary of the murder
of three university students at Tehran
University on December 7, 1953 by police.
Every year during “Student Day” week,
university students hold demonstrations, as
well as conferences attended by influential
speakers.
According to
the website Jame’e
Farda, in the month of October alone,
at least 150 doctoral students were either
deprived of continuing their education or
expelled due to their student
activities or political views. Now, after
five years, university students are openly
criticizing the Rouhani administration at
protests across the country for the lack of
substantial change on university campuses.
Some of the
slogans chanted by the students were;
"[We] won't be silenced despite threats and
summoning of students," "forced labor before
graduation, unemployment after education,"
"students are suppressed all across Iran
from north to south," "girls' dormitories
are prisons," and "free education is our
right, forcible tuition is neither justice
nor legal." Students at Shahid Beheshti, and
Allameh Tabatabaei universities protested tuition
hikes among other practical issues. In
social media posts, students can be seen
taking part in a celebration with Bandari
music and dancing at Najafabad
University in Esfehan. (link below)
Dec.
1, 2017: Iranian freedom activists
call for investigation of Ahmed Mola
assassination. More
than 100 Iranian pro-freedom
activists and writers have called on
the Dutch government to launch an
official investigation into the
assassination of Ahwazi activist Ahmad
Mola, who was gunned down in the Hague
on Nov. 8. They also questioned why
the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) was the
only opposition group not to have
condemned Mola's murder, a hinting
that others than the Iranian regime
may have been responsible for the
gangland-style killing.
Nov.
14, 2017: Alleged Quds Force officer
claims he assassinated Iranian
dissident in Holland. An
opposition internet site known for
having excellent sources within the
IRGC, Amad
News, quoted an unnamed IRGC
intelligence officer who
claimed he had murdered Iranian
dissident, Ahmad Mola in
Holland. Mola was gunned down at point
blank range in front of his house in
Holland, and was a known Ahwazi Arab
activist. If true, this is only the
second regime assassination of a
dissident in Europe since the end of
the Mykonos killings in 1997. (In
April 2017, Saeed
Karimian, owner of Dubai-based
GEM TV, was murdered
in Istanbul, also apparently by
regime agents).
Aug.
7, 2017: Turkey colludes with
Iran--again. Can anyone
doubt Turkish President Erdogan's true
colors when he threatens
an Iranian journalist, living as
a political refugee in Turkey, with
expulsion to Iran? At every turn,
Erdogan opposes freedom and embraces
dictators, from his alliance with
Qatar, to his backing of ISIS, to his
collusion with the Islamic State of
Iran. FDI appeals to freedom-lovers
everywhere to support this brave women
and her struggle for freedom.
May 21, 2017: Thank-you for your
help, in particular to our
activists in Houston and the Los
Angeles and Orange County area. Read
the article by Adam Kredo at
the Free Beacon, "Iranian regime
agents operating polling stations
across the United States," on FDI
efforts to get the federal government
to enforce the law.
May 18, 2017 -
COMPLETE ELECTION POLLING STATION LIST NOW
AVAILABLE. Download
here and contact your local
authorities to SHUT THEM DOWN. [NOTE:
Fearing demonstrations by the opposition and
action by U.S. authorities has led the regime to
delay posting addresses for Los Angeles, Orange
County, CA, and Houston, TX.
Read: FDI President Kenneth Timmerman's article
on the "Iran Election Farce" at FrontPage
magazine.
.
May 11, 2017: The New Iran joins effort to shut down illegal polls with letter to AG Jeff Sessions.
TAKE ACTION---TAKE ACTION
SIGN
THE PETITION
AT
WHITEHOUSE.GOV
May 10, 2017:
Pro-Democracy
Groups call on
Trump
Administration
to shut down
illegal polls.
Joint Statement from
FDI and ISICRC:
A broad array of Iranian opposition groups and leaders have called on Iranians to boycott the upcoming May 19 presidential [s]elections, in which candidates previously selected by the regime are engaging in a state-sponsored masquerade of democracy.
In a
transparent attempt to bolster the legitimacy of
these sham elections, the Iranian regime has
announced that it will open 56 polling places
across the United States where Iranian citizens
can vote, 17 of which have been identified.
Today, we asked President
Donald J. Trump to shut down these illegal
polling places and to take “take
all appropriate legal action against those
involved in renting, providing, manning or
otherwise servicing these facilities" under
the International Emergency Economic
Powers Act (IEEPA).
In our letter to the President, we noted that 13 CFR 560.512 prohibits Iranian diplomats in the U.S. from carrying out real estate transactions and requires that any financial transactions conducted for official business be run through an account specifically licensed by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
“To our knowledge, OFAC has not licensed any Iranian-government controlled account to be used to rent these 16 facilities, making all transactions relating to these facilities illegal,” we wrote.
The laws of the Islamic Republic require that representatives of the Guardians Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs supervise overseas balloting locations. But U.S. law requires Iranian diplomats in the United States to apply to the State Department for permits to travel beyond a 25-mile radius from their diplomatic post.
In our letter to Secretary Tillerson, we asked him to confirm that no State Department permits have been issued to Iranian diplomats to travel beyond the 25-mile radius from their diplomatic posts in Washington, DC and New York, in order to man these polling places.
“In the event permits were granted by holdover employees from the previous administration, we would ask that you discipline them appropriately for actions contrary to the interests of the United States and contrary to the policies of this administration,” we wrote.
We appended to our letters a listing of the sixteen addresses identified by the Islamic Republic Interests section. (A 17th polling station is to be set up in the Interests section and would thus appear to be legal).
As we were
preparing our letters to the President and to
the Secretary of State, the Islamic regime
Interests section removed those addresses, and
placed “pins” for an additional 32 polling
station locations identified in our appendix, ultimately releasing a table of 56
cities where
polling stations would be established.
“This practice is consistent with behavior by the Interests Section in 2009, when fear of demonstrations and other action against the balloting by opposition groups in the United States led it to mask specific polling addresses until just hours before they opened,” we wrote.
“We thank you
in advance for looking into this matter and feel
confidant that millions of Iranians who reject
the tyranny of the Islamic regime are looking up
to you with hope that you will support their
quest for freedom,” the letters concluded.
Note: This
file was updated on 5/11/2017 to reflect changes
on the Iranian interests section website, and
to add references to IEEPA.
Appendices:
Letter from FDI and ISICRC to President Trump
Letter from FDI and ISICRC to Secretary Tillerson
Illegal Iranian Regime Balloting Locations in the United States – May 9, 2017 list
March 31,
2017:
Activists call
on President
Trump to
appoint FDI
President as
head of U.S.
international
media. More
than 170
Iranian human
rights
activists,
broadcasters,
and former
political
prisoners have
signed a joint
letter urging
President
Trump to
appoint
Kenneth R.
Timmerman as
Chief
Executive
Officer of the
Broadcasting
Board of
Governors
(BBG), the
U.S.
government
agency that
manages the
Voice of
America and
America's
surrogate
media.
"Mr.
Timmerman has an illustrious career of more than
30 years as an investigative journalist,
broadcast personality, author, and human rights
advocate. His experience with the Voice of
America and the “freedom radios” of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty goes back decades.," the
activists wrote.
The
letter
describes the
"deformation"
of America's
freedom
broadcasts in
recent years,
with
particular
dysfunction
apparent at
the Voice of
America's
Persian
Service and
Radio Farda,
the Iranian
"freedom"
radio
headquartered
with Radio
Free
Europe/Radio
Liberty in
Prague. "U.S.
international
broadcasting
desperately
needs reform.
