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Home Front: WoT

US vet jailed in Iran sues for $1 billion, alleges torture

2022-03-18

[IsraelTimes] A US Navy veteran who was nabbed
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
in Iran
Iran

...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...
for nearly two years sues the Iranian government for $1 billion, alleging that he was kidnapped, held hostage and tortured.

The federal lawsuit describes in unsparing detail the "prolonged and continuous" abuse that Michael White says he suffered behind bars, including being beaten and punched, whipped on his feet, deprived of food and drink, and pressured to falsely confess that he was a spy for the US government.

"Mr. White endured this trauma for nearly two years, never knowing if or when he would be released and reunited with his family, repeatedly promised that his conditions would improve soon, only to be crushed psychologically when they did not," the lawsuit states.

The allegations in the complaint mirror the claims made by White in a 156-page manuscript that he wrote behind bars and that was later obtained by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.

The 31-page complaint traces White’s travel to Iran, saying he was lured there in the summer of 2018 by a woman he considered his girlfriend so that he could be kidnapped by Iranian government agents and put in prison. He was charged with insulting Iran’s Lord High Potentate and Supreme Leader of All He Surveys and cooperating with the US government against Iran — charges the lawsuit says were fabricated — and sentenced without a trial to 10 years in prison.

Link

International-UN-NGOs

Iran UN Women's Committee Membership an 'Insult', Say Activists

2021-04-25

[Aawsat] The election this week of Iran to a UN committee on women's rights is an "insult" to women who suffer daily discrimination in the country, groups representing Iranian women outside the country said Friday.

Iran was elected Thursday to a four-year mandate along with six other countries to the New York-based UN Commission on the Status of Women, which works to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women.

"We consider the election of the extremely misogynistic regime of Iran as an insult to all Iranian women, the main victims of this regime during the last four decades," said the Association of Iranian Women in France (AFIF) and their counterparts in Italy and Sweden in a statement.

"We call on governments, institutions and associations to condemn this decision," they added.

They pointed to the March report by Javaid Rehman, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, which was highly critical of the situation of women in Iran.

While some positive steps such as in education were recognized in his report, Rehman said "egregious gender-based discrimination persists in law, practice and societal attitudes, disempowering women and girls from participating and contributing in society."

He urged action to end child marriages and practices where permission from fathers or husbands is required for a range of actions "that should be the woman's own choice".

Iran has arrested and prosecuted women who took part in a civil disobedience campaign to remove the obligatory headscarf in public, while prize-winning lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh who defended their cases is serving a prison sentence.

Masih Alinejad, a US-based activist who founded the My Stealthy Freedom movement that encouraged women to remove their hijabs, said the naming of Iran to the commission was an "insult" to those women arrested.

"A regime that does not allow women to make decisions for their own bodies has been elected to a body to monitor the condition of women around the world," she told the Swedish parliament in a video statement.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

France Says Iran Holding French National since May

2021-02-25

It’s who they are and what they do. No point in asking why in an individual case — all the reasons are excuses, even if true.

[AnNahar] La Belle France said on Wednesday that Iran
Iran

...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
arrested a French national in May 2020 and has been holding him since, confirming a news report which called the detention illegal.

The foreign ministry said the French national was under consular protection,

...clearly not worth much...

its embassy in Tehran was in regular contact with him and that it was "attentively following the situation of our fellow national".

French news publication Le Point said the 35-year old, whom it named only as Benjamin,

...not a traditional French name, as far as I’m aware — would it be fair to assume he is Jewish? That kind of suspicion is triggering in that part of the world...

was arrested in northeastern Iran near the Turkmenistan border where he was travelling as a tourist in a van, according to his Iranian lawyer who also said that lawyers had not been granted access to case files.

Quoting a source close to Benjamin, Le Point said he had spoken by telephone to his family, but his detention was illegal because "the authorities never produced the slightest case file or any explanation for his detention".

Was he in the country legally, with an official visa and all that?

Iran has in recent years repeatedly detained foreigners and dual nationals on charges campaigners and governments say are unfounded, with the prisoners only going free after months and sometimes even years of painstaking negotiation.

High-profile releases of foreign prisoners in Iran -- of American Xiyue Wang in December 2019, American Michael White in March 2020 and Frenchie Roland Marchal, also in March -- were all accompanied by the release of Iranians held abroad on sanctions-busting charges.

But concern over the tactics intensified last autumn with the release of Australian-British lecturer Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was freed in an apparent exchange for three Iranians convicted in Thailand over a 2012 bomb plot that Israel linked to attacks against its interests.

Yep, that’s why they do it.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iranian HumanRights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has tested positive for Covid19 only days after being released from prison

2020-11-11

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

#Iran|ian #HumanRights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has tested positive for #Covid19 only days after being released from prison#BaghdadPost #FreeIran #IranProtests #IranRegimeChange pic.twitter.com/3Zyj0Vr6gF
— The Baghdad Post (@BaghdadPostPlus) November 10, 2020

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran frees prominent rights activist, news agency reports

2020-10-09

[THEBAGHDADPOST] Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
has released prominent rights activist Narges Mohammadi, according to a report by an Iranian news agency, which said her 10-year sentence had been reduced. A leading advocate for the abolition of the death penalty

in Iran, Mohammadi was locked away
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
in 2016 for founding a campaign group that was deemed to be an illegal splinter group.

