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21 April 2022 In line with plans to support countries to strengthen their health sector response, the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean and country office are supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran by providing technical assistance during a two-day workshop on development of National Strategic Plan to end tuberculosis (TB) in the country.

The strategic workshop was officially commenced during a ceremony on Sunday, 17 April, in the presence of WHO Representative in Islamic Republic of Iran Dr Syed Jaffar Hussain, Director of the Iranian Centre for Disease Control Dr Mohammad Mahdi Gouya, National Director of TB and Leprosy Control Department Dr Mahshid Nasehi, WHOs International Consultant Dr Uzman Khan, and officials from the Ministry of Health and Medical Education.

The workshop took place on 17 and 18 April as a collaborative effort between EMRO and Iranian stakeholders during which the National Strategic Plan will be finalized.

The workshop helped the national TB program in development of appropriate national policies, and strategies for implementation of comprehensive programmes for prevention and control of communicable diseases aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 3 which calls for ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages.

While Iran is a low prevalent country for TB thanks to intense preventive, diagnostic, curative as well as follow-up mechanisms in place, the triggers and the vulnerability for TB to shift from low-prevalent to high-prevalent are very much there, said Dr Hussain in his opening remarks. The cross-border movement of people from Irans neighbouring countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan who have high burden of the disease can potentially cause an increase of TB in Iran, so the country needs to invest domestically more in diagnostics, treatment, control, and human resources for the TB programme particularly as COVID-19 has affected our health systems and services worldwide.

Dr Hussain also stressed the importance of the workshop to pave the way for translation of Irans global commitments including the WHO Multisectoral Accountability Framework for TB into tangible actions through mechanisms for multi-stakeholder national coordination, review, and monitoring and evaluation.

The three mentioned mechanisms are fundamental to the development of national strategic plans for disease elimination. Long-term disease elimination strategic planning with budgeting based on in-depth analysis and evaluation of the disease programmes often require additional expertise and assistance. Continuous monitoring and evaluation of plans and periodic review of performance helps such national programmes improve and stay abreast of changing priorities.

He also took note of the impact of international sanctions on Irans access to global knowledge, developments in technology, diagnostic and therapeutic tools which pose a great vulnerability to Iran as far as TB is concerned.

Dr Martin Van den Boom, WHO Regional Advisor, who addressed this workshop virtually, stressed that TB elimination can be achieved through a multisectoral approach, ensuring the audience that EMROs Department of Universal Health Coverage for Communicable Diseases is providing technical assistance to meet the specific demand of each country, as part of its mandate.

The confab was intended to support the National Tuberculosis Programme of Iran with the development of a National strategic plan to end TB according to most recent global guidance and available frameworks.

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WHO support to strengthening the health sector's response to TB in Islamic Republic of Iran - Iran (Islamic Republic of) - ReliefWeb

Kabul [Afghanistan], April 22 (ANI): As blatant human rights violation continues to take place in Iran against the Afghan refugees, Samira Hamidi, Amnesty Internationals campaigner, expressed concern over the recent torture and called it inhumane.

According to Khaama Press, Samira Hamidi, while speaking to Radio Free Afghanistan, said, Irans border guards force Afghan refugees by guns at borders and oust them from their country.

Reliable sources have confirmed torture and sexual harassment of Afghan refugees by border guards of Iran. The footages that show discriminatory, violent, and shocking act of Iranians towards Afghans in the country are a blatant act of violation of human rights. Said Hamidi.

Adding further, she called on the international community to address the issue of Afghan refugees in Iran, suggesting Afghans have issues with extending visas and payment systems.

The Afghan refugees flew to Iran seeking shelters after the Taliban takeover last August. Many of them do not have the legal documents or visas which leads to their harassment, reported local media.

Earlier, a viral video had been circulating on social media platforms that showed how Afghan refugees were being harassed in the neighbouring country Iran.

Meanwhile, Irans embassy in Kabul in a press release said that the ongoing torture of Afghan refugees in Iran is a conspiracy to disturb bilateral relations with Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban took over, Afghanistan has not only seen a mass exodus but also the illegal crossings of Afghans into neighbouring countries like Iran via Nimroz province and Turkey. It also led to the extradition of many and the killings of nearly 100 of them by the Iranian forces. (ANI)

This report is auto-generated from ANI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

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Human rights body airs concern over Afghan refugees torture in Iran - ThePrint

Recently, Lebanon announced that it is on the verge of bankruptcy due to years of sectarian rule that ended in complete political and economic chaos, as political reform failed to eliminate the sectarianism that has plagued the country since the 1975 civil war.

In Iraq, Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr called on political forces to end sectarianism and pay attention to the national interest to form a new Iraqi government, stressing that sectarianism is the reason for Iraqs deterioration.

In Yemen, President of the Presidential Command Council, Rashad Muhammad Al-Alimi, pledged to work to end the war and bring peace to Yemen, stressing that the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council will stand as an impenetrable dam to confront terrorism in all its forms, and will work to combat sectarian conflicts that are tearing up Yemens social fabric. This is especially so since Yemen has turned into an arena for sectarian conflicts that want Yemen to be a starting point to undermine the security and stability of the Arab Gulf.

