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The international community must demand that the Iranian authorities allow the UN Fact-Finding Mission and other independent monitors to enter the country to investigate the circumstances leading to the hospitalization of 16-year-old Armita Garawand, who fell unconscious on a Tehran metro train after reports she was assaulted by an enforcer of Irans compulsory veiling laws, and has been in a coma since, said Amnesty International, amid mounting evidence of a cover up by the authorities.

In the days following her hospitalization, Iranian authorities arrested a journalist investigating the incident and circulated propaganda videos on state media featuring Armita Garawands visibly distressed parents and friends reluctantly reiterating the state narrative that she collapsed due to low blood pressure.

In an additional attempt to conceal the truth, the authorities also released edited CCTV footage. Analysis by Amnesty Internationals Evidence Lab reveals the video frame rate was increased in four sections and detected a gap of three minutes and 16 seconds in the footage.

Iranian authorities are waging a concerted campaign of denial and distortion to cover up the truth about the circumstances that led to Armita Garawands collapse, chillingly reminiscent of their bogus narratives and unplausible explanations of Mahsa/Zhina Aminis hospitalization just over a year ago, said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty Internationals Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Iranian authorities are waging a concerted campaign of denial and distortion to cover up the truth about the circumstances that led to Armita Garawands collapse, chillingly reminiscent of their bogus narratives and unplausible explanations of Mahsa/Zhina Aminis.

Given the lack of prospects for impartial and independent investigations domestically, the international community must press the Iranian authorities to allow access to the UN Fact-Finding Missions and other independent monitors to uncover the truth about what led to the hospitalization in critical condition of yet another girl, amid reports of assault related to compulsory veiling laws. The international community must also demand that Armita Garawands relatives, friends and journalists seeking the truth are protected from reprisals and harassment.

On 1 October 2023, Armita Garawand was admitted to Fajr hospital in a coma after falling unconscious in a train at a metro station in Tehran. According to informed sources, security forces have established a heavy presence at the hospital entrance, preventing visitors and even forbidding people from recording videos from their phones. The sources reported that the authorities permitted her parents inside the hospital on several occasions, but under restrictions, limiting them to seeing her briefly.

On 2 October 2023, Iranian newspaper Shargh Daily reported that journalist Maryam Lofti had been arrested after going to Fajr hospital to investigate. Maryam Lotfi was released on bail the same day.

On 5 October 2023, the Guardian newspaper quoted an eyewitness saying that soon after Armita Garawand entered the train carriage, a woman agent enforcing compulsory veiling in the metro screamed at Armita Garawand asking her why was she not covered. The eyewitness, as cited by the Guardian, added, Armita then told her Do I ask you to remove your headscarf? Why are you asking me to wear one? Their argument then turned violent. The hijab enforcer started physically attacking Armita and violently pushed her.

Iranian state media hastily responded to the reports by attributing Armita Garawands collapse to a drop in blood pressure.

On 3 October 2023, state media released a video featuring multiple shots of Armita Garawands parents reluctantly reiterating the state narrative. During the video her mother repeatedly pauses and hesitates while describing the events.

In another scene a woman, identified vaguely as a relative, is seen standing next to Armita Garawands mother, Shaheen Ahmadi. The woman claims that allegations of assault against Armita Garawand were not correct, and that the family has been allowed to review all the CCTV footage and said that it was all ok. Armita Garawands visibly distressed mother is heard interrupting the woman noting that the family had not viewed all the footage.

On 5 October 2023, state media released another video which shows the interrogation of two of Armita Garawands schoolfriends in which they repeated the authorities narrative about her collapse. The video also shows CCTV footage of a young woman without a headscarf purported to be Armita Garawand on 1 October entering the station, stepping onto a train, and then being carried off the same train by her friends and other female passengers.

Amnesty Internationals Evidence Lab analyzed the CCTV camera footage from the metro station published by Iranian state media outlets. Video analysis concluded that the footage has been edited and the frame rate has been increased in four sections of the video. Based on the footage time stamps, three minutes and 16 seconds of the metro footage are missing.

Amnesty International has documented the Iranian authorities long-standing pattern of subjecting victims families to harassment, intimidation, and threats of reprisals in order to force them into reiterating official state narratives which absolve authorities of responsibility for human rights violations. The organization therefore has serious concerns that Armita Garawands family and friends have been forced to appear in propaganda videos and reiterate the state narrative under duress and threats of reprisals.

Amnesty International is calling on members of the international community to pursue legal avenues at the international level, including through the principle of universal jurisdiction, to initiate criminal investigations against Iranian officials responsible for the widespread and systematic human rights violations against women and girls.

