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UN:
"United Nations human rights experts today expressed grave concern
over the recent escalating trend of arrest and sentencing of
individuals exercising their rights to freedom of expression and
opinion, peaceful assembly and association. Since 22 May 2014, at least
36 individuals that include journalists, bloggers, filmmakers and
authors, many of whom are also human rights activists, have been
arrested summoned or sentenced in connection with their journalistic
activities or for simply expressing their opinion on social media
websites. Some of them have also been charged for 'gathering and
colluding against national security' following their participation in
peaceful assemblies. 'Convicting individuals for expressing their
opinion is absolutely unacceptable,' the experts stressed. 'Freedom of
expression and opinion is necessary for the realization of all human
rights, and it is a right reserved for all individuals, even if that
individual expresses an opinion with which the Government disagrees.'
... On 22 July 2014, Jason Rezaian, a reporter with the Washington
Post, and his wife Yeganeh Salehi, a correspondent for the United Arab
Emirates newspaper The National, were arrested, along with an
unidentified American-Iranian photo journalist and her husband. Mr. Rezaian
and Ms. Salehi are reportedly held in unknown locations. 'These cases
exemplify the alarming negative trend taking place in Iran. Individuals
and journalists exercising their right to freedom of expression and
opinion must be protected, not arrested and prosecuted,' they
noted." http://t.uani.com/1q4ZfzC
IHR:
"At least 28 people have been executed during the last week,
according to the official and unofficial sources. Four prisoners were
hanged in the prison of Rasht (Northern Iran) yesterday morning August
7, reported the Iranian state media... During the last week there have
been several unofficial reports about executions in the Baluchestan
province (Southeastern Iran). The human rights and democracy activists
in Iran (HRDAI) reported that five prisoners, including a mother and
son, were hanged in the prison of Zahedan yesterday August 7. The son
is identified as 'Osman Dahmardeh' who according to the report was 17
year old (juvenile offender) when he was arrested together with his
mother about 2 years ago." http://t.uani.com/1vxyFY7
Reuters:
"Iran's parliament has voted to ban permanent forms of
contraception, the state news agency IRNA reported, endorsing the
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's call for measures to increase
the population. The bill, banning vasectomies and similar procedures in
women, is parliament's response to a decree Khamenei issued in May
calling for more babies to 'strengthen national identity' and counter
'undesirable aspects of Western lifestyles'. Doctors who violate the
ban will be punishable by law, the ISNA news agency reported. The bill,
approved by 143 out of 231 members present in parliament, according to
IRNA, also bans the advertising of birth control in a country where
condoms had been widely available and family planning considered
entirely normal. The law now goes to the Guardian Council - a panel of
theologians and jurists appointed by the Supreme Leader who examine
whether legislation complies with Islam. It aims to reverse Iran's
declining population, but reformists see the law as part of a drive by
conservatives keep Iran's highly educated female population in
traditional roles as wives and mothers. It also worries health
advocates who fear an increase in illegal abortions." http://t.uani.com/1ymGgoF
Sanctions Relief
Tasnim (Iran):
"Iran's new approach to foreign policy has raised its level at the
international arena, President Hassan Rouhani stressed, and promised
that the country will turn into a major investment center thanks to
interaction with the world. 'Everyone acknowledges that if we take one
or two more steps in the foreign policy, the gates will be completely
opened (to foreign investment), and you will see that Iran will turn
into one of the major investment centers in this region,' Rouhani said
in the province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari on Thursday." http://t.uani.com/VfuNua
Prague Post:
"The Czech Chamber of Commerce (HK) is planning its first-ever
business mission to Iran in September to examine the opportunities that
may arise if the sanctions against Iran are lifted, daily Lidové noviny
(LN) has written. 'We were waiting for the political ice to start
melting,' Josef Novák, general director of the Veba textile maker
taking part in the mission, told the paper. Deputy Foreign Affairs
Minister Martin Tlapa has said Iran is one of the markets thanks to
which Czech exports could ideally be diversified. The Skoda car maker
has also sounded the prospects of its export to Iran, LN said... AZD
Praha, a supplier of transport equipment, has already implemented a
pilot project in Iran: the delivery of safety equipment in the new
railway station on the border with Afghanistan, worth 65 million Kč, LN
writes." http://t.uani.com/1uG8IRX
Terrorism
Al-Monitor:
"The Gaza war has contributed to breaking the ice between
Hezbollah and Hamas after they have been at odds over the Syrian
crisis. During the past three years of severed relations, there has
been no public interaction between the officials of either parties, but
with the Gaza war escalating, the situation has changed. On Aug. 4, Ali
Baraka, a Hamas political official in Lebanon, appeared along with the
vice president of Hezbollah's political office, Mahmoud Qamati, in the
southern suburbs of Beirut on a joint occasion to support the Gaza
Strip... In addition to taking Syria into account, Hezbollah cannot
overlook Iran in this regard. Tehran and Damascus both agreed on
turning their backs on Meshaal, but Iran is leaning toward Hamas due to
strategic interests that guarantee cards for Iran in the Arab-Israeli
conflict - the core of which is the Palestinian cause." http://t.uani.com/1su5VO0
Human Rights
ICHRI:
"Cyber police interrogator Akbar Taghizadeh has been sentenced to
three years in prison, two years in exile, and 74 lashes for the murder
of dissident blogger Sattar Beheshti, who died under torture while in
police detention in November 2012. Giti Pourfazel, the Beheshti family
lawyer, told Iranian Students News Agency that the verdict against
Sattar's killer was not appropriate. 'In a country where journalists
are sentenced to six years in prison, a three-year prison sentence
against a murderer is strange,' she noted. Sattar Beheshti, 35, a
laborer and blogger, was arrested on October 30, 2012, by Iran's Cyber
Police and died under torture by his interrogator on November 3, 2012.
