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I join with people around the world in congratulating Narges Mohammadi on being awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize and in celebrating her unshakable courage. Ms. Mohammadis commitment to building the future that women and all people in Iran deserve is an inspiration to people everywhere who are fighting for human rights and basic human dignity. 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. 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. I urge the government in Iran to immediately release her and her fellow gender equality advocates from captivity.

Sadly, Ms. Mohammadis award comes the same week that horrifying reports have emerged 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 Woman, Life, Freedomdemanding respect for their human rights has brought hope to people the world. We will continue to honor the bravery of all human rights defenders as well as the memory of Mahsa Amini and all those who have been killed, wounded, or imprisoned by the regime. 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.

As part of these efforts, the United States is continuing to lead a diplomatic initiative at the United Nations to highlight, condemn, and promote accountability for Irans abuses. Weve also deployed anti-censorship tools to make it easier for tens of millions of Iranians to access the internet and sanctioned more than 100 Iranian individuals and entities responsible for supporting the regimes oppression of its people.

The United States will continue to stand with Ms. Mohammadi, with the brave people of Iran, and with all those around the world who are working with resilience and resolve to make our world more equal and more free.

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Statement from President Joe Biden on Iranian Activist Narges ... - The White House

Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian womens rights and anti-death penalty advocate currently incarcerated in one of Irans most notorious prisons, has been awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.

Mohammadis win comes after a year of protest in the country following the murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who died in police custody after being detained for improperly wearing her headscarf. Though Mohammadi was behind bars during these protests and couldnt participate directly, she has worked as an advocate for related causes for decades, and continues to document human rights abuses within prison.

Mohammadis win, though a significant symbolic and political move on the part of the Nobel committee, is unlikely to change Irans stance on the protests or its human rights violations. Nor is it likely to free Mohammadi or materially change her condition, though the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen said in her speech announcing the prize that she hoped the Iranian authorities would release Mohammadi so she could attend the awards ceremony in December, the Associated Press reported.

The award is an explicit recognition of Mohammadis decades of work and of the ongoing struggle of women in Iran.

This years Peace Prize also recognises the hundreds of thousands of people who, in the preceding year, have demonstrated against the theocratic regimes policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women, the committee wrote in a press release Friday. Iranian women who spoke with the Associated Press, like 22-year-old chemistry student Arezou Mohebi, echoed that statement, calling the prize an award for all Iranian girls and women and Mohammadi herself the bravest I have ever seen.

Mohammadi, an engineer by training, has long been an active and important part of the Iranian struggle for human rights, working in particular on behalf of women and incarcerated people and against the death penalty. In 2003, she began working with the now-banned group Defenders of Human Rights Center, founded by Irans other Nobel Peace Prize winner, lawyer Shirin Ebadi.

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, a historian of the modern Middle East at the University of Pennsylvania, told Vox that within Iran, Mohammadi is very highly respected and admired for her unflinching commitment to freedom, womens rights, and human rights, as well as for her personal sacrifices in realizing these ideals. People in Iran are rejoicing over this prize.

Mohammadi was first arrested in 2011 for her work advocating for incarcerated human rights activists and their families; while out on bail in 2015, she was again arrested and imprisoned for her campaigning against Irans use of the death penalty. In Iran, the death penalty is often used for drug-related offenses or crimes like blasphemy or sowing corruption on earth a charge that can be applied to a variety of activities, such as protesting the government or being LGBTQ.

Last year there were around 580 executions in Iran, according to UN Human Rights Chief Volker Trk. Executions have continued apace in 2023; many of those were for drug-related offenses, and many of those executed came from minority populations, according to UN data. In Iran, authorities use the death penalty and execution as a tool of political repression against protesters, dissidents and minorities after subjecting the accused to show trials, according to a report this year by a UN body of experts.

This is true, too, for the Iranians protesting over the last year. After Aminis death in September 2022, Iranians of all ages, ethnic groups, and sectors of society engaged in mass demonstrations across the country against the government. Thousands of people flooded the streets night after night often peacefully, with women whipping off their hijabs and lighting them on fire, or cutting their hair in not just a show of solidarity with Amini, but also an expression of broader economic frustrations and outrage with political repression.

This was a woman-led movement particularly meaningful in a society that specifically restricts womens access to basic rights like education, jobs, and participation in public life based on whether they comply with compulsory hijab laws, as a June Human Rights Watch report explains.

Its really touching and kind of unprecedented even, perhaps, globally, this kind of feminist angle, and it is real, Borzou Daragahi, an Iranian-American journalist, told Vox in November at the height of the protests. The men supporting the women, the schoolgirls going out and protesting by day, the schoolboys going out and rioting against the police at night, people backing each other up, people cheering on the women as they take off their hijabs and so on. This whole feminist angle of it is quite singular, for a political revolution in any country.

That movement came to be known by its chants of Woman-Life-Freedom, and, though Aminis death ignited it, it built on years and even decades of protest and feminist activism by people like Mohammadi. And after years of protest movements, including in 2009 and 2019, Woman-Life-Freedom was one of the most serious challenges to regime power since the 1979 revolution.

Irans Basij, a paramilitary police force under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), cracked down on the uprising, injuring the eyes of hundreds of protesters with rubber bullets and metal pellets and killing or injuring others when they fired on crowds with lethal force. Ultimately, Irans government detained about 20,000 protesters and sentenced many to death. At least 209 people had been executed by May of this year, according to UN reports.

Though Mohammadi has been in and out of prison since 2015, she has continued to organize while incarcerated, fighting against inhumane conditions, including allegations of systematic torture and sexual violence. Mohammadi also participated in the Woman-Life-Freedom mass protests in her own way, according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, expressing her support for activists on the street and organizing solidarity actions among her fellow prisoners.

That, however, led to more brutal crackdowns from prison authorities; Mohammadi was barred from receiving phone calls or visitors. She has not seen her husband, Taghi Rahmani, who lives in exile in Paris with their 16-year-old twins, in 11 years.

The global support and recognition of my human rights advocacy makes me more resolved, more responsible, more passionate and more hopeful, Mohammadi wrote in a statement to the New York Times. I also hope this recognition makes Iranians protesting for change stronger and more organized. Victory is near.

However, its possible that Mohammadis win and the international recognition for her work will bring more strife and more crackdowns for her and for Iranian society at large. Regime-linked news agencies dismissed the prize; The Islamic Republic News Agency stated it had become a tool to satisfy the political desires of the Western countries, and Fars claimed it honored someone who persisted in creating tension and unrest and falsely claimed that she was beaten in prison.

Over the past year, the protests have garnered less media attention, and the regime has cracked down on society by purging academics from universities and arresting activists and journalists. Although the protests did not topple the government, it does seem to have caused an enduring fracture between the regime and society. Thats partly a result of the multiple crises economic, political, and social that Iran is currently facing, but it also speaks to the strength of the protest movement.

Now, Kashani-Sabet said, Mohammadis Nobel Prize will keep the embers of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement burning and alert the world that Iranian women and the Iranian people have not abandoned their resolve to usher in a free and tolerant Iran.

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Narges Mohammadi's Nobel Peace Prize is for Iran's women and girls - Vox.com

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.

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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.

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