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TOP STORIES
A video of a speech by the First secretary of the
Iranian Embassy in Auckland has caused controversy in New Zealand.
The speech by the Iranian diplomat Hormoz Ghahremani was given at a
mosque in Auckland on Quds day in June of this year. During the speech
Ghahreman warns his audience "against any plots hatched by the
Zionists and their international sponsors"... His co-speaker
Hojatoleslam Shafie went a step further by calling the Holocaust a
"fake phenomenon" and also made a prediction that the
"Zionist regime" will be destroyed in 25 years. In his
speech Shafie also claimed that "it is impossible to study the
Holocaust" and that if Germany really did cause it then Germany
should give a part of their land to the Jews.
Iranian offers of
secret funding, arms and training to al-Qaeda have been laid bare in
a 19-page document declassified by the C.I.A. that shows how Tehran
provided extensive support for the terror group in an effort to weaken
the United States. The previously unseen document, released with
470,000 files recovered in the raid on Osama Bin Laden's Abbottabad
compound in May 2011, gives an assessment of al-Qaeda's relationship
with Iran, according to a senior jihadist in the group.
Just hours after President Trump finished calling Iran a
"murderous regime" in his Sept. 19 speech at the United
Nations, the administration asked French President Emmanuel Macron
for a favor. Would Macron inquire whether Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani was interested in speaking directly with Trump? All three
leaders were in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, as was
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who conveyed the request to Macron,
according to several administration and foreign officials. Iran's
response, later that afternoon, was an unequivocal no.
TERRORISM AND EXTREMISM
Last month President Donald Trump
caused a minor stir in his speech on Iran policy by discussing that
regime's connection to al-Qaeda. He said "Iranian proxies"
provided training to al-Qaeda operatives involved in the 1998 bombing
of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He said Iran hosted
high-level al-Qaeda operatives after the Sept. 11 attacks, including
Osama bin Laden's son. His critics pounced. Former Obama
administration Middle East policy coordinator Philip Gordon wrote
that the president "stretched the evidence" to portray Iran
as a partner of al-Qaeda. Paul Pillar, the former senior intelligence
analyst who signed off on the U.S. conclusions that Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction programs, dismissed Trump's claims as based on
the fact that some al-Qaeda operatives resided in Iran under house
arrest. It turns out Trump was closer to the mark than his
detractors.
The CIA's release of documents seized during the 2011
raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has again raised
questions about Iran's support of the extremist network leading up to
the September 11 terror attacks. U.S. intelligence officials and
prosecutors have long said Iran formed loose ties to the terror
organization from 1991 on, something noted in a 19-page report in
Arabic that was included in the release of some 47,000 other
documents by the CIA. For its part, Iran has long denied any
involvement with al-Qaeda. However, the report included in the CIA
document dump shows how bin Laden, a Sunni extremist from Iran's
archrival Saudi Arabia, could look across the Muslim world's
religious divide to partner with the Mideast's Shiite power to target
his ultimate enemy, the United States. 'Anyone who wants to strike
America, Iran is ready to support him and help him with their frank
and clear rhetoric,' the report reads.
Iran has accused the CIA of spreading "fake
news" about the Islamic republic with newly declassified files
seized in the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which al-Qaeda chief Osama bin
Laden was killed. The CIA on Wednesday released 470,000 additional
files found in May 2011 when U.S. Navy SEALs burst into Bin Laden's
compound in Abbottabad and shot him dead.
HUMAN RIGHTS
In response to the day-to-day violence and legal
limitations facing many women in Iran (and beyond), a new app aims to
put the power and tools for creating real change in a safe,
accessible format, and into women's own hands. Now available free for
Android (and iOS soon), Toranj is designed to quickly connect victims
of domestic violence with the resources and support they need to be
safe, both in the moment and long term.
Iran's repression of its own people has continued
largely unabated, the United Nations indicated in a new report
presented to the UN General Assembly last week. The semi-annual
publication, authored by Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur for
human rights in Iran, paints a grim portrait of an Islamist regime
committed to the suppression of dissent that contradicts its radical
ideology.
Boris Johnson has finally condemned Iran's detention of
British citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and offered to visit her in
prison. The Foreign Secretary has been criticised for refusing to
condemn the jailing of the charity worker, who has been held since
her arrest by Iran's Revolutionary Guard in April 2016. But, speaking
to a committee of MPs, Mr Johnson attacked both Ms
Zaghari-Ratcliffe's conviction for spying as a mockery of justice and
her treatment by the authorities in Tehran.
RUSSIA & IRAN
The relationship between Russia and Iran is reigniting.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iran on Nov. 1 to meet with
his Azerbaijani and Iranian counterparts in the second summit between
the three countries. The trilateral format was set up last year by
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to discuss shared concerns and
projects in the region. But increasing alignment between Russia and
Iran over the last year will give the two countries plenty to
discuss.
IRANIAN DOMESTIC POLITICS
The election of Sepanta Niknam, a Zoroastrian, as a city
council member in the central Iranian town of Yazd has become the
topic of hot debate on the country's political stage. While the
Guardian Council says religious minorities cannot be representatives
of Muslim-majority constituencies, the administration of President
Hassan Rouhani and the parliament think otherwise. It should be noted
that Niknam has already served one full term as city councilor in
Yazd from 2013-2017. However, following his re-election in the May 19
municipal polls, a defeated conservative candidate filed a complaint
on the grounds of Niknam's religion, arguing that it was against
Iran's constitution for a member of a religious minority to make
decisions on behalf of the whole population of a Muslim-majority
city.
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