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TOP STORIES
Iranian authorities arrested more than 7,000 dissidents
last year in a sweeping crackdown that led to hundreds being jailed
or flogged, at least 26 protesters being killed, and nine people
dying in custody amid suspicious circumstances, according to Amnesty
International. Those rounded up during violent dispersals of peaceful
protests in what Amnesty called "a year of shame for Iran"
included journalists, lawyers, minority rights activists and women
who protested against being forced to wear headscarves.
To safeguard its own national
security, the German government took the decisive step Monday,
January 21, to deny future landing rights to the Iranian airline
Mahan Air, which had operated multiple weekly flights to the Munich
and Düsseldorf airports. We applaud the government's decision,
which rightly recognizes the airline's role in enabling the Iranian
regime's support for terrorist proxies serving the Assad regime and
spreading violence and terror across the region - with direct effects
on European security.
Three years ago last week, the
Iran nuclear deal came into effect, limiting the country's nuclear
program in return for sanctions relief. But in the wake of the Trump
administration's withdrawal from the agreement, and with relations
between the European Union and Iran declining sharply, there is
growing doubt it will see its fourth birthday. The Europeans and Iran
are at odds on a range of issues: Iran's ballistic missile program,
attacks and plots against Iranian dissidents in Europe and slow
progress towards relieving the effects of US sanctions.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR
PROGRAM
The head of the Atomic Energy
Organization of Iran says his country has taken key steps toward
being able to quickly resume uranium enrichment to the 20% level, an
activity it agreed to suspend under the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA) struck with world powers in 2015. Ali
Akbar Salehi made the remarks in a lengthy face-to-face
interview on Iranian state broadcaster's Channel 4 on Jan. 22. The
nuclear chief unveiled details about the path Iran has already taken
toward being able to resume its largely restricted nuclear
program.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
France's foreign minister said
on Wednesday that he expected a European-backed system to facilitate
non-dollar trade with Iran and circumvent U.S. sanctions would be
established in the coming days. Diplomats have told Reuters the
European Union is set to officially launch the mechanism this month,
but the so-called special purpose vehicle (SPV) will not operate for
several months because technical details still need to be worked out.
Japanese refiners will continue
to lift oil from Iran through March after receiving a waiver from
U.S. sanctions on crude imports in November, Takashi Tsukioka,
president of the Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ) said on
Thursday. Japan resumed oil liftings from Iran this month after
refiners Fuji Oil Co Ltd and Showa Shell Sekiyu KK loaded cargoes
onto a tanker that is expected to arrive in Japan on Feb. 9
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Iran arrested more than 7,000
people last year, including dozens of journalists, in what Amnesty
International on Thursday called a "shameless campaign of
repression" as the U.S. released an American anchorwoman for
Iranian state television held for days as a material witness. While
Iranian officials and state media have widely condemned the arrest of
Marzieh Hashemi of the broadcaster's English-language channel Press
TV, the figures released by Amnesty highlight the widespread campaign
of arrest and harassment those in the media face in the Islamic
Republic.
The official IRNA news agency
reports that an Iranian court has sentenced a prominent journalist to
five years in prison. IRNA said Wednesday the court found Yashar
Soltani guilty of false reporting and insulting entities. In recent
years, Soltani has routinely published reports on corruption in
Iranian public agencies. Authorities in recent months have also
detained several other journalists and activists on security-related
charges.
Iranian activist Reza Khandan,
the husband of a jailed prominent human rights lawyer, has been
sentenced to six years in prison, his lawyer and local media say.
Khandan has been sentenced to five years in jail for conspiring
against national security and one year for propaganda against the
system, the lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi, said on January 23.
Iranian Writers Association
(IWA) has strongly protested the decision by judicial authorities to
set huge, unaffordable bails for three of its indicted members, which
has led to their detention. In a statement published on Tuesday,
January 22, IWA said, the ten billion rials (roughly $240,000) bail
set for Bektash Abtin, Kayvan Bazhan, and Reza Khandan Mahabadi
"is unacceptable" and they should be released immediately.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
A U.S. Navy veteran who has been
jailed in Iran on undisclosed charges suffers from cancer and may die
without access to medical care, according to his mother, who pleaded
for his release in a statement on Friday. Michael White, a 13-year
veteran of the U.S. Navy, has been held for over seven months since
traveling to Iran to visit his partner. He had made frequent trips to
visit the woman in recent years, the statement said.
An American journalist for
Iran's Press TV was freed in Washington by federal law enforcement
officials on Wednesday, her son said, ending a detention that began
on Jan. 13 when the F.B.I. took her into custody as a material
witness. The arrest of the journalist, Marzieh Hashemi, 59, had
become a flash point of tension between Iran and the United States
for more than a week. Ms. Hashemi had been ordered to appear before a
grand jury in Washington but was not charged with a crime.
