Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Eye on Iran: Former U.S. Hostages Angry About New Iran U.N. Envoy Appointee








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Reuters: "Former U.S. embassy workers held hostage in Iran from 1979 to 1981 are outraged that Tehran has selected a new U.N. envoy who may have played a role in the 444-day crisis and want him barred from U.S. territory, lawyers for the ex-hostages said on Monday. The fact that Hamid Abutalebi, a veteran diplomat who has held key European postings in the past, has been selected by President Hassan Rouhani as Iran's new ambassador to the United Nations has been well known among U.N. delegations for months. But his potential role in the hostage crisis, first reported by Bloomberg News over the weekend, has led some former hostages to call on the administration of President Barack Obama to reject his diplomatic visa application. 'It's a disgrace if the USG (U.S. government) accepts Abutalebi's visa as Iranian Ambassador to the U.N.,' former hostage Barry Rosen said in a statement provided to Reuters by Alan Madison, spokesman for and member of the legal team representing the former hostages in their compensation claims. 'It may be a precedent but if the President and the Congress don't condemn this act by the Islamic Republic, then our captivity and suffering for 444 days at the hands of Iran was for nothing,' he said. 'He can never set foot on American soil.'" http://t.uani.com/1dK9U30

Bloomberg: "Families and victims of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people were awarded $907 million in compensation by a U.S. judge. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates in Washington awarded the damages March 28, based on formulas that included $3 million for emotional injuries, $5 million for severe physical injuries, and $7 million or more for those blinded and made quadriplegics, according to court papers and a statement by plaintiffs' attorney Thomas Fay. The governments of Iran and Sudan were sued by survivors under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and accused of helping terrorists produce 'calculated mayhem' that killed hundreds and injured thousands, Fay said today in the statement... In the August 1998 attacks, embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, more than 224 people died, including 12 U.S. citizens. The judge cited Iran and Sudan 'for their roles in supporting, funding and otherwise carrying out these unconscionable acts' in simultaneous suicide bombings." http://t.uani.com/1lkWees

NYDN: "The Iranian companies that own a Midtown office tower worth more than $500 million must forfeit the building to people who successfully sued Iran for damages over terrorist attacks, including 9/11, a judge has ruled. In a written opinion Friday, Manhattan Federal Judge Katherine Forrest said the companies must hand over the building because they acted as fronts for the Iranian government and therefore 'are' the government of Iran under certain federal laws. In a separate but related decision in September, Forrest said the feds have the right to seize the building, 650 Fifth Ave., partly due to money laundering acts. It's unclear how the various claims to the property will be sorted out. The terrorism victims are staking claim to the building because a different federal judge, George Daniels, in 2012 ordered Iran, Hezbollah, Osama Bin Laden and others to pay them more than $6 billion in damages. Daniels, in a default judgment in 2011, found Iran and other parties liable for the 9/11 attacks." http://t.uani.com/1dKcaqV
      
Syria Conflict

NPR: "But the U.S. isn't the only country that's faced difficult choices over Syria. Iran and Syria have been close allies for decades. And in Iran, discussions about Syria are surprisingly frank, complex and demonstrate growing divisions over how to handle a costly war that has no end in sight. At Tehran University, students of international relations study the Syria-Iran alliance, one of the most enduring in the region. Yet there are now more questions about Iran's recent role in the Syrian bloodshed... Iran is reportedly spending billions to prop up Syrian President Bashar Assad. Saudi Arabia backs the rebels... Iranian student activists and a Facebook page in Farsi and English last month to promote news from Syria for Iranians. 'The Iranian regime is supporting a dictator hated by most Syrians,' reads the founding statement on the site, 'and is wasting economic resources desperately needed by Iranians at home.'" http://t.uani.com/1iVLJgU

