Iran Harshly Criticized At UN Human Rights Council

In a commentary entitled “Good But Not Enough”, the Revolutionary Guards’ Sobh-e Sadegh weekly has also adopted a surprisingly mild and somehow positive tone in discussing former reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s recent remarks about the protest movement.

The weekly is published by the political bureau of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and its content is meant to set the standard for the guards and the hardliner political establishment in current affairs.

“Khatami who has a special status among reformists can prepare the grounds for dialogue [between protesters and the government] through uniting all across the reformist spectrum and reinforcing the divide with the enemies of the Iranian people,” Sobh-e Sadegh wrote.

Khatami said in a speech last week that regime change was “neither possible, nor desirable” while also warning the hardliner establishment over continuing the status quo which he said would only deepen the prospects of “societal collapse”. He proposed reforms in the system as the “least costly and most useful” way out of the current quagmire the regime has gotten itself into.

“The first step is to not only acknowledging [people’s] right to protest, but also to welcome it,” he said while criticizing the authorities’ characterization of any protest action as “rioting” to justify harsh suppression.

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The weekly admitting that the former president is “still the most pre-eminent and popular figure among reformists” sounds like praise, while in recent past hardliners labeled him as “one of the leaders of the [2009] sedition” and made it clear there was no room for him, and those like him, in the country’s power structure.

Informed sources in Iran told Iran International over two weeks ago that authorities had approached some reformist and moderate figures to beseech their help in quelling the unrest that has engulfed the country, but to no avail.

Strongly worded slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and slogans such as, “This is not a protest, it’s a revolution!” and “This is the last message, our aim is [toppling] the system!” chanted by protesters leave no doubt that they will not be satisfied with anything other than regime change.

Accordingly, not even Khatami, whose popularity once surpassed any other Iranian official including the Supreme Leader by a mile, has significantly lost his clout among protesters who view him as ultimately a man of the system and irrelevant in the current circumstances.

The Wall Street Journal also said in an article Wednesday that the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani recently approached the families of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini, and the former moderate president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani in a bid to use their influence to calm the unrest. People close to the two families told the WSJ that both families declined to cooperate.

Shamkhani, a Khamenei loyalist, has kept a very low profile since protests began over two months ago. Ultra-hardliners of the Paydari Front blame Shamkhani for not crushing the protests in the bud and even accuse him of complicity with Khatami under whom he served as defense minister in between 1997 and 2005.

Khamenei’s hardliner devotees made sure long ago that members of both families were barred from any positions of power and even allowed vigilantes to freely attack and insult Khomeini’s grandson Hassan in public and jail two of Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s children, the outspoken daughter Faezeh and son Mehdi who is still serving a prison sentence on security-related and corruption charges.

Jalal Mahmoudezadeh, who is representing the people of Mahabad in the Iranian parliament said Wednesday in a tweet that he has been summoned many times over the past few days but did not provide any details which organization has summoned him.

“Instead of following up on the rights of the protesting people and the families of the victims of Mahabad and Kurdistan cities, the judiciary has filed a lawsuit against me as a supporter of the same bereaved people!!!” added Mahmoudzadeh.

However, he vowed “I will stand by my honorable people in any situation.”

Following the killing of people in Mahabad by the regime forces, Mahmoudzadeh November 19 strongly criticized the crackdown on people in Kurdish cities saying that the protesters must be heard.

In an interview he said most of the people are unemployed in Kurdish cities and they are angry, so the security forces must stop harming civilians.

He added the people are being killed by live rounds, but instead of identifying those who have killed people, “an organization has filed a lawsuit against me.”

Since last week, the Islamic Republic has intensified its repression of Kurdish-majority cities and towns in western provinces of the country following reports that parts of some small towns have fallen into the people’s hands. The majority of Iran's 10 million Kurds live in the western parts of the country.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the person had not been detained for taking part in demonstrations but confirmed that Australian officials have not been allowed to get in touch with the inmate to assess his welfare.

“The Australian government holds concerns for the welfare of one Australian-Iranian citizen believed to be detained in Iran,” said a department spokesperson, adding that “We continue to seek confirmation of their welfare, and consular access.”

The spokesperson reiterated that the Islamic Republic was refusing to accept Australia’s right to access as it does not recognize dual nationality.

Iran’s Judiciary Spokesman Masoud Setayeshi told a press conference November 22 that forty foreign nationals implicated in recent “riots” have been arrested, but he did not elaborate on the nationalities of those detained.

Iranian officials have repeatedly accused Western governments of stoking the protests over Mahsa Amini's death in police custody.

While the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Iran in the last two months due to regime’s violence against protesters, Australia has not acted.

However, recently Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced in a tweet that the country is determined to “continue to work with international partners and within government to increase pressure on Iran over its egregious human rights abuses.”

Israel’s Channel 11 reported Monday, November 21, that Mossad informed Britain’s spy agency about the threats facing two journalists working for the London-based channel.

According to further information obtained by Iran International, threats against its journalists, revealed by the Metropolitan Police earlier this month, came from the same team that sought to target Israel’s former consul general in Istanbul, Yosef Levi Sfari, who was rescued by authorities and sent back to Israel.