Mr. Timmerman
is the right
person for the
job," the
activists
write. View
the complete
letter here.
March
26, 2017: Iran
Central Bank
reeling from
Luxembourg
court
decision. The
Central Bank
of Iran (CBI,
aka Bank
Markazi), is
reeling after
a Luxembourg
court agreed
on March 22 to
uphold a
freeze on
accounts worth
$1.6 billion
it held with
the
Clearstream
clearing
house. The
freeze
resulted from
court
proceedings
filed by
attorneys
representing
victims of the
September 11,
2001 attacks
on America,
who had won
two separate
judgments
totaling more
than $10
billion in
damages from a
U.S. District
court. In a
letter to the
Prime Minister
of Luxembourg
on March 2,
posted on line
by
the NY Times,
lawyers for
the plaintiffs
detailed the
extraordinary
measures Bank
Markazi had
taken in
conjunction
with
Clearstream to
shield its
assets from
U.S. courts.
"Clearstream's
business
methods have
led to
accusations
that it
facilitates
money
laundering and
other
financial
crimes for its
clients," the
lawyers wrote.
The judgments
are known as Havlish
v. Islamic
Republic of
Iran, and
Hogland v.
Islamic
Republic of
Iran.
March 23,
2017: Congress
introduces new
Iran
sanctions. Bipartisan
coalitions in
the House
and the Senate
today
introduced new
legislation to
expand
sanctions on
the Islamic
State of Iran
for its
continued
development of
destabilizing
ballistic
missiles. The
legislation
comes in the
wake of
multiple
Iranian
ballistic
missile tests,
seen by
members as
violations of
UN Security
Council
resolutions.
“The new
administration
took a
positive step
last month
when it
responded
swiftly to an
Iranian
missile test
with sanctions
targeting 25
individuals
and entities
involved in
this dangerous
program.
More, however,
must be
done.
That’s why
this bill
takes a
proactive
approach,"
said Rep. Ed
Royce,
chairman of
the House
Foreign
Affairs
Committee.
March
6, 2017: State
Department
releases 2016
human rights
report. Secretary
of State Rex
Tillerson
released the
annual human
rights report,
which in
previous years
has been
delayed for
political
reasons, with
a
long section
detailing
Iran's
ongoing
violations of
international
human rights
standards.
This year's
reports
includes
accounts of
the execution
of 20 Iranian
Kurds in Rajai
Shahr prison
on Aug. 2,
2016, on
charges of
"enmity
towards God,"
and
extrajudicial
killings of
"unarmed
Kurdish
smugglers or
border
couriers" in
regions
bordering
Iraq,
Afghanistan,
and Pakistan.
Feb. 28, 2017:
The Crimes of
Qassem
Suleymani. FDI
Director says
Quds Force
commander has
"more American
blood on his
hands than any
terrorist"
after Osama
Bin Laden.
"It's time
[the United
States] shut
him down for
good." From today's
Washington
Times.
Feb. 22, 2017:
Iranian-American
political
prisoner now a
"hostage,"
regime says. Gholamreza
"Robin"
Shahini, a
U.S. citizen
detained in
Iran since May
2016, has gone
on a hunger
strike in Evin
prison for the
past six days,
after his
guards
confiscated a
notebook he
had been
keeping and
said that he
would be
treated as a
"hostage."
Family members
in contact
through
intermediaries
with Shahini
believe he has
been
transferred to
a different
prison and is
now being held
in solitary
confinement.
As we reported
last year (see
Aug. 13, 2016
entry), the
State
Department
under John
Kerry refused
to work for
Shahini's
release, after
paying $1.7
billion to the
Iranian regime
for earlier
hostages.
Feb. 20,
2017: FDI
Director on
Radio Israel:
The
era of America's capitulation to Islamic
Iran is over. In a sweeping
thirty-minute interview, Radio Israel
Persian Service director Menashe Amir asked
FDI Director Kenneth Timmerman what changes
he expected to see in U.S. policy toward
Iran with the incoming Trump administration.
Timmerman said he believed those changes
would be sweeping, and would range from
stepped up military pressure (not
capitulating to Iranian provocations), to
support for the pro-freedom movement through
public diplomacy and a revitalized Voice of
America Persian service and other
broadcasting. Listen to the complete
interview, in English and in Persian, here:
Feb.
20, 2017:
Iranian
Dissidents
Demand
Investigation
into Islamic
Regime's
Secret U.S.
Lobbying
Network. A
group of 100
prominent
Iranian
dissidents are
demanding a
Congressional
investigation
into Iranian
regime
penetration of
the Voice of
America's
Persian
service, the
Free Beacon reported
today. The
dissidents
wrote U.S.
lawmakers to
denounce
infiltration
of VOA by the
National
Iranian
American
Council, NIAC,
a pro-Tehran
lobbying group
whose
founders run
an influential
consulting
firm in Iran
called Atieh
Bahar that
introduces
Western
companies to
Iranian
markets. The
complete
letter with
the list of
signatories is
here.
Feb.
18,
2017:
Gold star
widow, Iraq
vet, denounce
Iranian regime
crimes against
US. In a
stunning
4-minute video
from the Islamic
State of Iran
Crime Research
Center, a
wounded
American
warrior asks
why the
Iranian regime
was killing
Americans in
Iraq and a
gold star
widow asks why
the United
States
government
rewarded her
husband's
killers. A
MUST SEE.
Feb.
10, 2017: The
World's
Biggest
Islamic State
turns 38 -
let's make
this year it's
last.
On
Friday, the
Islamic
“Republic” of
Iran
celebrated its
38th birthday
by busing
hundreds of
thousands of
Iranians to
mosques and
public squares
to chant
“Death to
America.”
Americans
should care
about this
ill-fated
anniversary
because the
Tehran regime
continues to
kill American
troops on the
battlefields
of Iraq and
Aghanistan. As
many as 1500
U.S. soldiers
were killed by
Iranian
operatives
using
Explosively
Formed
Penetrators
(EFPs) in
Iraq alone.
Here is the
testimony of a
gold star
wife, who lost
her husband to
an Iranian
bomb in 2007,
as presented
by the
newly-created
Islamic
State of Iran
Crime Research
Center.
In his column on the Islamic State of Iran
anniversary, scholar Michael
Ledeen claimed that the latest regime
bluster against the Trump administration's
threats to "put Iran on notice" showed that "the
regime is intensely worried that the Trump[ team
is preparing serious action."
Feb. 9, 2017: Support building to put IRGC on State Department terrorism list. Senator Cory Booker (R, Co) has joined the growing ranks in Congress who favor the State Department designating the IRGC as a state-sponsor of terrorism. Such a step would entail a significant increase in U.S. sanctions against the IRGC, as well as secondary sanctions against foreign companies doing business.
At a Feb.
6, conference
in Washington,
DC, the CEO of
the Foundation
for Defense of
Democracies,
Mark Dubovitz,
revealed
that FDD had
compiled an
open source
data base of
over 850 IRGC
entities and
front
companies that
could be hit
with new
sanctions.
Feb. 3, 2017: Putting Iran on Notice - when
uncertainty is our friend. FDI's CEO,
Kenneth R. Timmerman, spells
out the type of measures the Trump
administration might adopt to intensify pressure
on the Iranian regime. These include: stepped up
Persian-language broadcasting, banning Iranian
diplomats from international travel, military
steps to curtain IRGC-QF expansion into Iraq,
Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, and more.