She was freed Wednesday night, the chief justice of the northwestern Zanjan province, where she was imprisoned, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency. It did not explain why her sentence had been cut short.

In July, the United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
called for her release after she was reported to have been showing symptoms of COVID-19. In August, her husband said she appeared to have recovered.

The Iranian judiciary said in March that it had temporarily released about 85,000 inmates in response to the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)

coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)

...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
, including people held on security charges who say they are political prisoners; in late May many were returned to prison.

~~Amnesia~~ Amnesty International said in July that Iranian authorities had ignored appeals from prison officials to provide them with resources to stem the spread of the coronavirus within jails.

Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told news hounds earlier this week prisons were severely overcrowded. "It’s impossible to isolate people and enforce physical distancing because of lack of space," he said.

A report carried on Wednesday by Mizanonline, the official website of the Iranian judiciary, denied prisons were in poor condition.

It said 18 preventative measures had been taken in the past three months, including continuous testing of prison staff for the coronavirus, distribution of required medical items, isolation for infected prisoners and social distancing during family visits.

Colville said political prisoners include conservationists, dual nationals, human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
defenders, and lawyers, such as Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been sentenced to 33 years for various charges under national security laws.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

US citizen Michael White sentenced in Iranian court: Agencies

2019-03-12

[AlAhram] A U.S. citizen held in Iran has been sentenced for an unspecified crime, Iranian news agencies reported on Monday, in a case likely to worsen already terrible relations with the United States.

Michael White,

... also in our archives as Michael R. White. His mother claimed he had visited his girlfriend in Iran five or six times before being caught. She can supposedly be seen here...

a 46-year old U.S. Navy veteran, was placed in durance vile
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
last July while visiting his Iranian girlfriend, the New York Times

...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
has reported. The arrest - the only known one of a U.S. citizen since President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
took office - was confirmed by Iran only in January.

On Monday, the prosecutor in the northeastern city of Mashhad, Gholamali Sadeqi, said White had been sentenced, the Fars news agency reported.

He said White had been accused of a security-related charge but did not specify if that was what he had been convicted of. Iranian officials have never said why he was being held.

Trump withdrew from an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and re-imposed crippling economic sanctions last year. He warned in 2017 Tehran would face "new and serious consequences" unless all unjustly held U.S. citizens were freed.

White’s sentencing comes days after Iran appointed a new head of the judiciary - Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline holy man who is a protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The appointment is seen as weakening the political influence of President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate.

Also on Monday, an Iranian court handed a new sentence to renowned human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh which her husband said was 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. The official Islamic Theocratic Republic News Agency said she had been sentenced to seven years.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Husband of imprisoned Iranian human rights lawyer arrested in Tehran

2018-09-06

[IsraelTimes] Reza Khandan charged with ’conspiring against national security, propaganda against the system and campaigning against Iran’s Islamic dress code’

The husband of the imprisoned award-winning Iranian human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
activist Nasrin Sotoudeh has been tossed in the calaboose
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
, their lawyer told AFP on Wednesday.

"Reza Khandan was arrested on Tuesday morning at his home in Tehran by agents of Iran’s intelligence ministry," their lawyer Mohammad Moghimi said.

He was transferred to Evin prison in northern Tehran where a judge charged him with conspiring against national security, propaganda against the system and campaigning against Iran’s Islamic dress code.

The last charge was based on the fact that badges were found in the family’s home, saying "No to compulsory hijab," the lawyer said.

Khandan’s wife is one of Iran’s most famed rights activists and won the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov human rights award in 2012.

Earlier this year, Sotoudeh took on the cases of several women arrested for standing in public areas without their headscarves, which have been mandatory in Iran since shortly after the Islamic revolution of 1979.

She was arrested in June and told she had already been found guilty "in absentia" on spying charges by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court.

Her legal team said she is now serving a six-year jail term, one year longer than previously reported.

She began a hunger strike on August 25 in protest at the pressure brought on her family.

Khandan’s bail was set at 7 billion rials ($50,000), which Moghimi called "legally unacceptable."

Khandan and Sotoudeh’s 18-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son were home at the time of the arrest and are now being cared for by their aunt, he added.

Moghimi said that Khandan’s charge of propaganda against the state was due to his interviews with international media on his wife’s imprisonment and ongoing cases.

Human Rights Watch said Iran had "ramped up their crackdown against human rights defenders."

"Iranian authorities continue to dig a hole for their domestic and international credibility as they lock up scores of lawyers and activists for the ’crime’ of defending citizens’ fundamental rights," said the NGO’s Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson.

