Empty Seat Represents Jailed Iranian Filmmaker At Venice Festival

Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Kurdish rights group, reported on Saturday that the convict, identified as Morteza Jalali, was transferred from another prison to Tehran’s Evin prison for the amputation last week. 

His fingers were cut off with a guillotine-like device that the prison recently acquired at the infirmary of the detention center.

Iran has amputated fingers of several prisoners during the past few months while authorities said several cases of amputations for robbery are currently at the execution stage, calling on judges not to hesitate to issue death and amputation sentences.

Late in June, the head of the Iranian association of surgeons, Iraj Fazel, called on the judiciary not to allow the amputation of fingers to punish thieves, describing the practice as "worrying and horrifying."

According to Islamic Sharia law, punishment for theft can be amputation of fingers or hands.

Human rights group Amnesty International said late in July that Iranian authorities must be held accountable for amputating the fingers of prisoners. “These amputations are particularly harrowing displays of the Iranian authorities’ contempt for human rights and dignity,” said Diana Eltahawy, a deputy director of the group.

Prosecutors said on Friday that police confiscated 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds) of heroin in the port city of Hamburg at the end of August, but the arrests were made overnight on Thursday, September 8, when police searched 10 premises in the eastern cities of Dresden and Chemnitz, as well as in Hamburg and in the Netherlands.

The detainees were an unnamed 35-year-old Iranian in the Netherlands, a 40-year-old Turkish-Serbian suspected ringleader, a 54-year-old German suspected of using his firm's logistics fleet to transport drugs, and a 53-year-old Turkish go-between.

One was detained in Germany, one in Spain, and two others in the Netherlands. Prosecutors are seeking the extraditions of the three who were arrested abroad. 

Last year in September, Indian officials said they had seized nearly three tons of heroin originating from Afghanistan and shipped from Bandar Abbas Port in Iran to Gujarat Mundra port worth an estimated 200 billion rupees ($2.72 billion). More than 2,988 kg of heroin was recovered in one of India's biggest such hauls to date.

In May, Jordan said Iran-backed forces in the Syrian army and militias loyal to Tehran are trying to smuggle hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of drugs across the Jordanian border to Persian Gulf markets.

Malley met on Thursday with the leaders of several US Jewish organizations, including The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Union for Reform Judaism, American Jewish Committee, Democratic Majority for Israel and AIPAC, the Jewish Insider reported on Friday. 

Participants declined to share information about what was discussed, but a JFNA spokesperson said that “Federations appreciated the engagement from the White House, and we’re pleased the meeting took place.”

Most of the participants had publicly criticized the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – or the JCPOA -- and similarly spoken out against ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran. 

Earlier in the day, a statement by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said Mossad chief David Barnea has shared "sensitive intelligence materials" with heads of CIA, FBI, Pentagon and other top officials, warning US against being cheated by the Islamic Republic’s lies.

Earlier in September, Yair Lapid said the country is leading “an intensive campaign” meant to prevent the signing of “a dangerous” nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides said on September 5 that President Joe Biden has assured Lapid that Washington will never tie Israel’s hands against Iran.

Also on Friday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina predicted that a new Iran deal will not be finalized until after the upcoming US midterms and Israeli elections, set for November 1, and talked of plans for multiple legislative initiatives aimed at countering Tehran.

Expressing hope that the talks to restore the deal go nowhere, the senator for Texas told our correspondent Arash Aalaei on Thursday, "The Biden White House seems bound to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars into the hands of a theocratic despot who routinely chants 'death to America' and 'death to Israel'."

“If this deal goes through, that money will be used to murder Americans and our allies, and it would dramatically accelerate the process of the Ayatollah getting a nuclear weapon which if God forbid, he does, could well be used to murder millions of Americans,” he added. 

Cruz went on to criticize President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, which, he claims, have emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine. “This (Ukraine) war should never have happened. It only happened because of Joe Biden's weakness and appeasement.” 

“First of all, in surrendering Afghanistan and signaling weakness to all of our enemies, but then secondly in waiving sanctions on Nord Stream 2 pipeline, handing a multi-billion-dollar gift to Putin, which was the direct and incipient cause of Putin's invasion of Ukraine,” he said. 

“The stances of the Iranian government in diplomatic matters are usually against accepted international norms and this is not surprising to those who regularly follow developments related to Iran,” Germany-based political analystPezhman Golchin told Iran International.

World leaders, including those of Iran’s neighbors such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and even the Russian President Vladimir Putin, have sent condolences to the British government and King Charles who has succeeded his mother. The Islamic Republic of Iran andthe Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan have remained silent.

The British monarch visited Iran in 1961, at the end of an extensive Tour of India and Pakistan but not after the Islamic revolution of 1979. Prince Charles who was patron of the British Red Cross, however, made an unofficial visit to the Iranian city of Bam in February 2004 following a devastating earthquake that left around 30,000 people dead. The Prince met with Iran’s president Mohammad Khatami who was considered a more moderate leader.

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Golchin said the long-standing disputes between the Islamic Republic and Britain which date back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the fact that the British embassy was stormed and taken over by hardliners in 2011 could be among the reasons for the silence of Iranian officials.

Iran’s exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi, however, condoled the British people and royal family on behalf of himself and his family in a message soon after the announcement of the Queen’s death. Prince Reza Pahlavi said in his message that Queen Elizabeth will be remembered as a symbol of wisdom, strength, and grace.

Some hardliners who are generally against the institution of monarchy, beside hostility towards Britain, have even expressed delight over the Queen's death in their social media posts while some others have opined that withholding condolences is a sign of Iran's “independence”.

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In his speeches, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei usually refers to Britain as the “Evil Britain” and his disdain is on par with his hostility towards the United States, the “Great Satan”.

In July 2009 during protests following a disputed election which put his favorite candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in office, Khamenei alleged that Britain had fomented unrest in the country. Soon after his speech Iranian security forces arrested nine local staff of the British embassy in Tehran for alleged incitement of protesters to unrest and espionage.

On November 29, 2011, a group of hardline students many among whom were affiliated with the Basij militia attacked the UK embassy compound a day after Tehran downgraded its diplomatic relations with London over a new sanction imposed on Iran. Attackers took over the embassy for a few hours and forced staff to leave the compound. The UK closed its embassy on the following day and ordered Iranian diplomats to leave London. The two countries only restored full diplomatic relations in August 2015.

Tensions rose again in July 2019 when fast boats of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) had an encounter with the British Royal Navy After trying to impede their movement in the Strait of Hormuz.

Relations between Iran and Britain date back to the 13th century but it was in the 19th century that the British Empire became deeply involved in Iranian politics and a negative attitude towards British, and its rival Tzarist Russia began to take deep roots among Iranians. This negative attitude grew worse following the 1953 coup that overthrew the nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh and restored the Shah.