In June, Israeli and Turkish media reported that a terror cell sent to Turkey by the Islamic Republic was busted, and its eight members who had entered the country with fake Tajik and Italian passports were arrested.

The agents were staying at the same hotel in which Levi Sfari and his partner Roni Goldberg were staying for their vacation, with reports alleging that their other targets were Israeli tourists. "The Iranian squad was caught red-handed at the last minute," the reports added. According to Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT), the eight were arrested in raids on three houses in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district. 

The mastermind of the plot was Rouhollah Bazghandi, the deputy head of IRGC’s counterintelligence (Unit 1500). A former senior IRGC official had earlier told Iran International that by using amateur agents to carry out the attacks against Israeli targets in Istanbul, Bazghandi dealt a heavy blow to IRGC Intelligence Organization. He was also in charge of thwarting plots against Iran's security officials inside Iran; however, his involvement in the Turkey plot, and apparently his absence, among other reasons, turned Iran into a safe haven for Israeli Mossad agents who launched several sabotage operations and assassinations.

An intelligence source told Iran International that Bazghandi is the man who was in charge of the failed attack against its journalists.

London’s Metropolitan Police formally notified two of our journalists early in November of “imminent, credible and significant risk” to their lives and those of their families. Other staff members were informed directly by the police of separate threats.

The Scotland Yard has also placed armed police forces outside Iran International’s headquarters since mid-November, following further public threats by the Islamic Republic’s authorities – such as the intelligence minister and top Revolutionary Guard’s commanders against the channel.

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Britain’s MI5 said on November 16 that UK authorities have discovered at least 10 “potential threats” since January to “kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime.”

Faced with nationwide antigovernment protests since mid-September, the Islamic Republic has blamed foreign-based Persian broadcasters such as BBC Persian and Iran International of “fomenting unrest”, while all media in the country are under tight government control and present protesters as “rioters” and “terrorists”.

Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib on November 9 said the Islamic Republic regards Iran International as “a terrorist organization,” adding that its workers and anyone affiliated with the channel will be pursued by the Ministry of Intelligence. 

Iran has a long record of targeting dissidents and independent journalists who found refuge in other countries. In the latest example of terror operations abroad, Iranian intelligence abducted dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam who was visiting Iraq in 2019 and took him back to Iran where he was executed in 2020.

In response to questions sent by Iran International, the State Department said that the US is particularly worried about violence in Mahabad, a Kurdish majority city in western Iran. Government security forces escalated violence against protesters in Kurdish majority cities in the region on November 16 and since then more heavily armed units have been deployed to the region.

“Iran's leaders are blaming so-called separatists, and they continue to blame the United States, for the protests unfolding across their country. In fact, Iran's leaders have no one to blame but themselves,” the State Department said in an email.

Since the protests began in mid-September, top officials of the clerical regime have been blaming foreign “enemies” for fomenting the uprising, the biggest since the establishment of the Islamic Republic 43 years ago. After government intelligence and security forces failed to end the unrest, the government began blaming “separatists” for encouraging and supporting the protests and particularly targeted Iranian Kurds.

But the State Department said, “The regime's brutal crackdown, along with years of denying Iranians their human rights and perpetrating state-sponsored violence against women, show that Iran's leaders seem incapable of listening to their own people.”

Activists have called for large protests Thursday across the nation to support the Kurdish cities targeted by military units. Already there have been protests in other cities to condemn the violence. A significant number of Kurds in Iran are Sunnis and this week a prominent Sunni religious leader, Mawlana Abdolhamid of the Sunni Baluch population in southeastern Iran voiced support for them. The Baluch have also also brutally targeted by government forces since September 30.

“We continue to pursue accountability for those involved and support the Iranian people in their pursuit of freedom,” the State Department said.

More uranium enrichment

On the question of Iran expanding its nuclear program by more uranium enrichment at a new atomic site, the department said the US is aware of Iran’s claims that it is enriching at 60-percent and already has a large stockpile of highly enriched fissile material “for which it has no credible civilian use.”

After 18 months of negotiations to revive the Obama-era nuclear accord known as JCPOA, talks came to an impasse in August, with the US dismissing Iranian demands that it said were outside the JCPOA framework.

Last week the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution that censured Tehran for lack of cooperation with the UN watchdog. Iran responded by threatening “an appropriate response” and later announced it had started enrichment at its Fordow nuclear facility.

“Iran's apparent notion that it could somehow pressure the IAEA or its Member States on the issue of ongoing safeguards investigations into possible undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran by further escalating its uranium enrichment activities is deluded,” the State Department wrote to Iran International.

The dispute with the IAEA concerns undeclared nuclear activities two decades ago, but the international watchdog is demanding clear answers from Tehran. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Thursday that Iran expects the IAEA to shelve its investigation before a deal is made to revive the JCPOA.

“As we have made clear, Iran's continued nuclear escalations are unconstructive, and they will not provide Iran with any leverage,” the State Department told Iran International.