Jan. 14, 2017:
Dual-nationals go on hunger strike in Evin
Prison. The Islamic state of Iran has
stepped up its campaign to arrest
dual-nationals visiting Iran, and terrified
family members back home have only reluctantly
come out of the shadow to speak of their
plight. Lebanese-born U.S. green card holder Nizar
Zakka was arrested on September 18,
2015, after being lured to Iran with an
invitation from an Iranian vice president to
address a conference on sustainable
development. One year later, he was sentenced
to 10 years in prison. Since December 8, he
has been on
hunger strike to protest the regime's
refusal to allow him consular visits from the
Lebanese embassy.
Swedish resident Ahmadreza
Jalali, right, an expert in emergency
disaster medicine, also visited Iran on an
official invitation. He was supposed to address
a conference at Tehran university. Instead,
intelligence ministry agents arrested him on
April 24, 2016. “With each individual grabbed
and locked up, without even the pretense of due
process, the Iranian Judiciary’s disregard for
the rule of law becomes more blatant” said
Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the
Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. These arrests
of Iranian dual-nationals amounted to "hostage
taking," he added. Jalali went on hunger strike
on Christmas Day to protest his arrest.
Jan. 8, 2017: Rafsanjani dies of heart
attack; Khamenei loses cover. Former
president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani died
today of a heart attack at the age of 82. A
central figure in the Islamic Republic
hierarchy since its inception, Rafsanjani
tricked every
U.S. president since Ronald Reagan into
believing he was a "moderate," somehow opposed
to the "hard-liners" in charge of the regime's
affairs. In fact, Rafsanjani operated at the
core of the regime and supported its doctrine
of absolute clerical rule and its terrorist
operations, from the taking of U.S. hostages
in Lebanon to the bombing of U.S. servicemen
in Dahran, Saudi Arabia, including Iran's
support for al Qaeda and the 9/11 plot.
Rafsanjani was indicted in Argentina for his
role in the AMIA bombing that killed 86
Argentinean Jews in 1994, and was also cited
in the 1996 Mykonos murders in Germany for his
role in directing "hit squads" that
assassinated Iranian opposition leaders living
overseas. He was also named as a defendant in
Havlish v.
Islamic Republic of Iran, litigation
brought by family members of 9/11 victims
against the Iranian regime that led to a $6
billion judgment against the regime and
against Rafsanjani personally.
Rafsanjani invited nuclear
scientists to return from exile in the mid-1980s
and is widely viewed as the "father" of Iran's
covert nuclear weapons program, having famously
declared his belief that Iran could destroy
Israel with a single nuclear weapon. ("The use
of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy
Israel completely, while the same against Iran
would only cause damages. Such a scenario is not
inconceivable," he
said in a sermon at Tehran University on Dec.
14, 2001).
The wily pseudo-moderate provided cover to
Khamenei and other "hard-liners" by offering
them a life-line to the West, and is widely
credited with having pushed hard for the Iran
deal with the United States and the EU-3.
Nevertheless, in recent years his power has been
challenged by the IRGC, which arrested his own
children (since released) and protege's,
including members of Atieh Bahar, a consulting
company established by Iranians in the United
States with the goal of helping foreign
companies do business in Iran.
Rafsanjani's reach continues to be on display in
the United States, where his sympathizers
include the editor of Voice of America's Persian
News Network, Mohammad Manzarpour. When
Rafsanjani's death was announced, Manzarpour
changed his Facebook
page to a well-known Koranic verse used
to express sympathy for someone who has just
died.
Jan. 5, 2017: Conservative Leaders Join FDI
in calling for Iran Asset Recovery plan. In
a letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee
Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) released today,
prominent conservative leaders sketched out a
plan to step up pressure on the Islamic state
in Iran through legislation that would allow
Iranians whose property was confiscated by the
Islamic regime to pursue restitution or
compensation through U.S. courts or other
means.
The letter, spearheaded by FDI, recalled
Congressional action against previous
totalitarian regimes, in particular, the 1996
Helms-Burton Act which penalized foreign
companies trafficking in property stolen from
Cuba nationals by Castro.
Many Iranian-Americans have tried to sue the
Islamic regime in Tehran to recover their
stolen assets, but have failed in U.S. courts
and in the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The
Hague. A successful Iran Assets Recovery Plan
must include Iranians who became U.S. citizens
after their assets were seized.
• Read the Support
Letter sent by FDI to Rep. Royce here.
• Read FDI President & CEO Kenneth
Timmerman's column at The Hill on the Asset
Recovery Plan here.
Jan.
4, 2017: Dissident Ayatollah released on
medical leave. Ayatollah Seyed
Hossein Kazemini-Boroujerdi, jailed since 2006
for challenging the doctrine of absolute
clerical rule at the core of the Islamic state
in Iran, was released
today to seek medical treatment, after
posting bail of 300 million toman (approximately
$100,000).
Regime thugs stormed Boroujerdi's compound in
October 2006, ransacking his house and arresting
him and many family members and supporters.
Sentenced to ten years in prison by the Special
Court of the Clergy, he should have been
released last year. Extensive torture and a
failure by prison authorities to provide him
with medical treatment have caused serious
injuries, including heart problems and such severe
back pain he has not been able to walk for
months. FDI and other human rights groups
repeatedly have called for Boroujerdi's release.
Dec. 16, 2016: After Aleppo, IRGC leaders
vow to intervene in Bahrain, Yemen.
After the massacre of Aleppo, Iran's
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps leaders are
vowing to overthrow the Emir of Bahrain and
take over Yemen. "The victory in Aleppo will
pave the way for liberating Bahrain,” deputy
IRGC commander Hossein Salameh told IRNA. He
added, “the people of Bahrain will achieve
their wishes, the Yemeni people will be
delighted, and the residents of Mosul will
taste victory. These are all divine promises."
For anyone who thinks the Iranian regime was
intending to stop with its support for Syria's
Assad, think again: they believe they are on a
roll, and that the United States "will do
nothing," as Ayatollah Khomeini liked to say.
Under Obama, the U.S. government has
done nothing except engage in elaborate
hand-wringing. As these IRGC statements show,
weakness is provocative when dealing with
totalitarians.
The IRGC's mission is
spelled out in the
preamble of the Islamic Republic of
Iran constitution, under the heading "An
Ideological Army."
"The Army of the Islamic Republic and the Corps of Guards of the Revolution (IRGC) ...will be responsible not only for the guarding and preserving the frontiers, but also with the task of the ideological mission of jihad in God's path, that is fighting for extending the sovereignty of God's Law throughout the world (this is in accordance with the Koranic verse "Prepare against them whatever force you are able to muster, and strings of horses, striking fear into the enemy of God and your enemy, and others besides them" [8:60]).
The Koranic inscription
comes from the Chapter of War Booty (al
Anfaal), and is a well-known incitement to
Holy War against the non-Muslims.
Dec. 12, 2016: Persian News Nightmare: America's 'Voice' has been transformed into the Voice of Tehran. It's time to shut it down. In a column in today's Washington Times, FDI President Kenneth R. Timmerman argues that Iranian regime agents have so thoroughly penetrated the Voice of America's Persian News Network that it can no longer be saved. "It’s time to shut it down and save the taxpayers some money and our nation from public embarrassment," he wrote.
