Author: AIAINY
Iran Focus | Mehdi Hosseini | September 2, 2024 On August 24, an international conference titled “Crimes Against Humanity: Time for Accountability and an End to Impunity” brought together former UN officials, legal experts, and human rights advocates to emphasize the necessity of justice for the victims of the 1988 massacre in Iran. The conference, which included participation from Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, underscored ongoing efforts to hold Iranian regime officials accountable for their past and present crimes. Maryam Rajavi’s speech focused on the continuing human rights abuses in Iran, urging international action against the regime. She…
THE HILL | BY RAMESH SEPEHRRAD | July 14, 2024 The recent presidential election in Iran, marked by historically low voter turnout and pervasive public rejection, underscores the profound disillusionment and frustration coursing through society. Masoud Pezeshkian, while touted by some as a reformist, epitomizes the paradox of Tehran’s politics, where the facade of change masks a deeply entrenched crisis of survival. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s increasingly tenuous grip on power is evident as he navigates a regime riddled with internal strife, economic challenges and a society that has rejected his regime in its entirety. This election, far from heralding stabilization, portends a tumultuous…
By Nadine Yousif | BBC News, Toronto | 6/20/2024 Canada has listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation, after years of pressure from opposition legislators and some members of the Iranian diaspora. Announcing the decision on Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc called it a “significant tool in fighting global terrorism”. The move will mean that thousands of senior Iranian government officials, including top IRGC officials, will be barred from entering Canada. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, quoted by Iran’s Fars news agency, has condemned what he described as the “unwise and unconventional” step. The IRGC is a…
March 13, 2024 Washington, DC – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) urges the U.S. government to support a United Nations (UN) Security Council referral to the International Criminal Court following the finding by a panel of UN-appointed experts that Iran’s crackdowns on protests against mandatory hijab and other religious freedom violations amount to crimes against humanity. Last week, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran determined that this repression “intersects with discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and religion.” “The Fact-Finding Mission’s determination reflects meticulous consideration of the evidence of the Iranian regime’s egregious…
08 March 2024 GENEVA (8 March 2024) –The violent repression of peaceful protests and pervasive institutional discrimination against women and girls has led to serious human rights violations by the Government of Iran, many amounting to crimes against humanity, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran said in its first report today. The report to the Human Rights Council said violations and crimes under international law committed in the context of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests that began on 16 September 2022 include extra-judicial and unlawful killings and murder, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty,…
FIONA HAMILTON | THE TIMES | JANUARY 8, 2024 Wikipedia entries have been changed to downgrade Iranian human rights atrocities and other abuses, The Times has learnt. The alterations raise concerns that the site is being used to manipulate information about the hardline Islamic regime. Details have been changed to discredit dissident groups, and government publications have been presented as impartial sources on the free online encyclopaedia. In one case key details about mass executions by the regime were removed. The involvement of senior officials in the 1988 death commissions, in which thousands of political prisoners were killed, was also…
National Review | By DAVID ZIMMERMANN | November 14, 2023 Iran has been conducting covert influence operations for years in the U.S. and abroad as part of a concerted disinformation campaign that is suspected to be espionage, a congressional briefing and corresponding report revealed Tuesday. The 82-page report, titled “Iran: The Ayatollah’s Hidden Hand,” details how supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the Iranian regime use operatives in the Biden administration to influence U.S. policy involving the Islamic Republic, building on a Semafor article that was published in September. At the time, it was reported that at least three Iranian agents transitioned from soliciting Tehran’s…
Semafor | Jay Solomon | Sept. 29, 2023 THE SCOOP In the spring of 2014, senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials initiated a quiet effort to bolster Tehran’s image and positions on global security issues — particularly its nuclear program — by building ties with a network of influential overseas academics and researchers. They called it the Iran Experts Initiative. The scope and scale of the IEI project has emerged in a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails reported for the first time by Semafor and Iran International. The officials, working under the moderate President Hassan Rouhani, congratulated themselves…
Amnesty International | September 21, 2023 Reacting to the news that Iran’s parliament has passed a new bill that would impose further draconian penalties severely violating women’s and girls’ rights as well as increasing prison terms and fines for defying Iran’s degrading and discriminatory compulsory veiling laws, Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa said: “This bill is a despicable assault on the human rights of women and girls that will further entrench violence and discrimination against them in Iran. If approved by Iran’s Guardian Council, it will further exacerbate the already suffocating surveillance…
Khamenei knows he can’t offer concessions, since the smallest shift could trigger another uprising across the deprived and suppressed nation Telegraph | Maryam Rajavi | September 17, 2023 Almost exactly a year ago, a remarkable nationwide uprising unfolded in Iran. It witnessed people from all walks of life chanting “death to [regime supreme leader Ali] Khamenei” and “down with the oppressor”. These powerful words reflected the popular rejection of the clerical regime. In mere days, the uprising became a firestorm of dissent that encompassed every province and shook the ruling theocracy to its core. In response, the regime embarked on…