One of Sotoudeh’s lawyers, Payam Derafshan, was himself arrested last week along with colleague Farokh Forouzan, according to a Facebook post by another human rights lawyer.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran detains rights lawyer who defended headscarf protesters

2018-06-15

[DAWN] Iranian authorities on Wednesday detained a prominent rights lawyer who had defended women protesting the obligatory headscarf.

Nasrin Sotoudeh was taken from her home, according to her husband, Reza Khandan, who said she managed to call him after she was detained. He said she was told she would be serving a five-year sentence at the Evin prison in Tehran after being convicted in absentia. "I have no idea what the sentence was related to," said Khandan.

There was no immediate comment from authorities.Sotoudeh is an outspoken critic of the country’s judiciary, which is dominated by hard-liners.

She had recently objected to its decision to limit the number of lawyers allowed to defend clients in security-related cases, calling the move a "farewell" to the right of defence. The judiciary had released a list of just 20 lawyers, out of 60,000 licensed attorneys, who would be allowed to defend such cases. After widespread objections, the judiciary said it would expand the list.

The mother of two also worked as a lawyer for women detained for refusing to cover their hair in public.

Sotoudeh, who has also represented prominent opposition activists, had previously served a three-year prison term from 2010 to 2013 after being convicted of security-related charges.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Video of woman shoved by policeman in Iran sparks criticism on social media

2018-02-24

[DAWN] A video showing an Iranian policeman shoving a woman protesting against mandatory headscarves off her makeshift podium in a busy Tehran street sparked criticism on social media on Friday.

The video of the solitary female demonstrator was apparently shot on Enghelab (Revolution) Street, where a woman was first detained in December after standing with her head uncovered waving a scarf on a stick.

Since then several dozen Iranian women have published photos of themselves in the street or parks, their heads uncovered, waving their scarves in an act of defiance.

The woman in the video is seen standing on a street cabinet with her arms raised in the air, her long blond hair worn in a high ponytail.

Asked by two coppers to get down, she replies calmly: "Tell me what my offence is and I'll get down."

"Disturbing public order," one of them says.

A crowd then forms and starts clapping.

In the second part of the video, apparently shot on a cellphone, one of the coppers steps up to the same height as the woman and shoves her off her podium, to the indignation of onlookers.

"Where are the human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
?" a male voice asks.

Lawyer and human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh wrote on Facebook that the policeman broke the law because "no man has the right to treat a woman like this".

Twitter users also reacted with dismay.

"Breaking the law while in law enforcement uniform is our problem in Iran," one tweeted.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran headscarf protester arrested: lawyer

2018-01-31

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An Iranian woman has been incarcerated
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
and bail set at more than $100,000 after she protested against the mandatory headscarf, a lawyer said on Tuesday.

Narges Hosseini, whose age was not known, was tossed in the slammer
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
after posing in central Tehran on Monday without a headscarf, lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh said.

At least three other women did the same around the city on Monday, according to images shared on social media, mirroring a protest by a woman on December 27 whose images went viral across the globe.

Several more images of women protesting in Tehran were shared on social media on Tuesday, although their authenticity could not be immediately verified.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Khatami urges release of all Iranian political prisoners

2013-09-27

[Al Ahram] Former reformist president Mohammad Khatami has called for the release of all political prisoners in Iran, notably opposition chiefs Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi

, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

"We're happy with the (judiciary's) announced pardon of 80 prisoners but we ask: 'Why this number?'" the reformist daily Etemad quoted Khatami as saying.

"Let's say it's all of them, apart from those who have committed crimes," he added.

Last week, the authorities freed around 15 reformists, journalists and lawyers, notably prominent rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.

They have also announced pardons for 80 others rounded up in connection with anti-government protests claiming massive fraud in the 2009 re-election of president Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad.

Dozens of others are still behind bars, though legal authorities have not said how many.

"Everyone must make an effort to end the house arrests... This is in everybody's interest," said Khatami, referring to Mousavi and Karroubi, who have been kept incommunicado since February 2011.

Both men were candidates in the 2009 presidential election and spearheaded the protests its outcome.

On Wednesday, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said more prisoners would be released within a month, without giving a number.

Newly elected President Hassan Rowhani, who has the backing of reformists and moderates in the Islamic republic, has pledged to work for political and cultural liberalisation.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran frees 80 prisoners ahead of Rowhani's U.N. visit

2013-09-24

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iran said on Monday it had freed 80 prisoners tossed in the calaboose
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
in political crackdowns ahead of President Hassan Rowhani's visit to attend the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York this week.

As part of Rowhani's apparent new moderate political approach and outreach to the West, authorities released prominent human rights
...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you...
lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and at least 10 other prisoners last week.

Judiciary front man Mohseni Ejei told a news conference on Monday, 80 prisoners had been pardoned, including some arrested over protests that followed the disputed re-election of former hardline President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad in 2009, Rooters news agency reported.

The release of the prisoners last week also came after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that flexibility is needed in Iran's international relations.

Link

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