Nov. 21, 2016: British-Iranian dual-national
jailed while on Iran visit at "breaking
point," family says. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
a project manager with Thomson Reuters
Foundation jailed while on a visit to Iran in
April, has reached the "breaking point" after
a five-day hunger strike. Her Iranian family
was summoned to Evin Prison last Friday for an
"emergency visit," and were shocked at her
dramatically weakened state, her British
husband told
The Guardian. Mrs. Zaghari-Ratcliff is
just one of a growing number of dual nationals
arrested, jailed and tortured by the Islamic
State of Iran on allegations of formenting a
color revolution among Iranian youth.
Richard Ratcliff, her
husband, told The
Daily Mail that he believed she was being
used as a "bargaining chip" over Iranian claims
it was stiffed on a £500 million tank deal to
buy British Centurion tanks under the Shah.
Nov. 19, 2016: Three
Christians sentenced to 80 lashes for taking
communion wine. The Islamic State of
Iran continues to intimidate, jail, and
torture Christians, especially former Muslim
believers who have joined the rapidly growing
house church movement in Iran. The latest
victims, Yaser Mosibzadeh, Saheb Fadayaee, and
Mohammed Reza Omidi, have been sentenced
to 80 lashes after they were arrested in
May taking communion at a church gathering in
Rasht.
Nov. 17, 2016: Pro-Tehran lobby vows to
fight Trump agenda. In an email to
supporters, Tehran's chief lackey in the
United States, Trita Parsi, warned
of a "nightmare scenario" becoming
reality under President-Elect Donald Trump.
Parsi decried the President-Elect's opposition
to the failed Iran nuclear deal, and claimed
the Trump team planned to initiate a "Muslim
registry," a false claim fabricated
out of whole cloth by the New York Times
that was immediately debunked by a transition
spokesperson. In his alarmist email, Parsi
called on supporters to donate to his
organization, which a federal judge determined
was a lobbying front for the Iranian regime.
The transition team reportedly is considering
re-instating
a visa system for non-citizen aliens from
certain countries modeled on the
National Security Entry-Exit Registration
System (NSEERS) that the George W. Bush
administration put into effect shortly after
the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Persistent attacks
from the ACLU and Muslim Brotherhood front
organizations such as CAIR eventually led the
Department of Homeland Security to scrap
NSEERS in 2011.
Nov. 16, 2016:
Iranian nationalists send support letter to
President Elect Trump. A group of
Iranian nationalists have sent a letter of
support to President-Elect Trump, congratulating
him on his election and encouraging him to focus
on the plight of the Iranian people. "As you are
aware, under President Obama’s terms in office,
the struggles of the Iranian freedom movement,
the plight of the ethnic and religious minority
and Afghan refugees were all ignored," they
wrote. "The Iranian people need moral support to
be able to move towards regime change." Read
the full letter here.
Nov. 10, 2016:
Just say no... to doing business with Iran.
In a powerful oped, retired Staff Sgt.
Robert Bartlett, whose skull was split open by
an Iranian-produced
Explosively-Formed-Penetrator (EFP) while he
was on patrol in Iraq, argues
that U.S. companies should reject
Iranian overtures to do business with a regime
that is the world's leading state sponsor of
terrorism. Sgt. Bartlett is a founding member
of United Against Nuclear Iran's Veterans
Advisory Council. "Over the years, Iran has
been responsible for killing more than 1,000
U.S. service members," according to a
statement by UANI as part of its latest
campaign to convince U.S. companies to shun
business opportunities in Iran.
Oct.
30, 2016: Iranians protest regime at King
Cyrus tomb. Thousands of Iranians
gathered outside the tomb of King Cyrus in
Pasargadae on Friday, Oct. 28, to celebrate
the birth of the Iranian king who freed the
Jews in 539 BC. "Iran
is our country, Cyrus is our father," they
chanted.
Fearing a massive anti-regime protest,
the IRGC sealed off the city two days before
the rally, but were not successful at
preventing a large crowd from gathering
outside the tomb and chanting anti-regime
slogans, including
the name of the son of the former Shah,
Reza Pahlavi. Cyrus is held dear by
Iranians not just as the symbol of past
greatness, but also for the principles of
tolerance and respect for human rights
enshrined in the Cyrus cylinder, now housed in
the British Museum.
Oct. 19, 2016: UN Rapporteur releases
latest human rights report. Dr. Ahmed
Shaheed, whom the Iranian regime is trying to
force out as the United Nations Special
Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran, has
released his latest periodic report, which
remains critical of the regime for
mistreatment of its citizens. You can download
the full report as
a PDF here, or visit Dr.
Shaheed's website for more.
Oct. 3, 2016: Those family ties...Fatimeh
Mugniheh (left), daughter
of former Hezbollah military leader Imad
Mugniyeh, and her "friend," Zeynab Suleymani,
daughter of Quds Force leader Qassem Suleymani,
take in a film in Tehran. (Original Twitter pic
here).
Mugniyeh was known to have taken an Iranian wife
and spoke fluent Farsi in addition to Dari,
linguistic skills that helped him during many
missions to Afghanistan for Suleymani's Quds
Force, where he helped al Qaeda plot the 9/11
attacks. Mugniyeh's involvement in the 9/11 plot
was first revealed on pages 240-241 of the 9/11
Commission report, which described his presence
on multiple flights from Damascus and Riyadh to
Tehran between October 2000 and February 2001,
conveying future hijackers to their Iranian
handlers. Families of 9/11 victims won
a $6 billion judgment against the Iranian
regime in a U.S. federal court because of Iran's
material support to the 9/11 plot.
Bill Nojay 1956-2016
FDI Statement
on the death of board member Bill Nojay:
“The
pro-freedom movement in Iran has lost a
great champion.”
Sept. 14, 2016 IFDI) - The FDI Board and supporters of a secular, free Iran were shocked to learn of the death of board member Bill Nojay, who was found dead of a gunshot wound at his family’s cemetery plot in Pittsfield, New York on Friday.
FDI president Kenneth R. Timmerman spoke with Nojay just days before his death. “We were embarking on a new project, and Bill was enthusastic and upbeat,” Timmerman said.
Nojay was elected to the New York State legislature in 2012, and won his primary for re-election on September 13, four days after his death.
"Bill devoted a huge amount of his time to serve others, without a thought to any reward,” Timmerman said. “I am honored to have served with him on the board of FDI in the service of freedom.”
Nojay worked with FDI to promote the cause of victims of the Iranian government, individuals whose loved ones were murdered, or people subjected to extrajudicial detention and torture.
“We were working with more than 200 victims of Iranian state ter0n U.S. courts because they were not U.S. citizens at the time the crimes against them were committed,” Timmerman said.
“Many of these individuals
have contacted me since
learning of Bill’s death to express their dismay
and sadness at the loss of such a stalwart
champion of freedom,” Timmerman added.
In 2007, Nojay joined Timmerman at a 3-day effort in Paris, known as Solidarity Iran,to build a broad coalition among diverse Iranian opposition groups. “Bill was always generous to volunteer his time and his skills to help Iranians in need,” Timmerman said.
“The pro-freedom movement in
Iran has lost a great champion.”
[Photos: Bill Nojay and FDI President
Kenneth R. Timmerman at the 2007 Solidarity Iran
conference in Paris. Bottom: Timmerman,
Nojay, Rep. Michelle Bachman, and former CIA
Director R. James Woolsey, at the National Press
Club, 2013.
Aug. 26, 2016: Iranian regime seeks to eliminate independent UN human rights reporting.
