Amnesty International says Iranian authorities have forcibly disappeared four Kurdish dissidents for seven months, by concealing their fate and whereabouts from their families and lawyer.
In a statement on Tuesday, Amnesty announced that Pejman Fatehi, Vafa Azarbar, Mohammad (Hazhir) Faramarzi and Mohsen Mazloum had been “arbitrary” imprisoned since July 2022.
According to the human rights group, the prisoners are at grave risk of torture and other ill-treatment and unfair trials on charges that carry the death penalty.
Amnesty asked the citizens to send a letter to Iran's Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei and other officials of the Islamic Republic, to express their protest to torture, ill-treatment, unfair trials and accusations that could lead to the death penalty for these protesters.
On July 20, 2022, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence apprehended the four men near Urumieh, West Azerbaijan province, said Amnesty International.
Later, state media reported the arrest of four individuals accused of being “spies” for Israel and planning “terrorist” attacks inside the country.
The legal status of the men is unknown, but the allegations made against them represent offences punishable by the death penalty.
Amnesty International said that it is “concerned about their safety and well-being given the widespread and systematic use of torture and other ill-treatment against detainees, in particular during the investigation stage to extract confessions.”
Iranian security forces have brutally cracked down on nationwide protests in the past five months. Over 500 people were killed, and thousands were detained. Political prisoners usually have no recourse to a fair trial and due process of law.
As the national currency dropped to historic lows this week, conservative lawmaker Javad Nikbin said that President Ebrahim Raisi should be accountable for the chaotic situation and the parliament should put questioning the President on its agenda. He said the Raisi and his economic team are responsible and they should not blame others or the previous government for the country's economic crisis.
Meanwhile, Kamal Hosseinpour, a lawmaker from Piranshahr, who also criticized Raisi and his government for "simply watching the situation rather than trying to solve the problem," warned that a new wave of inflation is on its way.
Hosseinpour charged that the government's economic team has given up trying to solve the country's economic crisis as the national currency is in a downward spiral, triggering higher inflation.
It is not clear why the government has not changed its inefficient economic team, he complained, and introduced new officials who would know how to tackle the problem. He added that while the government is turning a blind eye, the automobile industry’s “mafia” is increasing car prices and has an insatiable appetite for money.
The car manufacturing industry is largely owned by the state and inefficient managers have plunged companies into debt and keep increasing car prices.
On Monday, the government banned a leading newspaper for reporting the rising price of meat in Iran and saying that government policies have deprived both the middle and working classes of meat. On Tuesday the government acknowledged a shortage of red and poultry meat.
Iranian journalist Ali Mojtahedzadeh wrote in an article in Etemad newspaper that "it is not the media's fault that prices in Iran have reached a record high under the Raisi administration." He pointed out that by banning a newspaper for reporting the problem, the government is fighting the truth. He added that last year, even before the first anniversary of Raisi’s presidency, the prosecutor of Tehran reported a more than 50 percent rise in the number of complaints made against the media by the government.
He pointed out that the media should not be punished for publishing reports that politicians do not like. The problem of rising prices is the politicians' fault, and they should be criticized by the media, he said.
In another development, prominent economist Morteza Afghah said in an interview with Didban Iran website that it is highly unlikely the government can control the markets before reaching a nuclear agreement that would lead to the lifting of US and international sanctions against Iran. Even then, he said, Iran should accept the terms of the FATF, an international financial watchdog, to facilitate international trade without causing any concern about money laundering or international terrorism.
Afghah added that rising liquidity and the government's attempts to make up for its budget deficit are the main causes of rising inflation. Referring to rial’s fall, Afghah said that some economist believe the government benefits from it by selling its foreign currencies at a higher rate.
He also pointed out that the most important problems that lead to rising prices in Iran are sanctions and Iran's international isolation. He added that because of these problems Iran is currently selling oil at a discounted price and takes huge losses to repatriate the revenue.
Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's nearly 12-year conflict. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli air strikes meant to curb Tehran's extraterritorial military power.
A source close to the Syrian government with knowledge of Sunday's strike and its target said it hit a gathering of Syrian and Iranian technical experts in drone manufacturing, though he said no top-level Iranian was killed.
"The strike hit the center where they were meeting as well as an apartment in a residential building. One Syrian engineer and one Iranian official - not high-ranking - were killed," the source told Reuters.
This rocket strike, along with others that Israel says target infrastructure of Syria's military and its allies, reflect an escalation of what has been a low-intensity conflict aimed at slowing down Iran's growing entrenchment in Syria, according to Israeli military experts.
Syrian state media said at the time that Israel had carried out air strikes shortly after midnight on Sunday against several areas of the Syrian capital, causing five deaths and 15 injuries including civilians.
An Israeli military official declined to confirm or deny that Israel was behind the attack but said some of the casualties were caused by errant Syrian anti-aircraft fire.
The United States and Israel have been increasingly concerned about Iran’s drone manufacturing, and the possibility it would pass on those capabilities to regional proxies such as the heavily armed Hezbollah.
A second source, who spoke to Syrian security personnel briefed on the matter, said Iranians were attending the meeting of technical experts in a Iranian military installation in the basement of a residential building inside a security compound.
He said one of those killed was a Syrian army civil engineer who worked at Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Centre, which Western countries say is a military institution that has produced missiles and chemical weapons. Damascus denies this.
A regional security source said one Revolutionary Guards engineer involved in Iran’s missile program was seriously injured and transferred to a hospital in Tehran, while two other mid-ranking Guards members at the meeting were unharmed.
Another source, a regional intelligence official familiar with the strike, said the target was part of a covert guided missile production program run by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
A fifth, regional source with knowledge of the strike and its target, said officials from Iran and Hezbollah had been targeted. The Lebanese group has sent fighters to help Assad drive back rebels who once nearly encircled Damascus.
REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS LOGISTICS CENTRE HIT?
The targeted building was located in the Damascus neighborhood of Kafr Sousa, a heavily policed area where residents say several Iranian security agencies are located, along with an Iranian cultural centre.
Two Western intelligence sources said at the time the target was a logistics center run by the Revolutionary Guards.
Hezbollah's top commander Imad Moughniyeh was killed in 2008 in a bombing in the same neighborhood. Israel denied Hezbollah accusations that it was behind the assassination.
Although officials rarely acknowledge responsibility for specific operations, Israel has been carrying out air strikes on suspected Iranian-sponsored weapons transfers and personnel deployments in Syria for almost a decade.
Israel has also in recent months intensified strikes on Syrian airports and air bases to disrupt Iran's increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.
Exclusive report by Laila Bassam and Suleiman Al-Khalidi of Reuters
