Iran Summons German Envoy Over UN Rights Resolution
Iran’s foreign ministry has summoned Germany’s ambassador in Tehran for the third time in a month to protest “interventionist” remarks by German officials.
Iran’s foreign ministry has summoned Germany’s ambassador in Tehran for the third time in a month to protest “interventionist” remarks by German officials.
Tehran says the German envoy Hans-Udo Muzel was also summoned for Berlin’s key role in holding a UN Human Rights Council special session on Iran last week.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani said in this meeting, Tehran “strongly protested against the interventionist and baseless statements of the German authorities.”
“The German ambassador was also told that the recent resolution of the special meeting of the UN Human Rights Council is a wrong step based on a completely political and instrumental use of human rights and is fundamentally rejected. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not cooperate with any mechanism defined by it,” added Iran’s foreign ministry.
The ministry also noted that it has warned the German ambassador that Berlin and other European governments who support “the unilateral sanctions of the United States” are not “qualified to raise human rights claims”.
The UN Human Rights Council voted Thursday to launch an independent investigation into Iran's deadly repression of protests, that has killed more than 400 civilians.
The 35th special session of the Human Rights Council was held following an official request submitted on November 11 by Germany and Iceland, as well as the support by over 40 other states.
The frequent government shutdown of internet access has caused serious disruption for individuals and small businesses based on digital sales and marketing.
The new measure, dubbed “Regulations to support freelancers active in the country's digital economy," was ratified by the government’s digital economy taskforce on Saturday in 10 articles, which probably will lead to strict monitoring of online activities and ensuring that regime supporters have internet access.
The use of the term ‘freelancer’ might be misleading. The definition in the regulation points to individuals or companies that apply as active in digital economy and approved by the government.
Headed by Communications and Information Technology Minister Issa Zarepour, the taskforce was established last year to coordinate the government’s supervision on online activities among four ministries.
It defines a freelancer and its range of services, includes instruction on how to create a database of digital ‘freelancers’, sets criteria on their accreditation and how government institutions should interact with them, as well as some insurance and financial matters.
According to the new regulations, the computer trade union has been tasked to set up a database of ‘freelancers’ and their activities within three months.
In its article 8, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology has been tasked with providing the necessary infrastructure for “high-speed and stable Internet with appropriate level of access for accredited people," without clarifying on the “appropriate access” or who are the “accredited people.”
In another article, the government claims that in order to supervise the “fairness and transparency” of the contracts between freelancers and employers, instructions have been issued for monitoring software platforms. According to the document, the regulations for accreditation into the database will be announced by the ministry upon collaboration among Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, the country's computer trade union organization; Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare; Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance; the presidential office of Science and Technology and Knowledge-Based Economy; and last but definitely not least the Intelligence Ministry.
Many Islamic Republic officials, such as member of the parliament Javad Hassanikia and former Information Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, have talked about providing internet access to university professors or journalists. The move can be a measure to justify replacing the country’s internet with an intranet for the general population who will be disconnected from the world wide web and controlled by the regime’s limited domestic access. Azari-Jahromi was one of the main supporters of the idea of stratifying Internet access inside the country. In an address to the parliament, he defended the idea saying it is not possible to provide the same type of internet to all jobs and ages in the country.
Like almost all measures by the Islamic Republic that sound innocent but pursue ulterior motives, the new move is titled “regulations to support freelancers” but is meant to suppress any critical voice and cajole those who want normal access to the internet to be on the regime’s side. It means that if you want to have access to the internet, the government should be able to monitor your work and make sure you do not engage in any activity or cooperate with anyone the regime deems hostile.
High on the agenda for the Iranian deputy foreign minister was energy, which increasingly figures in diplomatic or ‘political’ talk as the December 5 deadline looms for an international price cap on Russian oil. Proposed by the United States through the G7, this will bar European and British services, including insurance and tankers, to any worldwide purchaser of Moscow’s crude paying above the cap.
Indian politicians are aware their country has increased oil imports from Russia this year to around 750,000 barrels a day (bpd). There is little prospect of New Delhi resuming imports of Iranian oil, which it stopped in 2019 in fear of US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions after Washington in 2018 left the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). In 2017-18, India had taken 10 percent of its oil imports from Iran.
India, which abstained on the November 17 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) vote censuring Iran over its nuclear program, is among countries in the ‘global south’ uneasy over US and EU measures against Russia disrupting energy and food supplies. As Europe cuts back links with Moscow, Pakistan, another abstainer at the IAEA, is in talks with Moscow over buying oil with delayed payments.
True, Indian officials know the price cap is unlikely to choke their supply. Discussions have centered on setting it at $65-70 a barrel. The cap is likely to be above the price Russia now sells at, with benchmark Urals at $52 a barrel Thursday, Argus Media reported. The cap would therefore stem the flow only if oil prices rally.
Even so, the Russian economy is reeling from the consequences of the Ukraine war. By December 5 the EU itself will stop taking seaborne Russian oil. Russia’s exports to Europe – seaborne and pipeline – have already fallen from 3.5 million to 1.5 million bpd, and its GDP, says the International Monetary Fund, will slump 3.5 percent this year. Official figures had $14.7 billion withdrawn from Russia’s banking system in October as anxiety mounted.
Moscow’s efforts to compensate for lost oil exports in Europe by increasing sales to Beijing have been hampered by the sluggish state of a Chinese economy under Covid restrictions. Chinese buyers have also gained a discount put by Rapidan Energy Group at around $15 a barrel.
This has hit Iran’s own sales to China. While Iranian exports have become increasingly opaque in order to hide them from US eyes, Tehran’s oil sales of 500,000-1 million barrels a day (bpd), going almost entirely to China, have been undercut by Russia.
Given the growing lack of transparency, Iran’s ministers have made vague but generally optimistic claims, often banding together crude, gas condensate, petrochemicals and petrochemical products.
Middlemen, barter, uncertain prospects
Iran’s earnings figures are further blurred by payments to middle-men and barter, as was recently highlighted by Fararu. The privately-owned website judged it “unlikely that the Iranian government has succeeded in increasing its export volume,” and chided oil minister Jawad Owji for apparently suggesting exports were somehow higher than the 2.8 million bpd before US ‘maximum pressure.’
Fararu noted that “several experts” had argued the Iranian budget for the year beginning March 2023 should assume an oil price of $40-$50 per barrel on sales of 600,000 bpd. This compares to the $70 figure underlying the 2022-3 budget, and marks a further sign of Iranian media and analysts assuming that talks to revive the JCPOA are going nowhere and that US sanctions will therefore remain at least for the medium term.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has trumpeted success in surviving maximum pressure in the face of depleted foreign revenue. The economy’s halting recovery from two years of recession to low economic growth 2020-22 has been based on domestic industry benefiting from the lower rial and reduced foreign competition in the home market.
But anxieties in Iran reflect not only diminishing JCPOA prospects and the internal instability sharpened with current protests. Iran still needs foreign earnings to pay for imports and rally the rial. The shift in geopolitics and energy supplies with the Ukraine crisis, as well as a rising dollar, aligns Iran not so much with energy exporters, as with so much of Africa and poorer Middle Eastern countries facing rising inflation and uncertainty.