After its success in forcing the resignation of Ahmed Shaheed, the trail-blazing UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran, the Islamic regime in Iran is now hoping it can count on U.S. help to elect a lackey to succeed him.
But that may be easier said than done.
Dr. Shaheed has issued scathing reports on the systematic human rights violations by the Iranian regime, focusing international attention on the persecution of women, children, ethnic and religious minorities, as well as the political opposition.
His focus on the regime’s human rights record got him banned from Iran just months after he took office in August 2011. Despite multiple requests since that time, the regime has never allowed him to visit or Iran. Dr. Shaheed was re-elected to his sixth one year term in March 2016.
FDI sources believe that the Iranian regime only succeeded in getting Dr. Shaheed removed from his position because of active assistance of Secretary of State John Kerry. “For Secretary Kerry, human rights issues were among the first things to be sacrificed… to facilitate the normalization of relations with the Iranian ayatollahs,” one opposition activist said.
“For several years, this administration has black-listed those Iranians and Iranian-Americans – and Americans, too – who opposed the Islamic Republic, not only from access to American policy makers, but from all the media it controlled, in particular the Voice of America,” the activist added.
Human rights advocates and at least two U.S. elected officials have been promoting Roozbeh Farahanipour, who came to the United States as a political refugee in 1999, as a replacement for Dr. Shaheed.
Mr. Farahanipour, who runs a business in Los Angeles and was recently re-elected to his fourth term on the Westwood Neighborhood Council, advocates for a “secular republic” to replace the Islamic regime in Iran. He tells FDI that he would continue the work of Dr. Shaheed to expose the barbaric practices that the Islamic Republic considers to be “normal” expressions of Islamic Sharia law.
In his letter of support to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, California State Senator Joel Anderson commended Mr. Farahanipour for his “unyielding commitment to raising awareness of the injustices that plague his home country and his ability to overcome immense opposition and retaliation in the battle for Iranian human rights.”
In a parallel letter, U.S. Representative Gus Bilirakis (R, Fl) identified Farahanipour as “an invaluable advisor on all issues regarding the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and commended him as “an international leader in the Iranian cultural renaissance movement.”
Farahanipour has won support from a broad cross-section of Iranian diaspora leaders who agree with him and Dr. Shaheed that universal standards should govern the United Nations effort to monitor human rights practices in Iran, not separate Sharia-law standards.
“I majored in Sharia law as a law student in Tehran, and it’s clear that Islamic law and human rights can never be bedfellows,” he told FDI.
Dr. Shaheed most recently aroused the ire of the Iranian regime for criticizing laws that created two new categories of offensives unknown in other countries: “Mohareb” (literally, one who fights against God), and “Mofsed fel-arz” (“corruptor on earth.”). Both are punishable by death in today’s Iran and have been used as excuses to execute thousands of political prisoners over the past 37 years.
In a July 12, 2016 statement to a hard-line website, Dr. Mohammad Javad Larijani, chairman of the Iranian regime’s “Human Rights High Command,” dismissed Dr. Shaheed’s criticism by saying, “What business of yours are these things? These issues are solely the concerns of our laws.”
After enumerating several Islamic punishments enshrined in current Iranian law, Larijani concluded: “Before anything else, Ahmed Shaheed must understand the laws of Islam…”
Speaking to a pro-Rouhani website, Larijani’s deputy for international arffairs, Kazem Gharib-abadi, was more explicit. “One of our tasks at the Human Rights High Command is to influence and reform [Western] human rights documents, because Islamic Human Rights must be recognized and must be reflected in [international] human rights documents.”
In recent discussions with the European Union, the Iranian regime has insisted that the next Special Rapporteur come from a Muslim country and have a good knowledge of Sharia law, informed sources tell FDI.
Three candidates in addition to Farahanipour fit that bill: the former head of Pakistan’s Human Rights commission, Ms. Asma Jilani Jahangir, a fierce opponent of Islamic blasphemy laws; Sudanese lawyer Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, who authored a 2012 study on human rights law as it applied to the Dharfur conflict; and Turkish women’s rights advocate Yakin Erturk, who was the UN Special Rapporteur for Violence against Women from 2003-2009 and more recently called the Iranian regime’s war on women a “bloody stain” on its human rights record.
The pro-Tehran lobbying group NIAC has been promoting American Neil Nicks, director of Human Rights Promotion at Human Rights First, an organization that seeks to make the human rights of LGBT people “a foreign policy priority of the U.S. government. Hicks previously worked as a researcher for the Middle East Department of Amnesty nternational in London, and before that, as a project officer at Birzeit University in the West Bank.
The Human Rights Council
is expected to meet during the upcoming
session of the UN General Assembly in New
York and elect on a new rapporteur for Iran
sometime between September 13 and September
25. Permalink.
Aug.
13, 2016: Hard-line publication claims
visiting American was opposition James
Bond. Why was yet another
American taken hostage in Iran? Hard-liners
predictably claim he was a U.S. spy--and now are
saying he's an agent of the exiled opposition. (Permalink)
Gholamreza "Robin" Shahini traveled to Iran this
May to visit his family in the northern city of
Gorgan after graduating from San Diego State
University with a degree in international
security and conflict resolution. He had gone
back to school after years of running a pizza
shop, and was 46 years old when IRGC goons burst
into his mother's home, presented a search
warrant, and took him into custody.
For two weeks, his girlfriend in the United
States, who was in contact with his family in
Iran, had no news what had happened to him. The
search warrant presented to Reza's sister
accused him of unspecified "crimes against the
state." The LA Times cited
a friend who speculated on Facebook that
he might have been detained because of online
comments criticizing the human rights record of
the Islamic regime.
The
Iranian regime continues to arrest
U.S.-Iranian dual nationals despite the
hostage swap and ransom payment last January.
Shahini is the
third U.S.-citizen currently
held in Iran. The regime has also arrested
Canadian and British citizens in recent
months.
Secretary of Sate John Kerry and his
spokesperson, John Kirby, apparently just
wish Shahini would go away. Both have
refused to answer questions from
reporters. The State Department did not return
several calls by FDI asking for comment.
"All I hear from Secretary Kerry is 'human
rights, human rights,' and yet when an American
citizen is taken hostage in Iran, what do they
do? Nothing," Shahini's girlfriend told FDI.
Shahini's arrest was first
reported on July 21. Three days later,
former intelligence minister Gholam-Hossein
Mohseni-Eje'i, now spokesman for the Judiciary,
confirmed
his arrest.
But it wasn't until last Wednesday (Aug. 10)
that his lawyer was allowed to visit him, after
he had a medical emergency. "Robin has severe
asthma and they took away his medication," his
girlfriend said. "I sent all that information to
the lawyer. He is allergic to cigarette smoke.
So then they put him in the place in the jail
where all the criminals go to smoke!"
Shahini told his lawyer that his interrogators
were accusing him of being a spy for the United
States.
A
hard-line Iranian internet publication published
on Friday two
photographs of Shahini, apparently taken
from his laptop, which had been seized by the
authorities. The first shows him shaking hands
with former president Abolhassan Banisadr in
Banisadr's residence in Versailles, France. The
second shows him at a conference table to Reza
Pahlav, son of the former shah.
The article claims that Reza was "commissioned
by the National Council to reconcile Bani Sadr
to the Pahlavis." The article also claimed that
Reza traveled to Iran at the request of the U.S.
intelligence services "on a mission from the
U.S. government... to create chaos in the
country."
