Critical Inequalities In Internet Access In Iran Revealed

During a meeting with Japan’s ambassador to Iran Aikawa Kazutoshi, Kamal Kharrazi, the head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations and a foreign policy advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said that the best way to resolve the territorial dispute between Japan and Russia over the four islands is through “direct negotiations.”

At the end of World War II, Russia annexed the Kuril Islands in the Pacific Ocean to its territory, but Japan calls these islands the Northern Territory and considers them “occupied by Russia.”

Talking about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the possible consequences of the crisis for Japan and its surrounding environment, the Japanese envoy said that since the war has started, Russia has halted bilateral negotiations with Japan regarding the occupation of the Kuril Islands.

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Kharrazi stated that as a matter of principle, Tehran is against any military intervention and violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries, and the best solution is bilateral talks to resolve the Kuril islands dispute.

This was exactly the position Russia took last week regarding three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf contested by the United Arab Emirates.

In a joint Russia-GCC statement at a meeting, held in Moscow on July 10, Russia voiced support for the UAE's demand to hold talks about sovereignty over Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa Iranian islands.

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The statement called for "bilateral negotiations or the International Court of Justice, in accordance with the rules of international law and the United Nations Charter, to resolve this issue in accordance with international legitimacy".

Iranian media, opposition activists and ordinary Iranians were outraged over Moscow’s move and viewed the regime’s reactions not strong enough.

Qasem Mohebbali, a former senior diplomat who headed the Middle East division of the foreign ministry, criticized the regime’s pro-Russia and anti-West foreign policy as the reason why Iran’s allies are teaming up with its regional rivals, noting that Russia and China believe that no matter what they say or do, Tehran will continue to support them over Ukraine, Tibet and Taiwan.

Mohebbali said that China and Russia care more about their relations with Arab countries than with Iran. “Apparently, Iran's friends do not pay much attention to Iran's demands and pay more attention to the rivals’ [Arab] demands,” he said.

In its Thursday edition, conservative newspaper Jomhouri Eslami wrote in a strongly worded editorial: "This is not going to be Russia's last treason against Iran." The daily added: "Foreign Ministry officials should not think that this episode will end by summoning Russia's ambassador. We need an essential revision of our political relations with Russia and forcing Russian statesmen to regret their treason against the Iranian nation."

Asked why Moscow undermined Iran's territorial integrity," international relations analyst Mehdi Motaharnia told Khabar Online that "Russia wishes to put an end to its isolation by sacrificing Iran's interests." Meanwhile, he called Iranian officials' mild reaction "a withdrawal from revolutionary positions."

The Foreign Ministry summoned Russia's ambassador and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdolahian and government spokesman Ali Bahadori wrote in separate tweets that "Iran will not compromise over its national interests and territorial integrity." However, Tehran’s official reaction to Russia has been meek. Social media users said officials had indeed made a compromise by not naming Russia in their tweets.

Vowing “a strong response” to such moves, foreign ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani said that Iran “views the interference of any party, including the UAE and Russia, as unacceptable and rejects it.

The United Arab Emirates has repeatedly laid claim to the islands, describing the situation as “the continued occupation by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The three islands fell under British control in 1921 but on November 30, 1971, a day after British forces left the region and just two days before the UAE was to become an official federation, Mohammad Reza Shah sent the Iranian navy to secure all three. Iranian forces remain on the islands, with only Abu Musa having a civilian population which is less than two thousand.

The group of teachers launched a campaign on Friday to collect 100,000 signatures calling for the release of detained educators and an end to their harassment.

Esmail Abdi, a teachers’ union leader who has been in prison since 2015 backed the initiative by sending a message from jail. He said that the extent of repression against teachers has expanded in recent years.

Teachers' Unions of Tehran, Markazi, North Khorasan, Kordestan, and Eslamshahr have also supported the campaign.

In a statement they said the Islamic Republic's security and judicial institutions have issued long-term prison sentences for protesting teachers in various provinces, while hundreds of others have been dismissed or forced into early retirement.

Last week, 1,200 teachers sent a letter to the heads of the three branches of government asking them to release detained union activists and end harassment by security forces, claiming the Judiciary continues to fabricate legal cases against union members. However, the president and the head of the judiciary refused to accept the letter.

Teachers maintain that they have pursued their demands through peaceful and legal means for two decades, but the Islamic Republic has always dealt with them through force and intimidation.