An international conference in Poland next month that the Donald
Trump administration had intended to showcase global unity and
resolve to isolate Iran is instead highlighting wariness among US
allies. European allies are scrambling for excuses to send lower-level
diplomats instead of their foreign ministers to the Feb. 13-14 Warsaw
conference and also are looking for ways to dilute the
agenda while not outright snubbing the United States, European
sources said.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Fissures appear along roads
while massive holes open up in the countryside, their gaping maws a
visible sign from the air of something Iranian authorities now openly
acknowledge: the area around Tehran is literally sinking. Stressed by
a 30-year drought and hollowed by excessive water pumping, the
parched landscape around Iran's capital has begun to sink
dramatically.
An indictment has been issued
for President Rouhani's top aide, Hessamoddin Ashena and a lawsuit
against him delivered to the court, Tehran's prosecutor said on
Tuesday, January 22. Ashena, the head of Center for Strategic
Studies, and Rouhani's Cultural Advisor, is prosecuted for comments
he made about forty days ago on the fate of Iran Green Movement's
leaders who have been under house arrest since February 2011.
European countries have lost
confidence in Tehran after detecting espionage and assassination
plots, and they have provided evidence on Iran's activities that can
not be easily refuted, stated Iran's former ambassador to Germany,
Ali Magdi. Magdi criticized the interference of domestic parties in
Iran's foreign policy, pointing out that the European countries
"face a dual Iranian policy."
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Iraq emerges as a potential
target for Israel as it steps up efforts to eliminate the Iranian
land bridge to the Levant. Recent Israeli airstrikes prove that air
defense systems supplied to Syria by Russia are not enough to repulse
Israeli aggression against Iranian targets in this country, but this
may not be the end of the story. Israel may soon change the course of
action to strike Iranian targets beyond Syria's borders and launch
aerial campaigns in Iraq where the airspace is defenseless and the
political vacuum is too deep for the government to claim territorial
sovereignty.
Twenty-one people were killed in
the extensive Israeli strikes on Syria overnight Sunday, a war
watchdog reported on Tuesday, adding that at least 12 of them were
members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. According to the report by
the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, six of those
killed in the attack were Syrian soldiers and militiamen and the rest
were "foreigners."
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu on Wednesday threatened the Gaza Strip after an escalation
of violence on the border, saying that Israel was ready for all
possible scenarios. "Maybe there is someone in Gaza who thinks
they can raise their head, but I suggest they understand that the
response will be serious and very painful. We are prepared for every
scenario and every escalation," he told soldiers during a visit
to the Shizafon army base in the south of the country.
On the afternoon of Jan. 21,
after another round of the heavyweight fight of the year between
Israel and Iran, the Israel Defense Forces' Twitter account
released the following tweet: It shows a map of the Middle
East, from the Persian Gulf on the east to the Mediterranean Sea on
the west, under the headline, "Iran, you seem to be lost."
Four red arrows on the map point to Iran's geographic location with
the caption, "This is where you belong," while another red
arrow points to the Damascus region with the text, "Iran is
here."
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
Saudi Arabia called on the
Security Council to pressure Iran to abide by UN resolutions for a
comprehensive political solution in Yemen. Addressing the Security
Council on the situation in the Middle East, the Kingdom's Permanent
Representative to UN Ambassador Abdullah Al-Mouallimi said any
political solution in Yemen must guarantee the sovereignty of the
state, unity of armed forces, the commitment to the Gulf initiative,
the national dialogue and relevant Security Council resolutions.
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been condemned for
pillaging a library in the Unesco-listed heritage site of Zabid, one
of the oldest towns in Yemen. The Islamic Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation (IESCO) slammed the rebels for ransacking the
library and taking historic artifacts, scientific books and
manuscripts. Zabid is in Hodeidah province, the site of the battle
between the Arab Coalition and the rebels for control of the Red Sea
port city vital for the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Yemeni
population.
Saudi Arabia's envoy to the US urged the United Nations
on Thursday to take the Houthi militia to task for "reneging on
their commitments" under the Stockholm Agreement on Yemen.
"The Stockholm Agreement between Yemeni parties is being
violated repeatedly by the Houthis," Prince Khalid bin Salman
said in a series of tweets.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Iran has denounced events in
Venezuela, saying the opposition's claim there that it holds the
presidency is a "coup" and an attempt to take over power
unlawfully. In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told
reporters on Thursday that the "Islamic Republic of Iran
supports the government and people of Venezuela against any sort of
foreign intervention and any illegitimate and illegal action such as
attempt to make a coup d'etat."
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