In Libya, the same sectarian conflict still prevails after nearly a decade since the popular uprising against the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the military intervention of NATO to help overthrow him. Libya has become a battleground for armed militias competing for power and money. The country witnessed regional and international proxy conflicts that undermined all possibilities for restoring stability.

In the Gulf region, especially after the recent Houthi attacks, the dynamics of sectarian politics have re-emerged, especially that there are about 2 million Shiites within the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Although the sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites in the Middle East has existed for more than 1,300 years, sectarian problems were not necessarily intractable. Despite the long history of sectarian divisions in the Middle East, research confirms the possibility of cooperation between the different sects in a way that does not undermine the concept of the state.

According to research, throughout our modern and contemporary Arab history, since the independence of the Arab countries and even before that, no one in the Arab world has called for dividing the Arab countries into Sunni or Shiite countries. Arab socialists called for Arab countries that adopt socialism and value social justice, Arab nationalists call for countries that adopt Arab nationalism and value unity, Arab Islamists call for Islamic countries that value the Islamic approach, and Arab liberals call for liberal countries that value liberalism. In general, the Arab intellectual and political forces did not adopt this hateful sectarian dimension as part of their political programs.

Nevertheless, the nature of sectarianism and sectarian conflict has evolved and changed significantly during that period. Specifically, the sectarian conflict in the Arab world began to take shape to appear in its current form, which succeeded in destroying many Arab countries since the Khomeini revolution in Iran and the regime that was introduced. It was this racist sectarian regime that initiated sectarian hatred and deliberately sought to ignite strife and conflict between Shiites and Sunnis to serve its expansionist project in the Arab region.

Then, the United States and the West assumed the task of developing the sectarian division scheme, which they found a promising project to destroy the Middle East region to exploit its wealth. This scheme, which succeeded in tearing the Arab world apart, destroying Iraq and Syria, cast a shadow over Libya, Yemen and Tunisia, and almost succeeded in Egypt, but the cohesion of the Egyptian people and the strength of their army succeeded in thwarting this scheme. Indeed, Egypt was the only country that was able to survive this devastating sectarian conflict and did not fall into this trap when the Brotherhood succeeded in deceiving the people and reaching power because national unity was the effective weapon that preserved Egypt.

Despite the withdrawal of the United States of America from the Middle East, this sectarian project that seeks to divide the Arab countries into sectarian states is still ongoing and is supported by many American and European research centers that confirm in their research that sectarian conflict in the Middle East is inevitable. What is worse is that these researchers began to focus more on the Arab Gulf states and the need to redraw borders again on sectarian bases to avoid future conflicts. These researches focus on the Gulf countries definitely because they are the second stage in the scheme to tear the Arab world apart after the first stage achieved a lot of success.

The Arab peoples preceded their political leadership and realized that the nation-state and national unity are the only way to preserve the Arab nation and restore its glories. Today, the whole world hears the voices of the masses in the squares of Iraq, Lebanon, and many Arab countries, denouncing sectarianism and foreign labor, and rejecting the rule of militias and the corrupt. All Arab peoples today demand the upholding of the value of the homeland and the national state.

The present moment is a decisive moment for all Arab leaders to prove their patriotism and rise above useless differences. The restoration and preservation of the nation-state are the basis for stability and the beginning of recovery. The sectarian conflicts will only benefit the gangs of terrorism and the forces greedy for the wealth of the Arab world.

Dr. Marwa El-Shinawy Assistant Prof. at International American University for Specialized Studies (IAUS)

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Opinion| Iran and the US are behind sectarian conflict scheme in the Arab world - Daily News Egypt

IranSource

April 21, 2022

ByAhou Koutchesfahani

Iranian womens rights activism is very much present and made visible on social media with countless hashtags, images, and videos circulating online and going viral to regularly draw attention to important causes, such as freedom of expression, sexual abuse by powerful men, and depicting harassment and abuse of women by security forces. However, in much of what is said and shared about Iranian womens plight online, disabled Iranian womens voices often go unheard.

This unequal dynamic within Iranian womens rights activism online is further compounded by social media algorithms, which favor posts that have a large audience engagement rate. Why then, are disabled womens voices marginalized online as they so often are offline?

Since the 2009 post-election protests known as the Green Movement, social media has provided a useful platform for activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens alike to highlight human rights issues and violations to a growing audience within and beyond the transnational Iranian public sphere. Of that group, a minority has focused on raising awareness on disability rights issues, such as the Kampayneh Maloolan (disability campaign), a platform that highlights the discrimination faced by disabled Iranians on the regular.

On Twitter and messaging app Telegramboth platforms are blocked by the Islamic Republic and must be accessed via circumvention toolsthis campaign provides a window into the activism led by disabled Iranians, most notably through the hashtags #_ (#Disability_Law) and #__ (#Pass_Disability_Bill), a reference to Irans Law to Protect the Rights of the Disabled. This was ratified by parliament in 2018 after a Twitter storm in 2017led by the disability campaignmobilized users to make the hashtag trend on Persian language Twitter with over 27,000 tweets. However, more than four years later, the bill has yet to be implemented. The campaigns discourse surrounds disability activism and stands in stark contrast to the lack of representation of disabled Iranians on the platforms of Iranian womens rights activists.

