US Envoy Meets Family Of Prisoner Sentenced To Death In Iran

According to a report by local media on Friday, the joint electronic warfare exercise was initiated by the Islamic Republic Army. The exercise involves practical evaluation and training of various stationary, mobile, ground-based, and aerial electronic warfare systems.

Units from the Navy, Ground Forces, Air Force, as well as air defense participated in this exercise, which took place primarily in a desert region.

The IRIB news agency wrote, "Electronic defense systems stationed in the exercise area successfully executed non-lethal defense operations and electronic protection against unmanned aerial vehicles and small attacking drones."

A day before this exercise, Habibollah Sayyari, the Deputy Coordinator of the Army, stated, "Given the importance of electronic warfare in today's battles and its significant role in future conflicts, special attention to electronic warfare technologies… have been on the agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army in recent years."

This exercise takes place at a time when Iran's nuclear sites located in central areas of the country have been targeted by drone attacks in the past years.

In February, The Wall Street Journal, in an exclusive report quoting American officials and individuals, attributed a drone attack on a defense ministry complex in Esfahan to Israel.

While the Islamic Republic has been supplying drones to Russia for use in attacks on Ukraine, the spokesperson of the Ukrainian Air Force also declared at that time that the drone attack on military installations in Esfahan was a consequence of the policies of the Islamic Republic.

Washington has been publicly demanding that Iran should stop providing military drones to Russia and scale down its bilateral military cooperation.

"There are no changes, and cooperation with Iran will continue," Ryabkov said, according to a report on Saturday from Russian state news agency RIA. "We are independent states and do not succumb to the dictates of the United States and its satellites."

The US is pressing Iran to stop selling the armed drones, which Russia is using in the war in Ukraine, the Financial Times reported earlier this month, citing an Iranian official and another person familiar with the talks.

Russia began using the Iranian-made Shahed drones to attack deep inside Ukraine last year. The so-called kamikaze unmanned drones do not need a runway to launch and explode on impact. Ukraine has learned to shoot down most of the unmanned aerial vehicles but Russia has been using them in conjunction with ballistic and cruise missiles to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses.

Iran has acknowledged sending drones to Russia but said in the past they were sent before Russia's February 2022 invasion in Ukraine. Moscow has denied its forces used Iranian drones in Ukraine.

However, Russia has used hundreds of the Iranian drones and Ukraine has reported regular deliveries reaching Russia.

A White House official said in June that Iran had transferred several hundred drones to Russia since August 2022.

The rallies were held outside the provincial offices of the bar associations in several provinces this week. Expressing their objections, attorneys at these protests described the measure as "contrary to the fundamental rights of the people and in violation of the independence of the Bar Association.” 

They also urged the Guardian Council – a constitutional 12-member council that wields veto power over legislation passed by the parliament -- to annul the decision. They also called on the heads of the three branches of Iran’s government – administration, judiciary and legislative – to review the newly approved resolution. 

On August 21, lawmakers passed a new bill that compels bar associations to comply with the decisions of the Regulatory Board of the Ministry of Economy, practically turning them into government subsidiaries. The new law also prohibits annulment of the Regulatory Board’s decisions in the Administrative Justice Court. 

The resolution also grants authority to the Ministry of Economy for issuing, extending, and revoking attorney licenses. Outraged over the measure, Iranian lawyers say the move runs contrary to international legal norms and existing regulations. 

The parliament’s resolution also tasks the Economy Ministry to draft new monitoring regulations to assess the performance of lawyers in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary. Another clause of the resolution mandates the ministry to establish a "system for assessing the commitment and effectiveness of lawyers by clients" and publish the "results of each lawyer's assessment by previous clients" to the public. 

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The resolution coincided with intensified measures by the regime to discourage possible protests ahead of the anniversary of last year’s nationwide uprising, ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. More than 500 protesters were killed and over 22,000 were arrested during the regime’s crackdown. Although protesters were given harsh sentences and were denied legal representation and due process in most cases, independent lawyers were the only hope of the prisoners, making their voices heard in Iran and abroad. 