Human Rights

Reuters: "Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been summoned by Iran's Intelligence Ministry for questioning, her husband's Facebook page said, days after a video of her voicing support for what she called prisoners of conscience was posted online. Reza Khandan, Sotoudeh's husband, said his wife had ignored the summons, made in a telephone call on Sunday, because she considered it 'illegal'. Sotoudeh was freed from several years in prison in September shortly before President Hassan Rouhani's visited the United Nations, in what was seen at the time as a sign that his election would usher in a new era of political freedom. In March, however, the United Nations said his administration had only taken small steps to improve human rights. The U.N special rapporteur for human rights said almost 900 political prisoners were being held. In a Facebook posting on Monday, Khandan wrote that the Intelligence Ministry had called Sotoudeh while they were on a family trip in the province of Khuzestan. 'Since the phone call was illegal, they ignored the summons and went horseback riding instead,' Khandan said, referring to Sotoudeh and their host, who he did not identify." http://t.uani.com/1mvx8d1

AFP: "An Iranian film director is to held a private screening of his latest movie on Saturday to raise funds to save the life of a 26-year-old on death row. Mostafa Kiaei, director of 'Special Line', said he had learnt by accident of the young man's case and wanted to help raise the 'blood money' to be paid to the family of a murder victim. 'I didn't know the convict before and I learned about the case through a contact in the judiciary,' Kiaei told AFP. According to Mehr news agency, the unnamed convict and two of his friends were involved in a street fight which led to the murder, but he did not kill the victim. The case became more complicated after his accomplices died in a car accident, leaving him the only person accountable for paying the blood money. The convict has been in jail for the past seven years." http://t.uani.com/1dKaldy

Commerce

Trend: "Iran, Afghanistan and India are set to sign a memorandum of understanding which will give Kabul access to India via Iran's southern Chabahar Port, a senior Afghan official said. Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Shakib Mostaghni said Afghanistan will connect to India via Iran in the near future, Iranian IRNA news agency reported on March 31. He went on to say that the memorandum's text has been submitted to Indian officials to be studied... India's ambassador to Iran, Shri D.P. Srivstava, who was present in the meeting, said that an Indian private company is ready to establish a direct shipping link between Chabahar and the Indian ports in order to bypass Dubai, where Indian container ships have to cross to reach Iran." http://t.uani.com/1gkKTWu

Domestic Politics

Trend: "The Statistics Center of Iran on March 30 reported that the country's point-to-point inflation in the 12th calendar month of the previous year (February 20 - March 20) decreased by 2.4 percent compared to its previous month, Iran's Fars News Agency reported... Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on March 29 that the country's inflation rate is projected to drop to 25 percent by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2015), Iran's Arsh news website reported. 'Improving relations with foreign countries may even cause the figure to fall below 25 percent,' he explained... The Statistics Center of Iran on March 1 put the 12-month and the point-to-point inflation rates for the eleventh Iranian calendar month of Bahman (January 21 - February 19) at 33.7 percent and 22 percent, respectively, Iran's Mehr News Agency reported." http://t.uani.com/1gXPhRj

