Thousands Protest In Brussels Demanding Release Of Belgian In Iran
Thousands of people took to the streets of Brussels on Sunday to protest against the detention in Iran of Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele.
Thousands of people took to the streets of Brussels on Sunday to protest against the detention in Iran of Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele.
He was arrested last year and recently sentenced to a minimum 28 years in prison on charges including spying.
The Belgian government has said the charges are fake.
"His life is in danger, contribute to his freedom," "#Free Olivier Vandecasteele," read banners held by protesters who included Vandecasteele's family, friends and colleagues.
After Vandecasteele was sentenced last month, Belgium's justice minister said the Belgian had been imprisoned "for a fabricated series of crimes" and had been sentenced as retribution for a 20-year jail term Belgian courts imposed on an Iranian diplomat in 2021.
Belgium's constitutional court will next month hold a hearing on the legality of a Belgian prisoner exchange treaty with Iran. Belgian media has suggested this could lead to a prisoner swap between the two countries involving the Iranian diplomat, convicted of planning a bomb plot against an exiled opposition group, and Vandecasteele.
Opponents of the deal say that the deal would provide Iranian spies and potential terrorists de facto immunity in Belgium, turning the country into a base for dangerous activities.
Iran routinely detains Western citizens on bogus charges using them as bargaining chips to achieve its goals in disputes with the West.
With reporting by Reuters
The First International Congress for Women of Influence was held in Tehran on Friday with the participation of female guests sent by Iran’s limited list of friendly governments.
The Islamic regime says wives of heads of state from Burkina Faso, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Guinea, Niger, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Armenia attended the event hosted by President Ebrahim Raisi’s wife Jamileh Alamolhoda.
Most notable was the presence of Zeynab Nasrallah, daughter of Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Moderate news website Rouydad 24 wrote Sunday that the congress was a bag of big blunders and it was not even clear based on what parameters the list of influential women was prepared!
“The most basic thing in inviting influential women is that the guests must have done something special; not only because their husband is a famous person!” quipped Rouydad 24.
More importantly, in some cases, even the husbands of these women are not very important in the global equation.
In a speech, the emcee of the congress called Ebrahim Raisi's wife "the first lady of Iran" and said without her efforts, this congress would not have been possible at all.
It was expected that the first ladies of the closest friends of the Islamic Republic, namely Russia, China, and Syria, or at least several ministers or parliamentarians of these countries would attend the congress, Rouydad 24 pointed out, but apparently the foreign ministry was not successful even with Iran’s close allies.
“Except for Hamda bint Hassan Al Sulaiti, the Deputy Speaker of Qatari parliament and some African interior ministers, no ministers or parliamentarians or even high-ranking politicians of important countries attended the event,” underlined Rouydad 24.
The non-attendance of the first ladies of important neighboring and Muslim countries confirms the crisis in Iran’s relations with its neighbors.
Armenian prime minister’s wife attended the congress in a situation that Iran is engaged in a cold war with the Republic of Azerbaijan. So, the visit of the first lady of Armenia to Iran is more a message for Azerbaijan and its regional ally Turkey than paying respect to the Islamic Republic.
A least known Russian journalist also received the ‘influential woman’ award, while many top female journalists in Iran are in prison, stressed the report by Rouydad 24.
An Argentinian woman, who had studied at Iran’s religious Al-Mustafa University for foreigners, was introduced as another influential woman.
Al-Mustafa International University is in reality a seminary in the religious city of Qom to indoctrinate foreigners and gain influence in other countries.
The University pays for hundreds of foreign students from China to Africa and Latin America who come to study and then return to spread Iranian Shiite teachings in their countries.
According to the Secretary of the congress, a 20,000-euro prize has been awarded to every winner. If the claim of the congress organizers about the presence of 300 foreign guests in this meeting is true, the cost of plane tickets, their 5-day accommodation at a five-star hotel and their excursions in Iran came to a huge amount.
Amid the economic woes ordinary Iranians face, spending a huge amount of money on people with no influence is an important issue that needs more attention, criticized Rouydad 24.
In fact, in order to prove that Iran's expulsion from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and other foreign sanctions had no effect, the Raisi’s administration invited unknown guests in a strange move to show that Iran's relationship with the world is normal, reiterated the report.
Another point about the presence of these women in Iran was that the guests appearing in the ceremony wore outfits that had nothing to do with the mandatory hijab rules the Islamic Republic has killed over 500 people for since mid-September. In other words, women from other countries are free to wear whatever they like in Iran, but this right is an unattainable wish for Iranian women themselves.
