Second-Hand iPhones Sell For Over $2,000 In Iran
Imported second-hand iPhones are selling for more than 2,000 US dollars in Iran, an Iranian official has admitted.
Imported second-hand iPhones are selling for more than 2,000 US dollars in Iran, an Iranian official has admitted.
The price of the devices – brought in from UAE – is due to an import ban on the iPhone 14 and production having stopped on the iPhone 13, according to Hossein Rouzbeh, a director of the Cell Phone Importers Association.
In January, Iranian media reported that the Islamic Republic spent $9 billion in foreign currency to import mobile phones over 33 months, with a large slice going on Apple devices.
According to Tasnim news agency, about $2.3 billion was spent on importing just two million “luxury” phones – mainly from US brand Apple. This is less than five percent of the total number of phones bought by Iranians.
The rial’s plunge against the US dollar in recent months has exacerbated chaos in several of Iran's major markets and brought many businesses to near standstill.
The price of mobile phones rose sharply with many retailers preferring to hold on to their stock in anticipation of a further fall of the rial.
In a letter addressed to the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), Iran's Ministry of Industry banned the import of Apple's iPhone 14 and higher models from February 20, 2023.
"iPhone 14 and higher model mobile phones will no longer be registered in Iran and related instructions will be announced at the crossing points of the country,” said the letter.
Habib Chaab, 49, former leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), was hanged on Saturday morning, weeks after his sentence for “corruption on earth” was confirmed by the judiciary.
The Swedish-Iranian dual national was tried by a revolutionary court in Tehran in December. Denied his own choice of defense attorney, he was represented by a court-appointed lawyer. He had been forced to make self-incriminating confessions.
On Sunday, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said he was “appalled”, adding: “The UK strongly opposes the death penalty. We call on the regime to stop all executions, now.”
On Saturday, the European Union had condemned “in the strongest terms” the execution of Chaab, reiterating strong opposition against the application of capital punishment in any circumstance, adding: “The European Union calls on Iran to refrain from any future executions and to pursue a consistent policy towards the abolition of capital punishment.
"The increasing number of EU and dual EU-Iranian nationals arbitrarily detained in Iran, the restrictions imposed on consular access to EU nationals, the denial of consular protection and the right to a fair trial, stand in direct violation of international law.”
Several European officials, including Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström and Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, condemned the execution. However, they mainly focused on the irreversibility of capital punishment, rather than highlighting how the Islamic Republic is using it to crush dissent.
The Swedish Foreign Ministry summoned Iran’s deputy ambassador to Stockholm over the hanging.
The Islamic Republic authorities say Chaab was found guilty of leading ASMLA (Harakat al-Nidal in Arabic), a movement which advocates the separation of southwestern Khuzestan Province and for plotting "numerous bombings and terrorist operations" in the oil-rich province with a large Arabic speaking population.
Tehran classifies the ASMLA as a ‘terrorist’ organization responsible for acts of terror including an attack on a military parade in Ahvaz on September 22, 2018, which killed 25 military and civilians. ASMLA claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Iran's relations with Sweden have been strained since July 2022 when a Swedish court sentenced a former Iranian jailor, Hamid Nouri, to life imprisonment over executions of political prisoners in 1988.
This weekend it emerged that three Iranian Arab prisoners who have been sentenced to death have now been moved to an unknown location, prompting fears that their execution is imminent.
In February, the Ahvaz Revolutionary Court sentenced them to death along with three other prisoners on charges of "transferring currency and remittances through a foreign bank, armed attacks, and being associated with a political movement."
Norway-based monitoring group the Iran Human Rights Organization (IHR) said on Saturday that the Islamic Republic has carried out at least 42 executions in the past 10 days alone, or one person every six hours. At least 194 people have been executed in 2023 in Iran.
The hacktivist group ‘Uprising till Overthrow', affiliated with the Albania-based opposition Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) group, released hundreds of identification documents, minutes of meetings, the ministry’s correspondence, phone numbers of ministry officials, and the names of 11,000 employees of the foreign ministry, among others.
According to the telegram channel of the hackers, all the sites related to the ministry such as the Islamic Republic’s embassies, and affiliated organizations were targeted, showing a landing page with photos of the leaders of MEK as well as photos of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Raisi with red crosses over them.
Also on the page, there were slogans of “Death to Khamenei” and “Hail to Rajavi”, the current leader of the opposition group. “There is a great revolution underway in Iran. The uprising will continue until the palace of oppression is demolished. Iran’s democratic revolution will be victorious,” read the message on the pages. Most of the pages were down midday on Sunday.
The ‘Uprising till Overthrow' had already hacked and deactivated several regime’s websites and services. In June 2022, it hacked over 5,000 security cameras of state bodies and 150 websites belonging to Tehran Municipality, displaying similar slogans on the websites and releasing internal data.
The hack comes after another cyberassault in March on the portal of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (Ershad) and its affiliated websites showing the photos of the Rajavis and calling for the death of the country’s supreme leader.
Since the beginning of the current wave of protests in mid-September, several hacking groups have targeted state websites and online services. They have released numerous documents and have disrupted hundreds of surveillance cameras.
The documents leaked on Sunday also revealed the Islamic Republic’s continuous efforts and correspondence with European officials to finalize a prisoner swap deal with Belgium, which would see jailed Iranian diplomat Asadollah Assadi released in exchange for the detained Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele.
The Belgian Constitutional Court upheld a prisoner exchange treaty with Iran in March that could result in Assadi being swapped for Vandecasteele. The MEK mounted a fierce campaign against the deal, challenging the extradition.
Former Iranian embassy attaché, Asadollah Asadi, 51, is currently serving a 20-year sentence in Belgium for alleged attempted murder and involvement in terrorism for his role in plotting a bomb attack during an MEK event near Paris in 2018. Asadi, the only Iranian diplomat ever brought to trial in Europe for direct involvement in terrorism was arrested in Germany, where he did not enjoy diplomatic immunity while he was on holiday. German authorities later extradited Assadi to Belgium. He was a diplomat in Iran’s embassy in Austria.
Security forces in Iran arrested aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, 41, who has worked in a variety of humanitarian agencies since at least 2006. In January, the Islamic Republic’s judiciary sentenced Vandecasteele, who was detained in 2022, to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for alleged “spying and cooperation with the United States, money laundering and smuggling $500,000 out of Iran.”
Iran has been accused of wrongfully detaining at least a dozen foreign and dual nationals on trumped up charges, effectively as hostages to extract concessions from Western governments. Most of them are held on spurious spying charges.