Armita Garawands hospitalization comes against a backdrop of an intensified campaign of oppression in recent months against women and girls who defy Irans abusive and discriminatory compulsory veiling laws. This has encompassed harassment and violent attacks by state agents and vigilantes against women and girls who appear in public unveiled, confiscation of cars, denial of access to employment, education, healthcare, banking services and public transport, and cruel judicial sentences.

On 27 April 2023, the mayor of Tehran, Alireza Zakani, introduced a hijab and chastity plan for the municipality, which relies on a special municipal security force (yegan-e hefazat-e shahrdari) to confront women and girls who do not wear headscarves in the metro.

On 20 September 2023, Irans parliament passed a bill that, if approved by the Guardian Council, would further erode the human rights of women and girls who defy compulsory veiling.

Under Irans Islamic Penal Code, women who are seen in public without a headscarf can be punished with a prison sentence, flogging or a fine.

See the original post here:
Iran: Independent investigation into schoolgirl's critical injuries ... - Amnesty International

Women, Life, Freedom

During the last three months of 2023, more than 500 Iranians were killed and some 20,000 arrested after the death in detention of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for violating the strict dress code by showing too much hair under her hijab. The motto adopted by the demonstrators Woman, Life, Freedom suitably expresses the dedication and work of Narges Mohammadi, the Nobel Committee added.

The selection reflects the Nobel Committees growing recognition of women who lead political and social opposition movements worldwide. Only three women won the Nobel Peace Prize during its first 75 years. Overall, the Nobel Committee has only awarded 19 of the 111 peace prizes to women since 1901, while 92 went to men. With Mohammadi, women have now won or shared nine of the Nobel Peace Prizes awarded since 2000. The 2023 award is the second to an Iranian human rights activist. Shirin Ebadi, a lawyer who founded the Defenders of Human Rights Center, won in 2003; she has lived in exile in London since 2009.

In a statement, President Joe Biden joined many around the world in celebrating Mohammadis unshakable courage in challenging the regimes ruthless abuses and her commitment to building a different future for all Iranians. She has endured repeated arrests, persecution, and torture at the hands of the Iranian regime, yet Ms. Mohammadis advocacy and determination has only grown stronger, he said. This award is a recognition that, even as she is currently and unjustly held in Evin prison, the world still hears the clarion voice of Narges Mohammadi calling for freedom and equality. He called on the Iranian government in Iran to immediately release her and other womens rights activists.

Mohammadi is a gutsy scientist, journalist and human rights campaigner. She studied applied physics at the University of Qazvin, then worked as an engineer even as she wrote and campaigned on human rights issues. She was prolific in reformist publications, some of which were subsequently banned by the government. She was first imprisoned for a year in the late 1990s for criticizing the government. In 2003, she joined the Defenders of Human Rights Center founded by Ebadi and rose to become its vice-president. In 2011, she was charged with acting against national security, propaganda against the state, and belonging to the Ebadi organization. She has faced several subsequent charges for collusion and propaganda against the state, in turn piling up more years in prison and more lashes. Altogether, the regime in Iran has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes, the Nobel Committee noted.

Mohammadis imprisonment has gutted her personal life and professional goals. In 1999, she married fellow activist Taghi Rahmani, who has spent almost a third of his life in prison for activism first against the shah and later against the Islamic government. He was only 15 when he was first arrested, he told me when I interviewed him at USIP in May 2023.

Mohammadi and Rahmani met when she joined a secret class he was teaching above a bookstore, years after he had first been detained. I told her that her mother, when I had gone to ask for Narges' hand, I said want to marry your daughter, Rahmani recalled. She said, I will not give you my daughter. You're a political activist. You're going to make my daughter's life miserable. They married anyway. Mohammadi increasingly came under pressure for her writing on issues of personal freedoms and womens rights.

After her first arrest, Rahmani recalled, I told Narges to exercise and not to think too much in solitary. As government harassment increased on both of them, he wanted to take the family, including their young twins, into exile in France. She refused to abandon Iran. Narges said I'm an activist, and an activist can't be active outside the country, I will stay in Iran, he told me. I went back to my mother-in-law and said, Now it's your daughter who's not coming with me. What must I do? He added, She's much more dangerous than I am now.

Her book, White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Women Prisoners, was released to critical acclaim in 2022. In scorching detail, it personalizes the physical and psychological trauma of being a prisoner of conscience. I am writing this preface in the final hours of my home leave. Very soon I will be forced to return to my prison, she wrote. This time I was found guilty because of the book you are holding in your hands White Torture.

