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Top Stories
Reuters:
"The United States has blacklisted two companies it says helped Iran
evade sanctions on oil sales and slapped penalties on four Tehran-based
firms it says helped the Islamic Republic enrich uranium, the latest
efforts to pressure Iran's nuclear program. 'As long as Iran tries to
evade our sanctions, we will continue to expose their deceptive
maneuvers,' David Cohen, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial
intelligence at the Treasury Department said in a news release. The
Treasury Department said on Thursday it blacklisted Sambouk Shipping FZC,
a United Arab Emirates based company it says is tied to Dimitris Cambis,
a Greek businessman the department recently sanctioned. The Treasury
imposed sanctions on Cambis in March, saying he secretly operated a
shipping network on behalf of Tehran to evade sanctions on Iran's oil
sales. On Thursday the department said Cambis used the recently formed
Sambouk Shipping to manage eight vessels he operates on behalf of the
National Iranian Tanker Company. The ships have been used to execute
ship-to-ship transfers of Iranian oil in the Persian Gulf intended to
obscure the origin of the oil, it said." http://t.uani.com/15TLcbD
AFP:
"The US Treasury Department on Thursday announced sanctions on a
former Iranian-Venezuelan bank it said is being used to avoid
restrictions placed earlier on other Iranian institutions. The US
Treasury said that the Tehran-based Iranian Venezuelan Bi-National Bank
(IVB) was providing financial services to the Iranian Ministry of Defense
and acting on behalf of the Export Development Bank of Iran. Both the
ministry and the EDBI are already under US sanctions for alleged support
of terrorism and backing Iran's suspected effort to develop nuclear
weapons. The Treasury said the IVB had handled money transfers on EDBI's
behalf with a Chinese bank, Bank of Kunlun, itself also blacklisted by
the Treasury for its dealings with Tehran. The Treasury noted that
despite its name, 'there is no evidence Venezuela retains any ties' with
the four-year-old IVB, originally established as a joint venture between
Iran and Venezuela." http://t.uani.com/12iPlBi
RFE/RL:
"Prominent Iranian union leader Mansur Osanlu, who recently fled
that country, has told RFE/RL that death threats from inside government
security circles drove him out of Iran. Osanlu, who is described by some
as 'Iran's Lech Walesa' after the labor leader who helped bring free
trade unions and, ultimately, democracy to Poland, was speaking by phone
from Turkey in one of his first media interviews since arriving there
months ago. He warned that the atmosphere in the Islamic republic is
becoming more repressive 'day by day.' The president of the Syndicate of
Workers of Tehran and Suburb Bus Company told RFE/RL that he had upset
authorities recently because he had increased his organizing
activities." http://t.uani.com/179dvlY
Terrorism
Bloomberg:
"A Tunisian linked to the man accused of an al-Qaeda-supported plot
to derail a Canadian passenger train was charged by the U.S. with visa
fraud to facilitate an act of international terrorism. The Tunisian,
Ahmed Abassi, traveled in mid-March from Canada to the U.S., where he met
with Chiheb Esseghaier, who was arrested last month by Canadian
authorities in the train plot, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said
today in a statement. Esseghaier was charged with planning to derail a
VIA Rail train in an attack authorities said was supported by al-Qaeda
members in Iran." http://t.uani.com/16lYjlw
Domestic
Politics
Reuters:
"An adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei joined
the presidential race on Friday, with authorities keen to make the June
vote a peaceful contrast to the upheaval that followed the disputed 2009
poll. Reformist groups have been suppressed or sidelined since then and
the next president is likely to be picked from among a handful of
politicians known for fealty to Khamenei, minimizing the chances of
political rifts leading to post-election chaos. Lawmaker and former
parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel registered to run, state news
agency IRNA reported, becoming the first of a trio of Khamenei loyalists
to do so... Allied with Haddad-Adel are former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar
Velayati and Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf - Iranian media say two
of them will step aside later in favor of whoever appears to have the
best chance of winning the election." http://t.uani.com/ZNbWCX
AP:
"When many struggling families in this eastern Iranian city take
stock of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's legacy, it's not about
the oratory full of bluster and menace or his tussles with Iran's ruling
clerics that are known to much of the world. What matters more here are
the dusty rows of government-subsidized, two-story apartment buildings on
the outskirts of the once-neglected outpost - testament to an effective
populist outreach that has won the president millions of loyal backers in
the provinces. That support could give him influence beyond next month's
election to pick his successor, underscoring how public opinion is
relevant in Iran despite the heavy hand of clerical rule." http://t.uani.com/15vJMUM
Bloomberg:
"As more than 190 candidates signed up to stand in Iran's
presidential election for a successor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, media
attention is focusing on a potential runner who hasn't registered.
Ex-President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's family and supporters sent
out mixed signals about whether he's preparing to put his name forward.
