Iranian Singer Handed Over To Authorities After Detention In Turkey
Iranian singer Tataloo has been sent to the Islamic Republic by the Turkish authorities to face judicial charges.
Iranian singer Tataloo has been sent to the Islamic Republic by the Turkish authorities to face judicial charges.
The rapper whose real name is Amir-Hossein Maqsoudlou was handed over at the Bazargan border on Wednesday after being detained in Turkey, according to Mizan News Agency, affiliated with the Iranian judiciary.
He is said to have been "immediately detained on judicial orders" after a number of private complaints.
These include allegations against him from individuals under 18 and their families, accusing him of sexual assault and acts of violence.
Iran's hardliners frequently express disapproval towards artists and public figures, leading to the summons of numerous individuals on various charges including alleged violations of modesty.
Earlier, Behnam Babazadeh, a music journalist based in Iran, had reported Tataloo's detention by Turkish police following a complaint from the Consulate of the Islamic Republic in Istanbul.
Babazadeh stated that Tataloo was accused of insulting the staff of the consulate.
Four years ago, Tataloo was detained by the Turkish authorities at the request of the law enforcement forces of the Islamic Republic but released after a week. At that time, Iranian media accused him of insulting Shiite religious figures during one of his concerts.
Born in 1987 in Tehran, Tataloo rose to prominence when he started posting works on his blog in 2004. At times, he has endorsed religious values such as hijab and praised the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei . He supported Ebrahim Raisi in the presidential elections of 2017.
Tataloo's alignment with regime policy was such that Khamenei commended one of his songs titled "Nuclear Energy” – which proclaimed Iran’s right to defend itself – as having a "good melody" and "good content", adding with satisfaction that it had upset the "enemy."
Iran caught between Israel’s military operation in Gaza that has squeezed Tehran’s ally Hamas and Israeli air strikes in Syria, appears to be trying to defend its reputation and military credibility. Fars wrote that foreign media claim “Israel has been serially attacking Iranian positions in Syria. However, these assertions are far from reality. Israel has no intention or audacity to launch a deliberate attack on Iranian forces."
Fars’ claim contradicts the history of Israeli attacks on Iran-related targets in Syria that have been routinely taking place since early 2017. Hundreds of attacks have been carried out by Israel targeting weapons depots, forward positions, and Syrian airports that Iran uses to transport its weapons into the country. At least twenty such attacks took place in 12 months from April 2022 to April 2023. According to Israeli sources 100 attacks took place before 2017, and by the end of 2018, the number had already climbed to 200.
Iran became involved in the Syria civil war in 2011 and started to send military personnel to the country. It also deployed Afghan, Iraqi and other militias to fight on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s forces, but its main fighting force was considered to be the Lebanese Hezbollah. However, Iran also began shipping weapons solely for Hezbollah to store in Lebanon for possible use against Israel.
The air attacks often targeted these shipments, whether in warehouses in Syria or en route to Lebanon.
However, Fars dismisses hundreds of Israeli attacks and claims that only a few air strikes took place and Iran so far has had a handful of casualties. Moreover, the IRGC mouthpiece says that these attacks and casualties were errors by Israel, who did not intend to hit Iranian targets.
"The attacks have mostly occurred either due to the lack of information on the part of the Zionists about the presence of Iranian forces, or are conveyed through intermediaries, such as the Russians, and Iranian forces are martyred solely due to some miscoordination," Fars claimed.
The latest Israeli attack took place last week, and Iran admitted that two of its high-ranking officers were killed in Syria, vowing retaliation.
While supporting Hamas financially and militarily, Tehran has decided not to become directly involved in the Gaza war to defend its ally, Hamas. This is apparently seen by the IRGC as a potential domestic and regional embarrassment, after decades of threats that it can wipe Israel off the map with its ballistic missiles.
Since the war started on October 7, IRGC generals have been frequently making claims of fielding new weapons systems, and issuing warnings against any power that would dare to challenge them. Meanwhile, the United States sent a naval strike group led by the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower into the Persian Gulf last week with the United Kingdom also dispatching an additional warship.
One way in which IRGC has tried to compensate for its lack of direct action to defend Hamas has been frequent attacks by Iranian proxies against US bases in Iraq and Syria as well as escalating attacks on vessels in the Red Sea by Yemeni Houthi forces. But Tehran has tried to disavow any role in these attacks, insisting that “resistance” forces are acting on their own in defense of Hamas.
Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy told Iran International that the focus of the military offensive is “fighting the terror monsters who perpetrated the October 7 massacre,” not expanding into a regional conflict.
He stressed that in spite of heightening tensions on its northern border with Lebanon, Israel is not interested in fighting a war on two fronts, he added that they have “put up serious deterrence against Hezbollah in the north with a massive buildup of reserves.”
He emphasized that Lebanon’s Hezbollah “will be making the mistake of a lifetime” if it enters war as the consequences will be severe for both the Iran-backed militant group and the poverty-stricken state of Lebanon.
Levy also addressed the rising tensions in the West Bank. “Hamas launched the massacre with a grand vision... to spark a regional conflict,” he said, Hamas “calling on Palestinians in the West Bank to grab guns and knives and join the fighting."
Palestinian sources claim about 240 Palestinians have been killed since the Hamas operation while over 550 terror attacks have been launched by Palestinians, according to the IDF, many waged by Hamas.
Iran claims it did not play any role in the Hamas attacks of October 7 terror attack that triggered the current crisis, in spite of its having supported the militants financially and militarily for years, along with many others around the region from Iraq to Yemen.
The war, which followed the Hamas invasion on October 7 when thousands of militia killed at least 1,200 mostly civilians and took an additional 240 hostage, has also seen over 15,000 killed in retaliatory attacks in Gaza, with hundreds of thousands displaced. Israel pounded the enclave to uproot the Islamist group, which has made the war exceedingly bloody, hiding deep among the civilian population and in a vast underground tunnel network stretching around 500kms.
Israeli forces have begun operating in the southern area of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, where the population has been swollen by around one million refugees from northern areas and has faced heavy international pressure, including from Washington, to limit civilian casualties.
"We are going to continue with our campaign to destroy Hamas, a campaign that the United States sees eye to eye with us about the strategic objectives of this war, that this war cannot end with Hamas still standing," Levy said.
"We're moving ahead with the second stage now. A second stage that is going to be difficult militarily," noting that "We didn't pick the battlefield, Hamas picked the battlefield."