The intersection of disability and womens rights movements

It may be unclear from the outside how the disability and womens rights movements are connected, but the most recent law to be swiftly passed in parliamentnotably, the Population Growth Plan (__#)is a good example of how the Islamic Republic undermines both Iranian women and disabled Iranians. The law, which passed in March 2021, criminalizes the use of contraceptives and abortion and is set to grant privileges to families with upwards of three children. It also aims to eliminate mandatory pregnancy screenings, raising the risk of mother/child complications and premature death. Financial support for disabled Iranians is already stretched but this law further significantly cuts disability allowance and curtails womens financial independence as it incentivizes childbearing and marriage.

Under the current economic hardships faced by Iranians due to punitive sanctions, mismanagement, and corruption, many young women will have no other choice but to marry early as a result. Additionally, many disabled Iranians will be left poor without adequate financial aid, leaving them more vulnerable to abuse and dehumanization, with them being considered financial burdens on families and the state. While the bill to Protect the Rights of the Disabled accounted for equal access to work, adequate healthcare, and at home support, the Population Growth Plan undermines all these demands by reneging on the rights of the disabled.

Disabled Iranian women face many barriers in their daily struggle within a patriarchal and ableist society. Theirs is an uphill battle to dismantle not just ableism but also misogyny. From poor accessibility to minimal welfare support and gender inequalities, disabled Iranian women face double the amount of discrimination as their non-disabled peers.

The social media link

Normalizing ableist attitudes contributes to the discrimination faced by Iranian disabled women, severely curtailing their ability to become active members of society. Social media is an opportunity to forge a link between different groups of Iranian women in the online sphere and to create solidarity through struggles to dismantle patriarchy and ableism. Unfortunately, little to no attempts are currently being made at forging allyship with the disabled community.

This is further compounded by the minimal coverage of the rights of disabled women in Iran. Within what goes viral, a narrow definition of woman, which doesnt include the voices of the marginalized, is predominant. As a result, it plays a role in the erasure of disabled voices within the online depiction of womens rights issues in Iran and to the transnational public sphere and beyond. Thus, there is a contradiction in the attempt at being intersectional by influential Iranian womens rights activists.

To truly dismantle patriarchal assumptions in Iran, ableist notions that are steeped in patriarchy must also be addressed. Disabled voices must be heard, supported, and amplified. Their struggle is not unlike womens rights activists and their rights to access dignified healthcare, equal access to work, and equal opportunities in society intersect with the rights of Iranian women to do the same. Understanding the intersectionality of the feminist and disabled causes is important in the struggle for an open society that countless activists are striving towards.

Ahou Koutchesfahani is a PhD candidate at the Department of War Studies at Kings College London. Her research is concerned with feminist politics and social movements, with a focus on Iran. Follow her on Twitter: @ahou_doe.

Thu, Jun 24, 2021

IranSourceByFatemeh Haghighatjoo

Its important to take a close look at President-elect Ebrahim Raisi's wife, Jamileh Alamolhoda, and, more importantly, how the couple will impact womens rights in Iran.

Image: Iranian journalist transcribes an interview from a tape recorder into Braille at the offices of Iran Sepid in Tehran. Iranian journalist Laleh Arabzadeh transcribes an interview from a tape recorder into Braille at the offices of Iran Sepid, a daily newspaper for the blind in Tehran September 12, 2005. The subscription newspaper, which is written and run by blind people, started in 1996 and carries news about the blind community in Iran as well as news items of general interest. Picture taken September 12, 2005. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

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Ableism exists online amongst Iranian women's rights activists. It needs to be addressed. - Atlantic Council

About one-third of the railway line connecting Rasht and Bandar Anzali in Iran has been constructed. 11 out of 35 kilometres of track are in place already, and the lines construction proceeds despite some technical challenges, said Abbas Khatibi, the deputy director of Irans Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructures Company (CDTIC). An important rail axis will be inaugurated next year, he added.

The Rasht-Astara railway link has been highlighted as one of the main bottlenecks in developing the International North-South Transport Corridor stretching from Russia, through the Caucasus region and Iran all the way to the Persian Gulf. Iran faced financial and technical difficulties forcing it to postpone the links construction for years.

However, now it is very close to completing a railway section that could prove crucial in extending the railway from Rasht to Astara. The Rasht-Bandar Anzali line will be complete in 2023 and is also important because it provides rail access to the Caspian Sea since Bandar Anzali is a port city.

Khatibi underlined that during the construction of the lines first section, CDTIC had to tackle multiple challenges ranging from the lack of credit resources, to the high value of agricultural lands and gardens that the line passes through, the high cost of land acquisition, and the difficulty of executive operations in swampy lands and preparation of soil materials. These factors contributed to some delays in the initial construction planning.

However, works continued and are currently proceeding quite more efficiently. Twenty-four kilometres remain for the lines completion, which will be ready in 2023. The projects total worth is approximately 155 million US dollars.

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Iran's missing North-South corridor rail link proceeds with construction - RailFreight.com