Rafsanjani, one of Iran's best-connected politicians, has allies among
conservatives while he also expressed sympathy with the opposition that
emerged in 2009 during post-vote protests. Effat Marashi, Rafsanjani's
wife, said yesterday that her husband will 'definitely' not take part in
the race, according to Tehran-based daily Shargh. In Etemaad newspaper,
though, his brother Mohammad Hashemi was quoted as saying that the
chances of a bid have increased 'following requests made to him,' even
though Rafsanjani had been set on staying out of the race." http://t.uani.com/10fNMnF
Foreign Affairs
Reuters:
"Iran has recalled its ambassador to Cyprus for consultations after
an Iranian national was recently extradited from the island to the United
States on suspicion of violating U.N. arms sanctions, Cyprus's foreign
minister said on Thursday. 'Only today ... I received word from Nicosia
that Iran has decided to recall its ambassador there for consultations.
Why? Because an Iranian citizen was apprehended for trying to buy, to
contravene the arms embargo against Iran,' Ioannis Kasoulides told a
conference in Washington. A diplomatic source in Nicosia said the Iranian
was ordered to be extradited to the United States by a court 'after
exhaustion of all domestic legal remedies in Cyprus' about two weeks
ago." http://t.uani.com/197N2lp
Opinion &
Analysis
Sohrab Ahmari in
WSJ: "It's presidential election season in Iran, but
as this newspaper has reported there is little public enthusiasm in the
Islamic Republic for the June 14 vote. That's not surprising given that
most of the figures looking to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fall in the
usual spectrum between the truly tyrannical-the members of the 'principlist'
faction-and the relatively less tyrannical-also known as the
'reformists.' But one candidate is bucking this trend and promises to be
the must-watch maverick in the race. Zahra, a 52-year-old Muslim woman
from Tehran, is running on a human-rights platform that emphasizes 'the
dignity of every life.' Zahra says she's running for president to hold
accountable the clerical regime for its crimes. OK, so Zahra isn't a real
candidate. Iran's unelected Guardian Council bars anyone who isn't a male
Shiite with irreproachable 'revolutionary' credentials from running for
president, so even if she were a real person, she wouldn't stand a chance
against the mullahs. Zahra is the brainchild of Amir Soltani, an
Iranian-American writer based in Berkeley, Calif., and the author of
'Zahra's Paradise,' a 2011 graphic novel about a mother's search for her
missing son during the uprising and crackdown that followed Iran's last
presidential election in 2009. Mr. Soltani says the character was
inspired by a YouTube video he saw of a real-life Iranian mother about to
bury her son, a pro-democracy student who died under suspicious
circumstances while detained by security forces in 2009. 'On her face you
could see the distillation of the experience of the Iranian people over the
past three decades,' Mr. Soltani tells me. 'Sorrow, rage, confusion but
also courage.' He was especially struck by that last attribute: the
resilience of the Iranian spirit in the face of theocratic dictatorship.
As the Islamic Republic prepares for another round of voting, Mr. Soltani
felt compelled to put Zahra forward 'as a protest candidate to highlight
the fact that Iran's elections are a sham,' he says. True, Zahra can't be
registered officially as a candidate, but thanks to the Internet,
Iranians inside and outside the country can meet her virtually at www.vote4zahra.org and compare her
plank with those offered by the regime-sanctioned candidates. The website
isn't blocked in Iran-yet-and chronicles, graphic-novel style, Zahra's
campaign. ('I'd knock off Khamenei's turban!' Zahra's zany best friend
tells her in one panel)." http://t.uani.com/197TDMX
Lloyd Axworthy in
Globe & Mail: "Iran acquiring nuclear arms is a
genuine threat to Middle East stability. There is a quieter story that
isn't a mere threat, but a reality: The government's violation of the
human rights of so many Iranian citizens with impunity. Too few know that
Canada has led a firm resolution at the United Nations General Assembly
for more than a decade denouncing Iran's human rights record. Before
that, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a similar resolution from
1984-2001. Canada has led the world in defending the human rights of the
people of Iran since the early days of the Iranian Revolution. We were
the first to raise our voice in June, 1980, with an all-party resolution
of the House of Commons, and resolutions in other countries around the
world followed. A litmus test to judge Iran's record has been the
treatment afforded to its largest non-Muslim religious community, the Baha'is.
The record was appalling in the early '80s when more than 200 leading
members of the community were summarily executed or 'disappeared.' Canada
responded, while I served as Minister of Employment and Immigration, with
a refugee program that enriched this country by welcoming several
thousand Iranian Baha'is. Lately the record of Iran has worsened - for
religious and ethnic minorities, students, journalists, women, and labour
leaders - and once again for the Baha'is, who provide a clear measure of just
how deplorable the state of human rights is in Iran. Five years ago this
month, seven Baha'i leaders were wrongfully imprisoned and given 20-year
sentences - the longest of any current prisoners of conscience. Five
years are too many. I join many others around the world in calling for
their immediate release." http://t.uani.com/179kKdO
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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