The full name of Reza Pahlavi's organization is
the Iran
National Council for Free Elections. It
promotes reconcillation and cooperation among
all democratic factions of the Iranian
opposition, as does FDI.
Neither Banisadr nor Reza Pahlavi has confirmed
the authenticity of the photographs, and
Shahini's girlfriend told FDI that he had never
been a supporter of either politician. But a
2009 trip to Iran during the Green Movement
protests "was a turning point for Robin" and
made him more aware of the human rights
situation inside Iran.
The regime has been on an execution spree in
recent weeks, on some days killing as many as
five political prisoners, many of them Kurds,
according to the International
Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
In an ominous development, Shahini's family say
he has been placed in the Quarantine ward in
isolation from other prisoners. Families of
other political prisoners note that they have
been called to visit their loved ones in the
isolation ward shortly before they were
executed.
Permalink
Aug. 6, 2016: Iran executes former nuclear
scientist - Clinton email tie?
(Permalink)
Five
years into a ten year jail sentence for
espionage, former nuclear scientist Shahram
Amiri was executed on Saturday by hanging and his
body returned to his family.
Amiri “disappeared” while
making the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in
2009. The Iranian regime accused the United
States of kidnapping him because he was
engaged in sensitive nuclear research.
Later, Mr. Amiri surfaced in the United
States, and published reports said he was paid
$5
million by the U.S. government for
providing information on Iran’s nuclear
program.
In July 2010, Mr. Amiri
had remorse, after several emotional phone
calls with his five-year old son, who he had
left behind in Iran. He traveled from
Arizona to the Iranian Interests Section in
Washington, DC, asking to be taking back to
Iran.
Those events led to crudely-coded email
exchanges between Jake Sullivan and his
boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
that were released in July 2015 under the
Freedom of Information Act.
“The gentleman you have talked to Bill Burns
about has apparently gone to his country’s
Interests Section because he is unhappy with
how much time it has taken to facilitate his
departure,” Sullivan
wrote in an email to Mrs. Clinton
private email server on July 12, 2010. “This
could lead to problematic news stories in
the next 24 hours. Will keep you posted.”
This is the type of email exchange,
containing classified information, that Mrs.
Clinton’s aides never should have
communicated over an unclassified system,
giving rise to the charge by FBI Director
Comey that Mrs. Clinton had been “reckless”
in her handling of classified material.
So reckless, in fact, that now someone
clearly referred to in her emails is dead,
executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“Something dramatic happened that caused the
regime to execute Shahram Amiri on Saturday,
half-way through his ten-year sentence for
espionage,” said Roozbeh Farahanipour, an
Iranian human rights activist who has been
nominated to become the next United Nations
Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran.
Did the release of the Hillary Clinton
emails provide the Iranian regime with some
proof it had previously lacked that Shahram
Amiri was a U.S. spy? If so, it shows once
again the reckless disregard of Mrs. Clinton
and her aides for protecting U.S. national
security - and indeed, the lives of
individuals who had a secret relationship to
the U.S. government.
For more background on Amiri's initial
defection to the United States, see our July
20, 2010 blogpost.
Permalink.
Aug. 5, 2016: Iranian state
television showed footage of ransom payment.
Donald Trump got into hot water last week
when he claimed he had seen television
footage of the $400 million cash payment to
Iran made by the United States government in
January. While he subsequently said he had
been mistaken, and had seen U.S. TV footage
of the aircraft carrying the hostages
arriving in Geneva, he may have been
right to begun with.
Iranian state TV included pictures of the
palettes with shrink-wrapped cash in a
documentary called "Rules
of the Game" it aired on February 15.
"A narrator, speaking in Persian, describes
a money-for-hostages transaction over video
clips of a plane on an airport tarmac in the
dead of night and a photo of a giant
shipping pallet stacked with what appear to
be banknotes," The
Guardian newspaper reported.
Yesterday, Pastor Saeed Abedini, one of the
three U.S. hostages who was released on
January 17, told
Fox News that his captors told him
they were waiting for another plane to
arrive before letting his plane take off.
Meanwhile, the corruption scandals inside Iran
continue to generate unrest, as does the regime's
recruitment of young Afghan men to fight
Iran's battles in Syria. Iranians are
increasingly furious as more
details of the payslip scandal emerge,
showing that grossly-incompetent employees at a
state insurance earn phenomenal salaries,
because of political ties to Rouhani-regime
insiders.
July 21, 2016: Saudi FM blasts Iranian
consul for Iran-al Qaeda ties. In
a remarkable exchange Saudi Foreign Minister
Adel al-Jubeir demolished a senior Iranian
diplomat for Iran's ongoing ties to al Qaeda.
Today's forum, sponsored by the Belgian foreign
ministry and hosted
by the Egmont Institute, took place a day
after the United States Treasury designated
three additional al Qaeda members as
global terrorists, two of them working from
Iran. (For more on the Treasury designations,
see here
and here).
In response to a harangue by the Iranian
diplomat that Iran couldn't possibly be
sponsoring al Qaeda because of their sectarian
differences, al-Jubeir calmly expounded a series
of facts, starting with Iran's sponsorship of
the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, and leading up
to the 2003 Riyadh bombings and beyond. "The
order to blow up three housing compounds in
Riyadh, in 2003, was made by Saef al Adel, Al
Qaeda's chief of operations, while he was in
Iran. We have the phone conversation on tape. We
didn't make this up," he said. "Ronald Reagan
used to say, facts are stubborn things, They are
stubborn. Because you can't get around them."
Saudi Arabia has captured Iranian agents on its
soil, and has seized explosives Iran attempted
to smuggle into Saudi Arabia for additional
terrorist attacks. But Saudi wasn't the only
target, he noted. "Iranian agents have been
linked to terrorist attacks in Europe, to
terrorist attacks in South America. We didn't
make this up. This is the world. This is
evidence." This remarkable six minute exchange
is worth viewing in its entirety.
May 13, 2016: Mullahs re-arrest Christian
pastor and his wife. Yousef
Naderkani, who was arrested in 2009 and
condemned to death for apostasy for renouncing
Islam, was rearrested on Friday along with his
wife, Tina Pasandide Nakarkhani and three
members of their house church. According to Christian
Solidarity Worldwide, they were
interrogated for several hours but ultimately
released later in the day. The status of the
other detainees remains unclear.
Pastor Youssef was acquitted of the apostasy
charge and released from jail in September 2012,
after refusing to recant his Christian faith. He
was rearrested a first time on Christmas Day
2012 and held for more than two weeks.
"The continued harrassment of Christians by the
Islamic regime authorities in Iran because of
their religion shows once again that this regime
does not respect the most fundamental human and
civil rights of its own citizens," said FDI
President Kenneth R. Timmerman. "Western
governments would do better to hold the Iranian
regime accountable for its egregious human
rights violations and its ongoing support for
international terrorism, rather than seek
illusive profits by doing business in Iran."
May 1, 2016: First Labor
Day labor protests in 8 years;
tens of thousands take to the street. Tens
of thousands of workers marched through the
streets of Tehran on Friday, the first Labor Day
protest in eight years. Bahar
News reported that close to 10,000 workers
demonstrated against the Rouhani government in
front of the state-affiliated Workers House and
then made their way toward Palestine square.
Protesters held
posters demanding insurance for
construction workers, job security in the
workplace, and a ban on hiring foreign workers.
The protests were led by Hassan Sadeghi, head of
the state-sanctioned Union of Veterans of the
Labor Community, and included leaders and
members of the Asalooyeh Guild, a newly-formed
"unofficial" union.