Teachers have been demanding higher wages and pensions for years, one of the lowest paid government employees. In the 2010s, government appointed officials embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars from their pension fund, without any serious consequences.

Tavakoli is a student leader, human rights activist, and political prisoner and was arrested at least three times by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence during the student protests over the disputed Presidential Election of 2009.

Charges include espionage and creating propaganda against the state.

In response to allegations that he cross-dressed as a disguise to avoid arrest, a campaign protesting his imprisonment featured men posting photos of themselves wearing hijab.

He was arrested again during the Iranian protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in September.

Tavakoli announced the news if his sentence on Twitter and said in addition to his prison sentence he has received a two year ban on online activities, a two year ban from staying in Tehran, and a two year travel ban.

“This verdict is issued only because of my writings in the last few years. Due to my insistence on independent activity, there is no evidence of such activities or connection with the hostile government,” read his tweet.

It is all too common for activists to be falsely accused of such charges of espionage and colluding with foreign groups, for which the regime justifies they pay a heavy price in its brutal jails.

Speaking to Dideban-e Iran news website Monday, lawyer and women’s rights activist Shima Ghoosheh said the new move smacks of wartime measures.

“We can’t send a judge to make a ruling there and then and carry out the law. This is in opposition with all of the principles of human rights, rights of defendants, due process and logical principles that any rational person abides by,” she said.

“I’m not sure if they even have as many judges as they have patrol vans, or if they can hold field courts inside these vans. We don’t even have something as a field court [in Iranian laws],” she said.

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The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) linked Tasnim news agency reported the news of the standby judges, in place to decide whether women who have refused to abide by the compulsory hijab rules on the streets should be detained or could be released with only a verbal warning. 

Iran's hijab police street patrols have again appeared in the streets of Tehran and some other larger cities after months of laying low, for the fear of igniting another round of anti-regime protests. But their comeback has once again roused fear and hatred on Iran’s streets.

The death of a young Kurd, Mahsa (Jina) Amini, in the custody of morality police in September, sparked nationwide protests that lasted several months. The 22-year-old had received fatal blows to the head at the time of her arrest.

Hundreds were killed and thousands were arrested by security forces during the protests which somehow subsided after around four months. Since then, however, many women have chosen to disobey the rules of compulsory hijab and also as a means of demonstrating their opposition to the regime.

Former reformist lawmaker, Fatemeh Rakei, said the reappearance of the morality police defies logic, given the controversy which ensued following the death of young Amini. She called the body an “illegal entity” in an article she penned in the Etemad newspaper.

Rakei who has always worn the hijab, also pointed out that many Iranian citizens, including women who wear the hijab by choice, as well as religious men, are opposed to forcing the hijab and religion on people and warned that the return of morality police patrol could cause tension amid ever worsening economic hardships once again.

The mass wave of hijab refusal has left the regime at a loss. In spite of brutal crackdowns, women continue to walk in public places uncovered, in defiance of the mandatory rules which have been in place since the Islamic Republic was declared in 1979.

Hardliners have been using a language of both threats and supplication about the ever-increasing defiance. Speaking at an event Monday, IRGC Commander Hossein Salami continued to push the morality argument, associating uncovered women with the likes of prostitutes and ‘loose women’. 

“When Islam spreads in neighborhoods, hijab and chastity will too. And our virtuous and pure women who have come under the enemy’s propaganda, will return [to abide with the compulsory hijab rules],” he said.

According to Kayhan newspaper, affiliated with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's office, President Raisi is working on “extraterritorial cultivation, export of products such as drones and cars, petrochemical products, as well as technical exports".

The latest revelations will come as no shock, the barter deals of the heavily sanctioned regime the only way it can muddle through its current crisis, calling in favors from its dictatorial allies around the world from South America to Africa.

Iran has been providing drones to guerrilla groups across the Middle East for decades, and most recently, has supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine with hundreds of Shahed drones used in large scale missile attacks.

Only in March, Omar Hilal, Morocco’s ambassador to the United Nations, warned: “Iran, after undermining the stability of Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon, is in the process of destabilizing our region."

Concerns for Iran's involvement in Africa are also high. In October, the US State Department said Iran sent Ethiopia armed drones in the summer of 2021 in violation of a standing UN Security Council resolution.

The United States and its European allies have imposed a series of sanctions on Iranian individuals and companies involved with the drone program and shipments of the weapon to Russia.

Iran first denied it had supplied the drones but in early November foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian admitted the deliveries, while claiming they were sent before the Russian invasion.