400 jailed by regime over protests for Mahsa Amini

400 jailed by regime over protests for Mahsa Amini
The regime has drawn widespread international condemnation after executing two men in the past week in connection with the unrest. (Reuters)
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Updated 14 December 2022
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400 jailed by regime over protests for Mahsa Amini

400 jailed by regime over protests for Mahsa Amini
  • Footballer union ‘sickened’ as Iranian player risks death sentence

JEDDAH: Courts in Tehran have sentenced 400 people to jail terms of up to 10 years over their involvement in protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death, Iran’s judiciary said on Tuesday.

Iran has been gripped by nearly three months of protests — which officials describe as “riots” — since the death of Amini after her arrest for an alleged breach of the country’s dress code for women.

“In hearings on cases of rioters in Tehran province, 160 people were sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison, 80 people to two to five years and 160 people of up to two years,” Tehran’s judiciary chief Ali Alghasi-Mehr said.

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The regime has drawn widespread international condemnation after executing two men in the past week in connection with the unrest.

Majidreza Rahnavard and Mohsen Shekari, both 23, were hanged on Monday and Thursday respectively on the charges of “moharebeh” — or “enmity against God” under Iran’s law.

Prior to the two executions, Iran’s judiciary said it had issued death sentences to 11 people over the protests, but campaigners say around a dozen others face charges that could see them also receive the death penalty.

The world union of professional footballers FIFPRO said it was “shocked and sickened” by the risk of Iranian footballer Amir Nasr-Azadani being sentenced to death in connection with protests.

BACKGROUND

The regime has drawn widespread condemnation after executing two men in the past week in connection with the unrest.

Nasr-Azadani was arrested in the city of Isfahan two days after allegedly taking part in an “armed riot” in which three security agents were killed on Sept. 16, Isfahan’s judiciary chief Abdullah Jafari said.

“FIFPRO is shocked and sickened by reports that professional footballer Amir Nasr-Azadani faces execution in Iran after campaigning for women’s rights and basic freedom in his country,” the union tweeted on its page.

“We stand in solidarity with Amir and call for the immediate removal of his punishment,” it added.

France’s foreign minister said she would summon Iran’s charge d’affaires over the country’s role in crackdowns on protesters at home and the treatment of seven French nationals, currently in custody.

The UK announced new sanctions against Iranians and senior Russian military commanders, involved in the producing and supplying drones to target Ukraine.

Iranian-manufactured drones supplied to Russia have played a “central role” in such attacks, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office said.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the Tehran regime, which has been hit by a wave of civilian protests in recent months, was “striking sordid deals” with Moscow “in a desperate attempt to survive.”


Turkiye detains dozens of people in raids following suicide bomb attack

Turkiye detains dozens of people in raids following suicide bomb attack
Updated 03 October 2023
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Turkiye detains dozens of people in raids following suicide bomb attack

Turkiye detains dozens of people in raids following suicide bomb attack
  • On Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near an entrance to the Interior Ministry
  • Two police officers were slightly injured in the attack

ANKARA: Police detained at least 67 people across Turkiye on Tuesday in a sweep targeting people with alleged links to Kurdish militants, days after a suicide bomb attack in the Turkish capital.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said police carried out raids in 16 Turkish provinces, detaining 55 people suspected of being part of the “intelligence structure” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. At least 12 other suspected PKK members were rounded up in a separate operation in five provinces, Yerlikaya wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
The PKK has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye and is considered a terror organization by the United States and the European Union. Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.
On Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near an entrance to the Interior Ministry hours before President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was set to address Parliament as it returned from its summer recess. A second would-be bomber was killed in a shootout with police.
Two police officers were slightly wounded in the attack. The suspects arrived at the scene inside a vehicle they seized from a veterinarian in the central Turkish of Kayseri after shooting him in the head, officials said.
The PKK claimed responsibility for the attack, according to a news website close to the group, while Turkish authorities identified one of the assailants as a PKK militant. Hours later, Turkiye’s Air Force carried out airstrikes on suspected PKK sites in northern Iraq, where the group’s leadership is based. The Defense Ministry said a large number of PKK militants were “neutralized” in the strikes.
Yerlikaya did not clarify whether the people rounded up on Tuesday were suspected of direct involvement in Sunday’s attack.