Mohammadi has not wavered. In a statement released through her family after the Nobel announcement, she said, Standing alongside the brave mothers of Iran, I will continue to fight against the relentless discrimination, tyranny and gender-based oppression by the oppressive religious government until the liberation of women. She has not seen her son and daughter, who are now 16, for eight years.

I asked Rahmani if hardships, suffering and family separation were worth it. Yes, why not? It's worth it, he said. Life is struggle, the struggle for freedom. She is not unhappy at all. And I'm not unhappy about it. Narges said she would never recognize any court or participate in any trial, because you have no justice. Now she doesn't even care what the rulings are or what the sentences are.

The award coincided with news of yet another assault on a young Iranian over dress code violations while she was riding the Tehran subway on October 5. Biden noted the horrifying reports about Irans so-called morality police assaulting 16-year-old Armita Geravand for not wearing a headscarf. The people of Iran refuse to be silenced or intimidated as they fight for a free and democratic future for their nation, and their peaceful movement, he said. The United States will continue working to support Iranians ability to advocate for their own future, for freedom of expression, for gender equality, and to end gender-based violence against women and girls everywhere. He noted U.S. diplomatic initiatives at the United Nations to hold Iran accountable for human rights abuses and deployment of anti-censorship tools to make it easier for tens of millions of Iranians to access the internet.

Meanwhile, Mohammadi has remained active behind bars too. On the anniversary of Mahsa Aminis death in September 2023, she organized a protest by women serving with her in Evin Prison. They burned their scarves, required even in the womens section of a prison.

Link:
Iranian Human Rights Activist Wins Nobel Peace Prize - United States Institute of Peace

Farhad Nafeiy, 70, of Alamo, California, was charged with and pleaded guilty yesterday to a violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) in the Northern District of California.

Under IEEPA, the President of the United States is granted authority to address unusual and extraordinary threats to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.Under that law, the President hasissued orders prohibiting certain activities and transactions with Iran and the Government of Iran. The Department of Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has issued regulations, referred to as the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), implementing those orders. These sanctions on Iran generally prohibit, among other things, exporting or facilitating the export of U.S.-origin products to Iran and providing services to Iran.

According to court documents, Nafeiy obtained licenses or approvals from OFAC for advising non-Iranian telecommunications companies on doing business with Iran. However, those licenses did not authorize Nafeiy to provide any hardware, software or technology directly to Iran. Nafeiy exceeded his OFAC licenses, thereby violating the ITSR and IEEPA, by directly providing software upgrades to telecommunications equipment in Iran. Nafeiy admitted in his plea agreement that he knew he exceeded these licenses when he did so. In his plea agreement, Nafeiy further admitted that the total amount of sales of such software upgrades to Iran was approximately $400,000. Nafeiy separately was charged with, and admitted to, evading his federal income taxes, and specifically not paying income tax on some of the proceeds of these sales.

On Aug. 10, Nafeiy was charged by information with one count of violating IEEPA and one count of tax evasion. Sentencing is set before the Honorable Aracelli Martnez-Olgun on Jan. 29, 2024.

Homeland Security Investigations and the IRS-Criminal Investigation are investigating the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Kingsley for the Northern District of California and Trial Attorney David Ryan of the National Security Divisions Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case, with assistance from Kathleen Turner of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of California. Former Trial Attorney Elizabeth Abraham provided valuable assistance in prior phases of the prosecution.

Original post:
Telecommunications Consultant Pleads Guilty to Violating Sanctions ... - Department of Justice

1. Which party won the most votes in Slovakias early parliamentary elections on Saturday?

The liberal PS party

The populist Smer party

The center-left Hlas party

The conservative KDH party

Smer, which won 22.9 percent of the vote, is led by Robert Fico, a pro-Russian former prime minister who has promised to stop aid to Ukraine. Even with a victory, though, Fico will have to work hard to secure a government, Amanda Coakley wrote last month.

2. In other election news, who won the Maldives presidential election runoff over the weekend?

Mohamed Muizzu, leader of the opposition Peoples National Congress

Incumbent President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih

Former Home Minister Umar Naseer

Maldives Reform Movement leader Ahmed Faris Maumoon

he election was, in part, seen as a referendum on great-power competition between China and India, Foreign Policys Michael Kugelman wrote in South Asia Brief last month.

3. The European Union on Tuesday announced an aid package worth some $680 million to which country?

Somalia

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Ethiopia

The pledge came a day before the deadline for renewing an investigation into human rights abuses during Ethiopias recent war in its Tigray region. Kate Hixon and Kehinde A. Togun argued in FP in July that reengagement with Ethiopia should not come at the expense of holding its government to account.