Comments from readers thanking
the website for reporting on the protests
received over 500 likes.More photos from the
protests are here.
Labor activist Mansour Osanloo, the
former head of the Tehran Bus Driver's Union who
fled Iran three years ago and now lives in the
United States, told FDI that labor unrest has
spread to Iran Khodro, the largest auto maker in
the country. "The Sepah Pasdaran owns the
petrochemical industry and the car plants,
through Khotam ol-anbia," Osanloo said. "These
people are not qualified. They are not managers.
They have stolen so much from these companies
they can no longer pay the workers. The whole
system is corrupt."
Over the past year, labor unrest has spread
through the oil industry in Khouzestan and into
Iranian Kurdistan, Osanloo said. "Without
sanctions relief, the regime was in big trouble.
Don't give them the money!" Osanloo said.
April 27, 2016: Iran Oil Exports soar, but
Leader blasts U.S. for failed sanction
relief. The latest
figures, released by Reuters today, show a
50% leap in Iranian oil exports in March
to its primary Asian markets, China, South
Korea, Japan and India. Oil shipments reached
1.56 million b/d, up from 1 million b/d for
March 2015. The most notable increase was India,
which had stopped importing Iranian oil because
of its inability to find a payment mechanism.
Despite the dramatic upsurge in Iranian oil
exports, regime leaders in Tehran said the U.S.
was not doing enough to provide sanctions relief
promised under the nuclear agreement. Both
Khamenei and Rouhani blasted the United States in
separate statements for the recent Supreme
Court ruling that allows victims of Iranian
state terror attacks in Beirut and Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia to
collect some $2 billion frozen in U.S.
accounts held beneficially for the Iranian
Central Bank. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif went
even further, calling a recent decision by a
U.S. court that Iran must pay damages for its
role in the 9/11 attacks "the
height of absurdity." Until now, the
Iranian regime has simply ignored U.S. lawsuits
stemming from its terrorist activities,
resulting in a string of default judgments
against Iran that allow plaintiffs to freeze and
potentially seize assets.
April 15, 2016: Dissident ayatollah
escapes alleged assassination attempt. Dissident
ayatollah Kasemeini-Borujerdi, who has been
jailed since 2006 for his refusal to accept the
doctrine of absolute clerical rule, narrowly
escaped an assassination attempt in Evin prison,
according to his European representative Maryam
Moazen. Citing reports from inside Evin, Mrs.
Moazen told FDI that Iranian regime intelligence
agents gave Borujerdi poisoned food that caused
"severe pains, in particular in his legs," and
affected his eyesight. The attempted food
poisoning occured on April 7, following 440
days of solitary confinement, and was not
the first assassination attempt against the
dissident ayatollah while in prison. It also
came at the end of Borujerdi's 11 year sentence.
He was scheduled to be released earlier this
month but continues to be held in Evin, where
the Special Court for the clergy is now
attempting to file a new case against him for
"heresy," Mrs. Moazen said.
March
30, 2016: U.S.
and allies say Iran missile-launches
violate UN resolution. In
a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon,
the U.S. and its European allies blasted Iran
for recent ballistic missile tests "in defiance"
the UN Security Council resolution that ratified
last year's nuclear deal. UNSC Resolution 2231
called on Iran to "refrain" from testing
ballistic missiles designed with the capability
of delivering nuclear weapons. The letter
stated that Iran had achieved that key
capability with its improved Qadr missiles, test-fired
on March 9. The Qadr-F reportedly had a
range of 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles), and the
Qadr-H had a range of 1,700 kilometers (1,056
miles), bringing not just Israel but targets in
Europe within range.
March 23, 2016: State Department confirms
additional payments to Iran. In
a startling announcement that Secretary Kerry
somehow forgot when he was promoting the Iran
nuclear deal, the State Department continues to
negotiate with Iran disputes going back to the
1979 hostage crisis, and foresees making
additional payments to Iran beyond the $1.7
billion ransom payment in January. The news
emerged in a letter from the State Department in
response to an inquiry from Rep. Mike Pomeo,
R-KS, that Pompeo's
office released today. The letter noted
that the January payment liquidated a $400
million Trust Fund on deposit with the U.S.
Treasury from Iran for Foreign Military Sales
purchases in the United States, plus interest,
but that "fact-intensive claims" involving "over
1,000 separate contracts between Iran and the
United States" remain outstanding and are now
the subject of new negotiations. The letter is here (pdf file).
March 21, 2016: DIA document shows Iran's
involvement in Benghazi. The
Iranian Connection to the Benghazi attacks is
finally coming to light, from today's
Washington Times. An analysis of the
involvement of the IRGC Quds Force in the
attacks was ordered by then DIA Director LTG
Michael Flynn. While the results remain
classified, Gen. Flynn has confirmed that he
issued the tasking order for an all source
review of what the defense intelligence
community knew about the Iranian presence in
Benghazi and involvement in the attacks. View
the original DIA document here
[pdf document]
March
19, 2016: U.S. arrests Babak Zanjani crony
in Miami; unseals federal indictment. Reza
Zarrab, 33, was
arrested on charges of money-laundering
and sanction violations, and flown over the
weekend to New York. A sealed indictment, handed
down in July 2015, was released that detailed
the allegations against Zarrab, which included
laundering over $130 million of Iranian oil. You
can read the unsealed indictment here
[pdf document].
March
6, 2016: Ajad's sanctions-buster-in-chief
condemned for fraud: The
official media in Iran says that Babak Zanjani,
who has boasted of laundering billions of
dollars of oil sales through Western sanctions
regimes, has been condemned
to death. We'll see. More likely is that
he hasn't turned over the keys to his overseas
empire to his handlers, who now sing for
Rouhani....
March
2, 2016: Bin Laden says Iran is "our main
artery for funds..." In a
dramatic new revelation, so far under the radar
of the national media, the Director of National
Intelligence has released a letter from al Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden to a follower,
admonishing him for threatening to attack Iran.
The letter was among a cache of documents seized
during the 2011 raid by Seal Team 6 that killed
Bin Laden and was posted
yesterday to the DNI website. In the
letter, Bin Laden reveals that Iran "is our main
artery for funds, personnel, and communication,
as well as the matter of hostages." Read
more at The Tower.
March 1, 2016: American terror victims to
collect $9.4 million from Iran. In
a landmark
victory after years of litigation, U.S.
victims of Iranian state-sponsored terror
attacks have won the right to collect $9.4
million from a long-frozen asset in California
belonging to the Iranian regime.
Feb. 24, 2016: Regime Vice-president reveals execution of village's "entire male population": Shahindokht Molaverdi, vice president for Women and and Family affairs, revealed that regime agents had executed the entire male population of a population in Sistan-va-Baluchestan province, on allegations of drug trafficking. "Society is responsible for the families of those executed," she told the Mehr news agency.
Feb.
11, 2016: Today the 1st Islamic State
Celebrates its Anniversary. ISIS,
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is the
late-comer to the world of Islamic-inspired
murder and mayhem. The regime that invented the
genre will celebrate its 37th anniversary on
Feb. 11. It’s official name: the Islamic
Republic of Iran. Read more from FDI president
Kenneth R. Timmerman's column in today's Frontpage
magazine.
Feb. 10, 2016: Boroujerdi supporters
appeal to Congress. Supporters
of jailed dissident Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeini
Boroujerdi have sent an an empassioned letter to
Reps. Pompeo, Zeldin, and LoBiondo, who are
seeking to travel to Iran to monitor the
upcoming "elections." In the letter, they note
that Boroujerdi, who was jailed along with
thousands of supporters in 2006, is one of the
longest suffering political prisoners in Iran.