Syria says Israeli airstrikes in an eastern province wounded 2 soldiers

Syria says Israeli airstrikes in an eastern province wounded 2 soldiers
Updated 03 October 2023
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Syria says Israeli airstrikes in an eastern province wounded 2 soldiers

Syria says Israeli airstrikes in an eastern province wounded 2 soldiers
  • The airstrike targeted positions in the Boukamal region along the Iraqi border

BEIRUT: Syrian state media said Tuesday that the Israeli military carried out airstrikes in a strategic eastern province wounding two soldiers and causing material damage. There was no comment from Israel on the reported strikes.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, quoted an unnamed military official as saying the airstrikes late Monday targeted military positions in Deir Ezzor.
The eastern Deir Ezzor province that borders Iraq contains oil fields and has been a strategic province throughout Syria’s conflict, now in its 13th year. Iran-backed militia groups and Syrian forces control the area and have often been the target of Israeli war planes in previous strikes.
Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and activist collective Deir Ezzor 24 said the airstrike targeted positions in the Boukamal region along the Iraqi border, a stronghold for Iran-backed militia groups. Both said they could not identify the source of the airstrike.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of war-torn Syria in recent years, including attacks on the airports in the capital of Damascus, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations. The strikes often target Syrian forces or Iranian-backed groups.


Tunisia rejects EU financial aid, casting doubt on an immigration deal

Tunisia rejects EU financial aid, casting doubt on an immigration deal
Updated 03 October 2023
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Tunisia rejects EU financial aid, casting doubt on an immigration deal

Tunisia rejects EU financial aid, casting doubt on an immigration deal
  • The July deal included a pledge of 1 billion euros in aid to Tunisia to help its battered economy, rescue state finances and deal with the migration crisis

TUNIS: Tunisian President Kais Saied on Monday rejected financial support announced by the European Union in September, saying the amount is small and goes against a deal signed three months ago.
Saied’s move could undermine the “strategic partnership” from July that includes measures on combating human traffickers and tightening borders, and which came during a sharp increase in boats heading to Europe from the North African nation.
The European Commission last month said it would disburse 127 million euros ($133 million) in aid to Tunisia as part of the deal to fight illegal immigration from Africa to Europe.
“Tunisia rejects what the EU announced, not because of the small amount ... but because the proposal conflicts with the memorandum of understanding signed in July,” Saied said.
The July deal included a pledge of 1 billion euros in aid to Tunisia to help its battered economy, rescue state finances and deal with the migration crisis.
The smaller amount announced by Europe 10 days ago, however, has frustrated Tunisian authorities struggling to improve public finances and raised fears among credit rating agencies that the government could default on foreign debts in coming months.
The dispute between the two parties has coincided with the arrival of record numbers of migrants from Tunisia and North Africa to Italy’s island of Lampedusa.
Tunisia last week postponed a visit by a delegation from the European Commission to discuss the details of the migration agreement.
Last month it also denied the entry of five members of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee for meetings over the political situation in Tunisia, saying it would not allow interference in its affairs.
Some European countries, including Germany, oppose the immigration deal, saying it does not address human rights issues and the political situation after Saied seized power, shut down the Tunisian parliament and began ruling by decree in what the opposition says was a coup.


UN migration chief voices concern over Mediterranean deaths, pledges new solutions

UN migration chief voices concern over Mediterranean deaths, pledges new solutions
Updated 02 October 2023
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UN migration chief voices concern over Mediterranean deaths, pledges new solutions

UN migration chief voices concern over Mediterranean deaths, pledges new solutions
  • US former White House adviser Amy Pope started as head of IOM on Oct. 1 at a time of record forced displacement around the world and high political tensions over irregular immigration

GENEVA: The new head of the UN migration agency has voiced concern that the deaths of migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean were being “normalized” and vowed to work with governments to provide options for economic migration to address the crisis.

