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TEHRAN The number of Iranian refugees worldwide has decreased by 14 percent in 2022 compared to a year earlier, Iran Migration Observatory has reported.

According to the report, the population of Iranian refugees living in the host countries has decreased from 143,000 in 2021 to 122,000 in 2022.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), put the population of Iranians seeking asylum in the world at 69,237 in 2022, which has increased compared to 68,940 last year.

Germany and Turkey were the two main destinations for registering Iranian asylum seekers in 2012 and 2017, while Britain and Germany were the top destinations in 2022.

According to UNHCR, the world had at least 108 million forced migrations and displacements in 2022. Turkey, Iran, Colombia, Germany, and Pakistan have respectively hosted the largest number of people in refugee status or similar status.

Refugees in Iran

Ivo Freijsen, the representative for UNHCR in Iran, has said Iran is an exemplary country that has acted very well in hosting refugees and has been hosting them for a long time.

Forty years have passed since Iran started hosting them [refugees]. As we have always said, Iran has had positive approaches toward refugees, we appreciate that, and we are honored to support Iran's efforts, he said in an exclusive interview with Iran Newspaper published on September 4, 2022.

In fact, Iran provides wide-ranging services for refugees such as basic healthcare services, education, and vocational training.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei issued a decree in May 2015 that allows all foreign nationals, even those who have no identification and are living in Iran illegally, to attend schools in the country.

Iran is among the 15 successful countries in attracting international university students, according to Mohammad Javad Salmanpour, the deputy head of the Organization for Student Affairs.

The education of foreign students in Iran has grown significantly compared to previous years, even last year, it has doubled, he said.

Iran has the ability and capacity to have more than 250,000 foreign students by 2026, he stated.

These students are studying in different fields of science, research and technology, health and medical education, and also in the fields of humanities, Islamic sciences, Persian language, and literature, law, fundamentals of Islamic law, management fields, economics, psychology, social sciences, as well as engineering, agricultural sciences, animal sciences, and basic sciences.

On June 20, UNHCR marked World Refugee Day with a series of events celebrating refugees resilience and courage and the countrys commendable inclusive policies towards refugees.

The occasion served as a reminder of the need for more global burden-sharing and solidarity in addressing the challenges faced by displaced persons around the world, according to the UNHCR website.

With over 3.4 million refugees and refugee-like populations, Iran has become the second-largest refugee-hosting country globally this year.

In total, Iran hosts some 4.5 million Afghans of varying status including resident permit holders, undocumented Afghans, and family passport holders many of whom have been in the country for an extended period and require support to strengthen their resilience.

Irans support for refugees is demonstrated through its inclusive policies, which encompass protection, assistance, education, and healthcare, inspiring the global community and positively impacting the lives of refugees.

Throughout Iran, a range of events were organized to commemorate this years World Refugee Day, under the theme Hope Away from Home.

MG

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Iranian refugees down by 14% in 2022: report - Tehran Times

Iranian animation outfit Kosar3D recently announced a new direction: videogames. Specifically, Kosar3D's game Revenge "deals with the military alliance of Iran and Russia against NATO" (but mainly, it seems, the United States and Israel). It is being developed by a team of programmers in Mashhad and directed by Farhad Azima, whose previous works include the film Battle for the Persian Gulf 2 ("an Armed Conflict between Iranian Revolutionary Guard and U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf").

The announcement claims the game is self-funded, and its purpose is "direct confrontation with the works of its counterpart in this format of the entertainment industry." In other words, it aims to be the Iranian answer to the game it can't stop referencing: Call of Duty.

"In this game the military alliance takes form between Iran and Russia," said Azima in an interview on Russia Today. "The group tries to neutralise the operations that are planned by the enemy against the allies of Iran and Russia."

The Russia Today report's voiceover adds that the alliance "nips those operations in the bud" and goes on to say the game is not about war but "pre-emptive strikes launched on the enemy's soil to thwart the enemy's attacks." It then claims that Revenge's "top notch graphics and realistic scenarios make it Iran's Call of Duty" (quite the feat when competing against Modern Warfare 2's reported $250 million budget).

"We try to develop the game to be on a par with games like Call of Duty," said Azima. "The game resembles American and world class games in terms of graphics and quality, despite our limited facilities."