Bar associations, as a long-standing professional and legal institution in Iran, has consistently encountered pressures from governmental bodies and the judiciary, gradually losing its autonomy and authority through the enactment of various laws. 

In June 2021, President Ebrahims Raisi introduced another set of regulations to restrict the bar associations in his last weeks as chief justice. In May 2020, over 12,000 legal practitioners in a letter to Raisi protested another set of regulations as "devastating” for bar associations and distorting “the procedures of fair legal investigations." 

After the establishment of the Islamic Republic the existing Bar Association was closed down and many top attorneys were persecuted. In 1997, parliament passed the Law on Conditions for Lawyerhood Licenses, allowing the reopening of bar associations in all provinces with members required to profess belief and “practical commitment" to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism or Christianity. 

Dadban, a group of pro-bono lawyers in Iran defending political prisoners and rights activists, reported Thursday several cases of “increasing pressure on lawyers ahead of the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini's murder and the beginning of the Women, Life, Freedom movement.” It said the intelligence organization of the Judiciary has summoned several lawyers in the past few days and seeks to revoke the licenses of many others. Iran has several parallel intelligence organizations.

In addition to the ongoing protest rallies, an online campaign against the resolution has garnered about 20,000 signatures in less than 48 hours after its launch, calling for amendments to “the new regulations that contradict the principles of the Constitution and Islamic Sharia law.” 

Ali Mandanipour, the former head of the National Union of Iranian Bar Associations – which includes the Central Bar Association (Tehran Bar Association) as well as 15 regional bar associations – issued an open letter to the heads of government branches, calling the new resolution as the final nail in the coffin of bar associations in Iran. 

The electronic warfare drills -- codenamed Separ-e Hafezan-e Velayat 1402 (Shield of Velayat's Guardians 1402) -- involved various units from the military's navy, ground and air forces as well as air defenses and was staged in the central, largely desert region of the country.

The state broadcaster said that the exercises featured domestically manufactured radars, drones, manned and unmanned fighter jets, micro aerial vehicles and other military equipment as the country seeks to assess the performance and effectiveness of various fixed, mobile, ground-based and airborne electronic warfare systems.

“The army has the appropriate infrastructure, and we have achieved favorable results in countering threats in today’s world and predicting future threats in this sensitive and complicated arena,” said Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, the deputy chief of the army’s coordination department.

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According to Friday's statement by the Army, various tactics and operations have been carried out during the drill, including identifying radio and data link communications, execution of group attack operations by micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) against targets, electronic operations to protect radars, and ground-based electronic operations to disrupt and deceive enemy radar systems.

Iran has recently unveiled a series of what it called new maritime weapons and an upgraded drone earlier this month as Washington appeared to be increasing pressure on Tehran.

Earlier in the month, the Biden administration signaled that it may soon offer to put armed sailors and Marines on commercial ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Pentagon last month had already sent additional F-35 and F-16 fighter jets along with a warship to the Middle East in a bid to monitor key waterways in the region following Iran's seizure and harassment of commercial vessels.

The Follow-up Committee of Iranian Detainees, an independent organization monitoring the status of protesters arrested during anti-regime rallies across the country, reported that the prisoners linked to the death of Basij member Rouhollah Ajamian were subjected to brutal methods. These methods included hanging them for extended periods while their hands and feet were cuffed behind their backs.

While earlier reports hinted at torture and forced confessions, this recent disclosure reveals the extent of the abuse. A source close to the accused in the case revealed that the torture had persisted for over a month. It involved methods such as mock executions, electric shocks, punches, kicks, and prolonged beatings.

Iran executed Mohammad-Mehdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini in January, and this week the country's Supreme Court upheld harsh sentences for several other protesters allegedly involved in the killing of the Basij agent during antigovernment demonstrations near the capital Tehran in October.

Fourteen protestors faced trial in the case, with some receiving sentences of up to 15 years, which has been criticized by human rights advocates. "On the day the sentences were issued, everyone was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and five were sentenced to death," the committee cited an informed source as saying.

According to the rights group, Karami and Hosseini were told they had been pardoned just one day before their execution.