Opinion & Analysis

Eric Shawn in Fox News: "Former American hostage Barry Rosen, held by student extremists at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for more than a year, said Monday it would be an 'outrage' and 'disgrace' if Washington gave a visa to one of the militants recently named by Iran as its new U.N. ambassador. 'It may be a precedent but if the president and the Congress don't condemn this act by the Islamic Republic, then our captivity and suffering for 444 days at the hands of Iran was for nothing,' Rosen said. 'He can never set foot on American soil.' Iran wants to send Hamid Aboutalebi to New York as its new U.N. ambassador. He may be a 56-year-old veteran diplomat, but it turns out that Aboutalebi was apparently a member of the hard-line Muslim student group that in 1979 took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran for 444 days and held American diplomats hostage. 'It's a disgrace if the United States government accepts Aboutalebi's visa as Iranian Ambassador to the U.N.,' Rosen said. Rosen was the embassy's press attaché, who was blindfolded and held at gunpoint, along with 51 fellow Americans taken hostage. In a statement to Fox News, Rosen demanded that the Obama administration deny a visa to Aboutalebi to prevent him from taking up Tehran's U.N. post. U.S. State Department spokesperson Marie Harf did not indicate if the administration intends to bar Aboutalebi from the country by refusing to issue him a visa. 'The visa procedure is obviously confidential, we don't discuss individual visa cases. People are free to apply for one and their visas are adjudicated under the normal procedures that we adjudicate peoples', and we don't make a prediction about what the outcome of that process might look like,' she said. 'This is a thumb in the eye of the United States,' charged former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. 'This is really Iran's ambassador in America since they have no direct diplomatic ties, and I think that it is intended to show that this regime, despite some of the p.r. moves we've heard about it, is still the same fundamentally anti-American regime it's been since 1979.' Under existing U.N. agreements, it appears that the White House may have its hands tied in trying to stop Aboutalebi from representing the Islamic Republic of Iran. The U.N.-U.S. host country agreement generally only allows the U.S. government to reject a diplomat's visa if the subject presents a national security risk to the United States. Sources say officials are exploring their options on whether it could be legal to bar Aboutalebi. 'Personally I think Iran should either be expelled or suspended under the U.N. charter because it is not a peace loving state,' Bolton said. 'I have no hesitation at all in saying we should deny a visa to this individual. There is no chance the Obama administration will do that because they'll fear its consequences for the nuclear negotiations.' Iranian officials have not responded to Fox News' request for comment on their selection. Aboutalebi has told the Iranian news media that while he was not a part of the initial violent takeover of the embassy, he admitted serving as an interpreter during a news conference for some of the freed hostages. He also said that he was a translator. He was 22 years old at the time. Since then, he has served extensively in the foreign service in a variety of high-profile posts. He was Iran's Ambassador to Australia, Belgium, Italy, and the European Union. He has also been the political director general of the Foreign Ministry. 'For the past 15 years, I have been an ambassador to many Western countries that are very close to the U.S., from Europe to Australia, and have always been dealing with the West,' Aboutalebi told the website Khabar Online. 'Even in 1994 when I traveled to the US as a member of our country's delegation at the U.N. General Assembly for a while, no questions [about my past] ever come up.'" http://t.uani.com/1gXRrjV

Olivier Guitta in the National Post: "While the international community has been focusing on a potential Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, another much larger issue looms, and should be tackled very urgently. But interestingly, except for a few concerned neighbours in the Gulf, nobody is really looking at the possible implications of a potential earthquake in Bushehr, where Iran's oldest and main nuclear plant is located. Bushehr, a city of over a million people in southeast Iran, sits in one of the most active seismic regions in the world, at the intersection of three tectonic plates. Building a nuclear plant in this area should have been a no-no, but construction started in 1975 with the help of Germany. It was stopped in 1979, right before the Revolution that unseated the Shah. It was resumed in 1996 with Russian assistance. The project took over 15 years to complete because of the very difficult technical issues of merging German and Russian technology. After Russia provided necessary nuclear fuel, the plant went operational in July 2013. The safety issues concerning the plant are numerous: It is built with a 40-year-old design that has shown its limitations; the emergency coolant system is also 30 years old; it is running on two different technologies; according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the staff is not properly trained to face any kind of accident. In February, 2011, a broken water pump caused small metallic pieces to infiltrate the reactor cooling system, forcing the unloading of the fuel rods. When you couple all this with the fact that Iran is the only nuclear-operating country that has not signed any of the major international safety conventions, one should be very worried about a possible Fukushima-style accident. Indeed, in May, 2011, Iranian scientists themselves concluded this, in a report that was subsequently leaked. The design of the plant, and the competence of its staff, are not the only issues. It is situated in a zone that has experienced several deadly and very intense earthquakes - including as recently as April of last year. A 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Bushehr; luckily the plant was not online at the time." http://t.uani.com/1heMk9f

Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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