As for what kind of combat to expect: "An important challenge is the battle between Iran's fourth-generation Sukhoi fighter and the United States' fifth-generation fighter, the F35," said Azima. "In calculations on paper, the battle between these two fighters will probably be associated with the victory of the F35, but in a dogfight or a very close battle, the victory will be with the Sukhoi, especially if the pilot is an Iranian."

There is a funny side to thisafter all, why should America be the only one producing gung-ho propaganda about global conflicts? But Call of Duty's presentation of Middle Eastern nations and fighters is a source of deserved criticism, with the worldview it presents often feeling like an extension of the US military press department. "That's Call of Duty, over and over," said developer Rami Ismail in 2016. "Shoot all the Arabs. Muslim blood is the cheapest in the world." The stereotyping of the Middle East in CoD is so pronounced that even the Financial Times has covered it.

So the scenarios here may seem distasteful to a western audience, though almost as striking is how rarely such perspectives are ever seen in the games industry. The shooter genre generally has a casual acceptance of Middle Eastern villains and we're almost never made to consider the other sides of global conflict or see nations like Iran as anything other than unquestionable villains.

The "enemy soil" line about Revenge seems to reference the player attacking Israel, for example, something it's impossible to imagine in an American-made game: one clip on YouTube is called "Destruction of enemy missile base with hypersonic ballistic missile," but on the website this is referenced as the destruction of "Zionist fighters".

Even more eyebrow raising is the description of the game's first level. There are seven levels total in Revenge, and the opening is set in Ukraine. The player has to infiltrate a US-run laboratory that is producing a virus which (deep breath) turns Ukrainians into zombies that attack Russians. When asked about this scenario, Azima says that this is based on Russia seizing US labs in Ukraine producing deadly viruses, a baseless claim popularised by the Kremlin and Russian state media, and the zombie scenario "makes this story more interesting" as the US "tries to compensate for its defeat."

Well. There's a surprising amount of material from Revenge on the developer's YouTube page though, perhaps not surprisingly for an animation studio, they focus on cutscenes over gameplay. The main reveal video, however, shows unmistakeable environments and 3D models of military craft. Azima says the game's been in production for two years, and is hoped to be finished later this year. The final irony? It's being made in Unreal Engine, created by the very American Epic Games.

Most American of all and my favourite line, however, is Azima's sign-off on a post revealing some new art: "With God's permission, we are going to make a lot of money."

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'Iran's Call of Duty' is all about destroying the US and NATO, and ... - PC Gamer

TEHRAN - Edmond Bezik, an expert on Iranian football, thinks that the U17 team's World Cup qualification is a great incident, but he believes it happened by chance rather than due to a process.

Iran secured a place in the FIFA U17 World Cup Indonesia 2023 after advancing to the AFC U17 Asian Cup Thailand 2023 semifinals.

I know that Hossein Abdi has worked hard as head coach to make his team successful, Bezik said in his interview with Tehran Times.

Iran achieved great results in the group stage and managed to defeat Yemen in a penalty shootout. It's a fantastic opportunity for our young players to participate in the World Cup, he added.

Iran lost 3-0 to Japan in the semifinals, which prevented them from entering the final match, and the critics put Abdi under pressure.

Bezik, with more than 15 years of experience in coaching junior football teams, shared his thoughts on this issue.

To me, Iranian teams' success in youth and junior age groups is always based on luck, not a well-planned process.

Mr. Abbas Chamanian led Iran in the 2017 FIFA World Cup and his team played remarkably well, and captured the attention of football experts. But they made it to the World Cup without any specific plans and were eventually finished their adventure without any strategy. Consequently, the head coach and several players are no longer involved in top-level of Iranian football.

Abdi has done a great job with the current U17 team, but he needs more facilities and time to make a significant impact in the upcoming World Cup.

To those who criticize the U17 national team, I suggest that they have to participate in their training and closely observe their efforts. Furthermore, experiencing the challenges in Iranian football club's junior group ages can help to understand the issues, the former Persepolis forward concluded.

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Iran U17 football team need to support: Bezik - Tehran Times

May 19 (Reuters) - Iran on Friday executed three men it said were implicated in the deaths of three members of its security forces during last years anti-government demonstrations, drawing protests at home and abroad.

Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi were executed in the central city of Isfahan, the judiciary said in a statement on Twitter, adding they had "martyred" two members of the Basij paramilitary force and a police officer on Nov. 16.

Amnesty International said the men's fast-tracked trial was flawed and used "torture-tainted 'confessions'".

Iran denies that confessions are extracted under torture.

Friday's executions brought to at least seven the number of protesters hanged since the beginning of the nationwide protests that began last autumn and turned into one of the boldest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution.

They were ignited by the death on Sept. 16 of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran's morality police.

In anticipation of their imminent execution, the three men on Wednesday appealed in a handwritten note for public support, saying, "Don't let them kill us".

"We need your help," said the note that went viral on social media, drawing local and international appeals to halt the executions, including from Washington.

Families and supporters held nightly vigils outside the Dastgerd prison in Isfahan in support of the three men who were being held inside. Street protests broke out in Isfahan, the capital Tehran and a few other cities after the executions were announced, according to videos posted on social media.

"We swear by our comrades' blood to be steadfast till the end," chanted protesters in Tehran, in a video which Reuters could not independently verify.

The European Union condemned the executions "in the strongest possible terms", a spokesperson said. Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, condemned the hangings as "reprehensible killings" and said on Twitter: "Australia stands with the people of Iran."

U.N. rights experts said in a statement they were "deeply alarmed" at continuing executions of Iran protesters.

State media broadcast videos of what were presented as the defendants' confessions, which Amnesty International said were extracted by torture.

"The shocking manner in which the trial and sentencing of these protesters was fast-tracked through Iran's judicial system amid the use of torture-tainted 'confessions', serious procedural flaws and a lack of evidence is another example of the Iranian authorities' brazen disregard for the rights to life and fair trial," Amnesty said in a report on Wednesday.

"Majid Kazemi said in an audio recording from prison that he was forced to make false self-incriminating statements after interrogators beat him, gave him electric shocks, subjected him to mock executions, and threatened to rape him, execute his brothers and harass his parents," said Amnesty.

The men were sentenced to death on the charge of "enmity against God" for the alleged possession of a firearm.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel, calling on Iran not to execute the three men, told reporters on Thursday that their execution would be an affront to human rights.

dubai.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Iran executes three men over recent protests, draws protests - Reuters

An Iranian military commander on Friday threatened the US over the killing of Irans top general over three years ago, vowing to drive American forces out of the Middle East.

Iran has repeatedly vowed vengeance since a US airstrike killed General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020.

Although the Americans martyred Haj Qassem Soleimani, they received the first blow and now are receiving the second blow, which is nothing but their gradual withdrawal from the region,Iranian general Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said on Friday.

The final blow has yet to come to them, Salami said, according to Irans semi-official Fars news agency.

Soleimani, the architect of Irans regional military activities, was killed in a US drone strike in neighboring Iraq. He is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Irans theocracy.

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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in January also issued threats against the US during a ceremony marking three years since Soleimanis death.

There will be no relief for murderers and accomplices, Raisi said.

President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi holds up a photo of assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani as he addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, at UN headquarters, Sept. 21, 2022. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

Iran responded to the killing of Soleimani by launching a barrage of missiles at US bases in Iraq, causing dozens of brain concussion injuries but no deaths among US soldiers stationed there.

Iranian officials have repeatedly vowed to take further steps and imposed sanctions on individuals accused of taking part in the operation.

According to US officials, Iran has launched at least 80 attacks against US forces and locations in Iraq and Syria since January 2021. The vast majority of those have been in Syria.

In March, a suspected Iranian-linked drone attack killed a US contractor and wounded seven other Americans in northeast Syria. The US retaliated with airstrikes.

Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force of Irans Revolutionary Guard, was credited with helping to arm, train, and lead armed groups across the region, including the Shiite militias in Iraq, fighters in Syria and Yemen, the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, and terror groups in the West Bank and Gaza.

The US held him responsible for the deaths of many of its soldiers in Iraq.

Agencies contributed to this report.

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Iran Guards chief threatens 'final blow' against US over 2020 killing of Soleimani - The Times of Israel