Archive for September 2017

Trump’s New Travel Ban: Collective Punishment of the Iranian People

Blanket Restrictions Aid Hardliners’ Efforts to Isolate Iranians from the World

September 26, 2017 – CHRI – The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) The new travel ban’s indiscriminate and arbitrary impact on Iranian citizens is unjustified and a gift to Iranian hardliners who want to isolate their population and prevent with the outside world, CHRI said today.

Read more

U.S. prisoner in Iran receives pacemaker as a trump calls for Tehran to free him

Baquer Namazi and his son Siamak Namazi. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has said on Sept. 18, 2017, that both men, Iranian Americans serving 10-year prison sentences on spying charges in Iran, should be immediately released and paid restitution. (Babak Namazi / AP)

September 20, 2017 – Washington Post – By Carol Morello- An elderly U.S. Citizen with a heart disease was hospitalized and given a pacemaker Tuesday shortly before President Trump demanded that Iran release all Americans and other foreigners he described as being unjustly detained.

Read more

Baha’i Leader Released from Prison in Iran After 10 Years; Six Other Baha’i Leaders Remain Behind Bars

Mahvash Sabet Finally Free But State-led Persecution of Baha’i Community Continues

September 18, 2017 – CHRI – The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) welcomes the release of the Baha’i leader, Mahvash Sabet, who was unjustly imprisoned in Iran for 10 years on the sole basis of her religion. CHRI calls for the immediate release of the six other Baha’i leaders, who have all been imprisoned in Iran since 2008, and an end to the state-led persecution of the Baha’i community.

Read more

Human Rights Are The Key To Confronting Iran

09.18.2017 –  The Daily Caller – KEN BLACKWELL Former Ohio Secretary of State – Commendably, the Trump administration is set to initiate a new Iran policy, which will be announced in October. Such change is imperative.

The flawed nuclear agreement in 2015, provided too many concessions, including tens of billions of dollars to the Iranian regime, following decades of deceit and lying in pursuit of the nuclear bomb.

Read more

Trump to hail Iranian people as a threat to regime’s status quo

09.18.2017 – POLITICO – By NAHAL TOOSI – NEW YORK — President Donald Trump will give special attention to the Iranian people during his speech Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly — signaling that he sees them as not only separate from their Islamist government, but as a threat to its survival, a senior administration official said.

Read more

Iran’s Holding of 2 Americans Is Illegal, U.N. Experts Find

Jared Genser, left, a lawyer, with Babak Namazi in Vienna in April. Mr. Namazi’s father, photographed at far left, and brother, photographed at far right, are serving 10-year terms in Iran. CreditLeonhard Foeger/Reuters

SEPT. 18, 2017 – The New York Times – By RICK GLADSTONE- Iran’s imprisonment of a prominent Iranian-American father and son on vaguely defined charges of collaboration with the United States is illegal, and they should be freed, a United Nations panel of international legal experts has concluded.

Read more

WIFE OF JAILED AMERICAN IN IRAN CALLS ON THE U.S. TO DO MORE

Xiyue Wang, a naturalized American citizen from China, arrested in Iran last August while researching Persian history for his doctoral thesis at Princeton University, is shown with his wife and son in this family photo released in Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. on July 18, 2017. Courtesy Wang Family photo via Princeton University/Handout via REUTERS

BY REUTERS ON 9/16/17 – When Xiyue Wang sleeps in his cell in Iran’s Evin Prison, he sometimes dreams he is back at Princeton University, working in the school’s main library on his dissertation comparing governance systems in Central Asia.

Read more

Iran recruits Afghan and Pakistani Shiites to fight in Syria

FILE – In this Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013 file photo, a Pakistani boy, whose brother was killed in bombing, is comforted by a relative in Quetta, Pakistan. Thousands of Pakistani and Afghan Shiites have been recruited by Iran to fight in Syria generating fears that their return could aggravate sectarian rivalries, say counterterrorism officials as well as analysts, who track militant movements. (Arshad Butt, File/Associated Press)

2017-09-16 -The Washington Post – By Kathy Gannon | AP – ISLAMABAD — Thousands of Shiite Muslims from Afghanistan and Pakistan are being recruited by Iran to fight with President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria, lured by promises of housing, a monthly salary of up to $600 and the possibility of employment in Iran when they return, say counterterrorism officials and analysts.

Read more

Iranian-Kurdish Political Prisoner’s Health Suffers Amid Ongoing Denial of Medical Treatment

Zeinab Jalalian

14 September, 2017 – CHRI – After nearly a decade behind bars, prisoner of conscience Zeinab Jalalian has developed intestinal problems, yet the authorities continue to deny her specialist treatment, her father told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

Read more

Iran: Free Unjustly Held Journalists

Sasan Aghaei, July 2017. © Private

No Let-up in Authorities’ Targeting of Media

HRW- September 13, 2017 – (Beirut) – Two Iranian journalists arrested in Tehran in August 2017 remain detained without formal charges, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately release them or charge them with recognizable criminal offenses and ensure them fair trials.

Read more