US former White House adviser Amy Pope started as head of the International Organization for Migration or IOM on Oct. 1 at a time of record forced displacement around the world and high political tensions over irregular immigration.

Recently, an Italian minister and billionaire Elon Musk have criticized Germany for backing charities helping distressed migrants on the world’s most dangerous Mediterranean route, where 22,000 people have died or gone missing since 2014. Germany’s foreign ministry defended its policies.

Asked to comment on the debate, Amy Pope said: “Our biggest concern is that the deaths in the Mediterranean have been normalized and that people take for granted that this is just a cost of human movement.”

“If we are really going to stop people crossing the Mediterranean on rickety boats and dying as they do, we need to approach the situation far more comprehensively,” she said. 

She declined to comment directly on Musk’s remarks. Pope, who wants to build partnerships with private companies to manage migration better, won a tense election in May against her then-boss, becoming the first female head of the UN agency since it was created in 1951. 

IOM seeks to ensure humane and orderly migration and intervenes where needed. In her first press conference,  she vowed to work with countries that want to renew their labor forces like Spain.

“The evidence is fairly overwhelming that migration actually benefits economies,” she said, especially in wealthy countries with aging populations and low birth rates.

Pope said her first trip will be to East Africa to meet with the African Union Commission in Ethiopia and then to Brussels where she will meet with senior European officials as they search for a deal on handling irregular migration.


Tehran ‘opposes geopolitical changes’ in Caucasus, official says

Tehran ‘opposes geopolitical changes’ in Caucasus, official says
Updated 02 October 2023
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Tehran ‘opposes geopolitical changes’ in Caucasus, official says

Tehran ‘opposes geopolitical changes’ in Caucasus, official says
  • The annexation of this corridor, strategic to Tehran, would cut off Iran’s access to Armenia and consequently to Europe

TEHRAN: Iran on Monday said it opposes any “geopolitical changes” in the Caucasus, where it has long been angered over Azerbaijan’s desire to set up a transport link along the Armenian-Iranian border.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani, while voicing support for Azerbaijan’s reclamation of the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region last month, said Tehran is “against making geopolitical changes in the region and this is our clear position.”

He was referring to the Zangezur land corridor which would connect mainland Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan and then to Turkiye.

Relations between Baku and Tehran have been traditionally sour, as Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan is a close ally of Turkiye.

Following a lightning Azerbaijani military offensive that recaptured the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh enclave to the east of Zangezur last month, some experts believe that Azerbaijan’s leader Ilham Aliyev could now seek to launch operations in southern Armenia to create territorial continuity with Nakhchivan.

Armenian separatists, who had controlled Nagorno-Karabakh for three decades, agreed to disarm, dissolve their government and reintegrate with Baku.

Nakhchivan does not share a border with Azerbaijan but has been tied to Baku since the 1920s — and is located between Armenia, Turkiye and Iran.

The annexation of this corridor, strategic to Tehran, would cut off Iran’s access to Armenia and consequently to Europe.

Kanani was commenting after the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigoryan, met on Sunday with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, during a visit to Tehran.

They discussed “the latest developments in the South Caucasus” and “military movements in the region,” Kanani said.

“We have always supported the return of these occupied territories to Azerbaijan,” he said, referring to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Iran, bordering Azerbaijan and Armenia, has an Azeri-speaking community of around 10 million people, as well as an Armenian community of just under 100,000 people.

Ties between Azerbaijan and Iran soured in January when a gunman stormed into Baku’s embassy in Tehran.

He killed a diplomat and wounded two embassy security guards.

Tehran also fears that Israel, a major weapons supplier to Azerbaijan, could use Azerbaijani territory for an offensive against Iran.