His body was buried at Robat Karim Cemetery near where he lived.
Beheshti's mother, Gohar Eshghi, has objected to the relatively light
sentence. 'On Wednesday afternoon, August 6, news of the sentence was
delivered to us by mail. But we do not accept it. It is dastardly and
unfair,' she told the International Campaign for Human Rights in
Iran." http://t.uani.com/1kWhF9F
Foreign
Affairs
Reuters:
"United Arab Emirates-based energy firm Dana Gas said an
international tribunal had issued a favourable ruling in the dispute
over a natural gas supply contract between its affiliate Crescent
Petroleum and Iran. The tribunal ruled a 25-year contract for National
Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) to supply gas to Crescent was valid and binding
on both parties, and that NIOC has been obligated to deliver gas since
December 2005, Dana said in a statement on Sunday. NIOC and Crescent
signed the 25-year contract in 2001, with the price linked to oil. But
deliveries were delayed as oil prices rose and some officials and
politicians in Iran called for a revision to the gas pricing formula.
Crescent Petroleum started arbitration proceedings in July 2009; a
three-person arbitration tribunal was formed under terms of the
contract." http://t.uani.com/1ymIqEB
Opinion &
Analysis
WSJ Editorial:
"Soon after seizing power in Iran's 1979 revolution, Ayatollah
Khomeini vowed that in his new Islamic Republic 'there would be freedom
of expression, pen and views for all.' It's fair to say the regime has
honored that promise only in the breach. The regime's latest
journalistic victims are Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post's
Iranian-American Tehran correspondent, his wife, Yeganeh Salehi,
herself a correspondent for the United Arab Emirates-based National
newspaper, and two other journalists, at least one of whom is
reportedly a U.S. citizen. Plainclothes agents on July 22 barged into
Mr. Rezaian and Ms. Salehi's Tehran apartment, according to the New
York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. They
confiscated laptops and other personal belongings and hauled the couple
to an unknown location. Mr. Rezaian and Ms. Salehi haven't been heard
from since. A likely destination is the political wing of one of
Tehran's prisons. It's a fate shared by thousands of less-prominent
Iranian dissidents, including labor and women's-rights activists,
novelists and filmmakers, Muslim converts to Christianity branded as
apostates, and not a few freethinking ayatollahs, among others...
President Hasan Rouhani, the purported moderate who took office almost
exactly a year ago, hasn't weighed in on the case. Such ambiguity helps
feed a media narrative that the arrests are part of an effort by regime
hardliners to sideline Mr. Rouhani and his supposedly moderate allies.
It's an argument that ignores that Mr. Rouhani served as a top director
of the Islamic Republic's security apparatus for two decades before
becoming President. He cheered the bloody crackdown on the 1999 student
uprising and, a decade later, the even bloodier one on the 2009 Green
uprising. Then again, even if Mr. Rouhani is Mikhail Gorbachev in a
turban, it's unclear how absolving him of responsibility for cases like
Mr. Rezaian and Ms. Salehi's helps the cause of reform. If Mr. Rouhani
is as powerless as they say he is to stop the regime from persecuting
journalists, then why should anyone believe the Iranian President is
fully empowered to negotiate in good faith on the nuclear
dossier?" http://t.uani.com/1uG9qPa
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