4. Which British government official turned heads on Tuesday with a speech that railed against undocumented immigrants and loose national borders?

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

Home Secretary Suella Braverman

Defense Secretary Grant Shapps

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly

Bravermans speech highlights a global turn toward isolationism, a phenomenon explored in a new book that was recently reviewed in FP by Jan-Werner Mller.

5. Kenyan lawmakers on Wednesday said what was required before police could be deployed for a peacekeeping mission in Haiti?

Funding from the United Nations

Advanced weapons from the United States

Approval by Kenyas Parliament

Housing in Port-au-Prince

The pushback from Kenyas political opposition comes after the United Nations approved the deployment of the multinational force, which FPs Alexandra Sharp reports on in World Brief.

6. A teenage Iranian girl is reportedly in a coma after a confrontation with police in the Tehran metro on Wednesday over what?

Violating the hijab law

Tampering with the metro tracks

Throwing rocks at the officers

Protesting freedom of speech restrictions

The encounter follows Irans parliament passing a bill seeking to enforce the mandatory hijab law more strictly, Sina Toossi wrote in September.

7. FIFA announced on Wednesday that it would hold some 2030 mens World Cup games in which three Latin American countries?

Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile

Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia

Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador

Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay

The early games in South America are a nod to the tournaments earliest days, with Uruguays match slated to be played in the stadium that hosted the first-ever World Cup in 1930, FPs Catherine Osborn writes in Latin America Brief.

8. A South Korean report on Thursday said North Korea has stopped the nuclear reactor at its main atomic complex in order to do what?

Modernizing renovations to speed up production

Extract plutonium for weapons production

Investigate recent nuclear waste accidents

Convert it into a uranium enrichment facility

The expected harvesting of plutonium comes alongside a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over weapons production and technology-sharing negotiations, FPs Jack Detsch reported last month.

9. Danish researchers this week announced that Viking buildings possessed what?

Glass windows

Running water

Ventilation systems

Bathrooms

The glass panes can be dated from pre-medieval times, suggesting that Vikings were more advanced than previously thought, The Associated Press reports.

10. A Saudi Arabian athlete broke a Guinness world record when she rowed a boat how many miles across open water in just over 57 minutes?

5 miles

6.2 miles

8.6 miles

12.3 miles

She attempted the record in the Red Sea off the coast of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, UPI reports. The effort was complicated by extreme heat, among other factors.

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Slovakia's Election and Iran's Police - Foreign Policy

The Indian mens kabaddi team will take on familiar foes Iran in the final of the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou, the Peoples Republic of China on Saturday.

The India vs Iran kabaddi final will be played at Xiaoshan Guali Sports Centre at 12:30 PM IST on Saturday. The IND vs IRI match will be available on live streaming and live telecast in India.

India have been the most dominant kabaddi team in Asian Games history. Indian men won seven successive gold medals since kabaddi was introduced at the Asian Games at Beijing 1990 but their juggernaut was halted by Iran at Jakarta 2018.

India lost to Iran 27-18 in the semi-finals of the 2018 Asian Games for bronze. However, Indias squad for the Asian Games 2023 kabaddi features a completely different set of players.

Indian kabaddi team captain Pawan Sehrawat leads the 12-member squad that includes seasoned raiders from Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) Naveen Kumar, Arjun Deshwal and Aslam Inamdar. The defence is being manned by vice-captain Sunil Kumar and Parvesh Bhainswal.

En route to the final at Hangzhou 2023, India beat Pakistan in the semi-finals. They topped their group unbeaten with wins over Thailand, Bangladesh, Chinese Taipei and Japan.

Meanwhile, Iran, led by their star defender Fazel Atrachali and all-rounders Mohammad Esmaeil Nabibakhsh and Mohammad Reza Shadlu, produced the goods against Chinese Taipei in the semi-finals. They also went unbeaten in the group with wins over Pakistan, Malaysia and the Republic of Korea.

Fazel Atrachali, as captain, and Mohammad Esmaeil Nabibakhsh were part of the gold medal-winning Iran kabaddi team at the 2018 Asian Games.

India will also play the final in the womens kabaddi event. The Indian womens kabaddi team, led by Ritu Negi, will play Chinese Taipei in the final. The two sides played out a tie in the group stages. Chinese Taipei showed the door to 2018 champions Iran in the semi-finals and will play for gold against two-time champions India.

The womens Asian Games 2023 kabaddi final will also be held on Saturday.

Excerpt from:
India vs Iran kabaddi, Asian Games 2023 final: Where to watch live ... - Olympics