"His crime: advocating the separation of
religion and state and defending democracy and
freedom," they write. Boroujerdi's health has
"reached a precarious state, because of diseases
caused by constant beatings and other forms of
torture over the past ten years," they added.
And yet, the regime continues to deny him
medical treatment.
Boroujerdi has particularly angered the regime
because as a cleric, he was expected to support
the velayat-e faghih, absolute clerical rule. In
fact, there are so many clerics who reject the
clerical dictatorship that the regime has
established a Special Court of the Clergy to
punish them. Boroujerdi's supporters asked the
three Republicans to visit Boroujerdi in prison,
and if possible to bring a physician with them.
Read
the letter.
Feb. 5, 2016: Conservative Republicans
want to visit Iran. Three
conservative members of Congress, Reps Mike
Pompeo, Lee Zeldin, and Frank LoBiondo, have
sent a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei and IRGC
Commander Gen. MOhammad Ali Jafari, asking for
visas so they could come to Iran to observe the
upcoming Majlis elections on Feb. 26 and meet
with IRGC leaders. Pomeo said the three
Republicans asked to meet the head of Iran's
nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi,
whom the Iranians have kept off-limits to
international weapons inspectors, and with
Iranian-American hostage Siamak Nemazi. They
also wanted information on the missing former
FBI agent, Robert Levinson.
" If Iran is truly a partner
in peace, as President Obama and Secretary Kerry
claim, then Iranian leaders should have no
problem granting our visas and arranging the
requested agenda. I look forward to
receiving a timely response from Iran,” said
Pompeo, a member of the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence. “Americans
deserve credible, first-hand confirmation of
what present-day reality is in Iran, regarding
the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal,
status of American hostages and foreign policy
objectives of Iranian leaders,” Zeldin added.
The full text of the letter is here.
Jan. 29, 2016: Italy veils statutes to
please Rouhani. The
Italian government shrouded nude Roman
statutes when Islamic Republic
president Rouhani came to town on his
shopping spree this week, apparently
to "spare" him embarrassment. While
Rouhani reportedly did not ask for the
veiling, he said, "I
thank you for this." The Iranian
women's group, My Stealthy Freedom,
criticized Italian media and female
politicians who went along with this
expression of dhimmitude: "This
censorship reminds us of the way the
Iranian regime has been forcing
millions of women in Iran to cover up.
The politicians of our country,
regardless of whether a woman is
Muslim or not, force women in Iran to
cover up and their justification is,
‘You, as a woman, should be shrouded
in front of my eyes in order not to
provoke me’. This way of thinking is
completely unacceptable.” The Persian
Facebook link is here.
Jan. 17, 2016: Welcome to the Banana
Republic. Read FDI
President Ken Timmerman's take on the hostage
for prisoner swap at
Frontpage magazine.
Jan. 16, 2016: U.S. Gives Iran a Clean
Nuclear Bill of Health, Lifts Sanctions,
Swaps Hostages.
There was so much news that the media has had a hard time keeping up. An overall guide by the Treasury Department of sanctions relief can be found here. The list of Iranian government entities removed from sanctions is here. A profile of seven of the Iranians released by the U.S. in exchange for U.S. hostages in Tehran is here.
While FDI welcomes the release by Iran of U.S. citizens it had taken hostage, we deplore the cynical and misguided trade of Iranian nationals who were arrested and convicted for violating U.S. export control laws. There can be no equivalence, moral or otherwise, between hostages, seized for purely political purposes, and individuals who broke the law and were afforded due process under a democratic system of laws.
The consequences of the
lifting of U.S. sanctions will be felt far and
wide. One group of Americans may pay an
extraordinarily high price for the misguided and
dangerous U.S. opening to the Islamic Republic
of Iran: victims of Iranian state-sponsored
terrorist attacks.
Under sanctions relief, Treasury has removed
sanctions and asset blocks on the property of Assa
Corp and Assa Ltd. These front
companies were created in 1989 to disguise the
40% ownership interest of the Iranian
state-owned Bank Melli in a Manhattan skyscraper
located at 650 Fifth avenue that continues to be
the subject of litigation between terror-victim
claimants and the Alavi Foundation, which federal
prosecutors allege to be an Iranian
government entity. In November, the 2nd
Circuit court of appeals chastened U.S.
prosecutors for mishandling the case against
Alavi, and is expected to send the case back to
the District court for trial. Meanwhile, Assa
Corp, which was never the subject of a final
judgment in the lower court, may simply move
for dismissal of the charges against it,
effectively putting its 40% share of the $800
million building beyond the reach of the terror
victim creditors.
Jan.
14, 2016: Iran gloats over captured
U.S. sailors. Senior
Iranian officials gloated over the way their
government put captured U.S. sailors on public
display. In initial photographs and video
footage released by State media, the 10 U.S.
sailors were seen with their hands over their
heads, making them appear like prisoners of war.
“This is a sign of our might,” said
deputy foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi,
a senior member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating
team. Despite the fact the sailors were seized
on Tuesday, apparently in international waters
off the coast of Kuwait, President Obama failed
to even mention them during his State of the
Union speech that night. Iran agtreed to release
them the next day after “the Americans
humbly admitted our might and power,” IRGC
deputy commander Hossein Salami
boasted to the Iranian media.
IRGC naval commander, Ali Fadavi, revealed that the carrier USS Truman “showed unprofessional moves for 50 minutes after the detention of the trespassers,” presumably meaning that the Truman tried to challenge the Iranian ships that had seized control of the two U.S. coastal patrol boats. ““The US and France’s aircraft carriers were within our range and if they had continued their unprofessional moves, they would have been afflicted with such a catastrophe that they had never experienced all throughout the history,” Fadavi boasted.
Statement from
FDI President & CEO Kenneth R.
Timmerman:
The nuclear agreement announced on July 14
is a bad deal for the Iranian people, and
for the people of the region. Unverifiable
at its core, it virtually guarantees a
nuclear arms race with Pakistan helping
Sunni allies Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and
possibly Turkey and Egypt, to counter the
growing power of the Islamic Republic of
Iran. It enables the regime to continue
enriching itself and its elites through
hundreds of front companies and black market
oil traders, selling the people’s resources
without accountability. As President Hassan
Rouhani said in his speech yesterday, "our
prayers have been answered." He hastened to
add, so have the prayers of Hamas and
Hezbollah, who will see their annual
paychecks from Tehran increase.
Worse, under this agreement, apparently
drafted in Tehran, the United States agrees
to lift sanctions on a host of murderers,
including notorious former Qods Force
commander Qassem Suleymani, IRGC commander
Rahim Yahya Safavi, IRGC intel chief Morteza
Rezai, al Qaeda-enabler Gen. Moh. Baqr
Zolqadr, as well as missile and nuclear
procurement agencies and the IRGC itself.
This agreement makes a mockery of American
democracy, by putting the onus on Congress
if it "interferes" with the dictates of an
executive branch it repeatedly warned and
passed legislation to limit. It remains
baffling what prompted the U.S.
administration to throw away a winning hand,
built up judiciously since 2005 with
international support, in exchange for total
capitulation to a nuclear-capable,
expansionist Sharia regime in Iran.
Read Timmerman's
more detailed analysis of the agreement
at the Daily Caller.
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