Nobel Laureates Ask UN To Demand Release Of Two Students Jailed In Iran

In a tweet on Sunday, his daughter Elika saidAnoushehAshoori has joined Rosen and other hunger striking activists from his cell in Tehran's Evin prison, demanding release of all foreign hostages.

Ashoori, a British-Iranian businessman, is one of several dual nationals who are in detention in Iran on unsubstantiated charges. Ashoori has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on alleged spying for Israel.

Rosen’s hunger strike In Vienna is gathering momentum as Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese former hostage in Iran, and UK-based Iranian journalist and activist Jamshid Barzegar have also joined the sit-in.

Rosen, the former US diplomat held hostage in Iran for 444 days four decades ago, said in a tweet on Sundaythat he is feeling “very weakened but buoyed” that others are joining the campaign.

While the negotiations in Vienna are centered on reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, many have raised the issues of Iran’s human rights record and its support for militant organizations in the Middle East. There is no indication that any of these concerns are dealt with at the talks.

Iran has detained many foreigners and dual nationals who have visited the country and used them as bargaining chips against Western countries, according to human rights organizations.

Mohammadi was arrested in Novemberlast year at the death anniversary ceremony of a victim shot dead by security forces during the November 2019 protests, reportedly while shopping.

She has been to jail several times over the past two decades. She was freed from Evin Prison in September 2020 after serving more than five years when she had no contact with her husband and children for long periods of time.

Persecution of human rights and political activists and execution have increased since hardliner president Ebrahim Raisi took office last August.

Keyvan Samimi, another activist-turned-prisoner, was transferred from Evin late last week, and is being kept in quarantine in Karaj Central Prison.

Samimi has said he will stage a hunger strike, if he is not moved back to Evin, where Iran keeps most of its political prisoners.

An Iranian human rights monitoring group based abroad has reported over 2,300 protest rallies in the countryin 2021, with most events related to labor issues.

Iran executed 299 individuals in 2021, including four juvenile offenders - a 26-percent increase compared with 2020. Courts issued 85 death sentences until December 20.

“Guided-missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) and patrol coastal ship USS Chinook (PC 9) interdicted the stateless vessel transiting from Iran in waters outside of any state’s territorial sea along a route historically used to traffic weapons to the Houthis in Yemen,” a statement by the 5th Fleet said on Sunday.

The same vessel was caught in February 2021 smuggling illicit weapons off the coast of Somalia apparently for Houthi rebels in Yemen, but it is not clear how the vessel was allowed to go free.

The interdiction took place on January 18, the 5th Fleet said, and the ship was transferred to Yemen’s coastguard with its cargo and crew of five.

In December, the US Navy seized another shipin the Arabian Sea originating from Iran that was carrying 1,400 AK-47 assault rifles and 226,600 rounds of ammunition. The vessel was transiting “international waters along a route historically used to traffic weapons to the Houthis in Yemen,” a Navy statement said at the time.

The 5th Fleet operates in the waters of the Middle East, from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf in an area encompassing 2.5 million square miles.

In a Twitter post Friday, the taboo-breaking standup comedian alleged that her page was reported by hardliner cyber-activists paid by state organizations. "It upsets me that some people are now sending invoices, and are getting paid from taxpayers' money, for shutting down my account," she wrote.

Recently, the online admission of a jihadi man proved that hardline followers of Iran's regime get paid for their activities online.

Empress Kuzcooo's Instagram page had over half a million followers before being deleted but she was lucky she had a second Instagram page that she had kept running in the background in preparation for the rainy day.

The video-post that demolished Empress Kuzcooo's very popular Instagram palace was entitled "Expert Scrutiny of Prayer at the Kremlin". In the video she made fun of President Ebrahim Raisi's prayer during his meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday. Iran's hardliners say Raisi's much advertised prayerwas a "spiritual victory" for the Islamic Republic.

In her standup, Empress Kuzcooo criticized Raisi in hilarious terms for using time that should be dedicated to diplomatic negotiations, and "doing something for his country", to pray at the Kremlin Palace in front of cameras and made fun of his not-too-good public speaking skills.

"He knows he is not capable of speaking [diplomatically] … so he communicated his heart's desire to his God instead … Oh, God, he said, make Mr. Putin love me to help our wishes come true," Empress Kuzcooo who speaks like an elderly illiterate woman in Qom accent squeals in the video from under the black veil that only leaves her nose to be seen.

The number of followers for Empress Kuzcooo's 'spare' account, to which she has emigrated since Friday, is growing by the hour as followers discover her new page. In a matter of three hours Saturday, over four thousands followed the new page (iam.kuzcooo) which now has 26.5k followers.

Empress Kuzcooo is the artistic name of Zeynab Mousavi, a 32-year-old computer software graduate. Mousavi is also active on Twitter and Telegram. She works from home in her hometown of Qom, the city of Iran's largest Shia seminaries, and makes her living from advertisements on her social media accounts.

Her artistic name, Empress Kuzcooo, draws from the protagonist in the 2000 Disney animation 'Emperor's New Groove', an arrogant and saucy personality.

Mousavi is known to millions of Iranian social media users for her biting humor, impetuous criticism of clerics and politicians, and for breaking taboos by sometimes explicit sexual references in her standups.

In 2017, Mousavi told The Guardian that she would not give in to censorship and intimidation. On her Tweeter account Mousavi has published dozens of screenshots of abusive messages and comments she receives from hardliners. "Look, we have no toleration for insults against three people: The Leader of the Revolution, President Raisi, and Ghasem Soleimani. Our blood will boil if you insult them and we won't be responsible for anything we do," one such comment read.

Instagram users can report posts, profiles, and comments if they think they are spam or inappropriate directly from their own feed. Instagram will suspend or completely shut down the account if the number of complaints reaches a certain threshold or if the content is too obviously abusive, explicit, etc. Recovering deleted pages is possible if the account owner can prove they were wrongfully reported but it may take some time.

January 20, the government’s statistical center reported on Saturday.

The annual inflation rate stood at 42.4 percent during December 21-Jaunuary 20. The annual rate is calculated based on a basket of prices for the year ending in each month compared to the previous 12 months.

The point-to-point inflation rate, which compares prices in a particular month to the same period in the previous year, stood at 36.9 percent, the Statistical Center of Iran said.

The report says prices for food and rents had the highest jump last month. Previous reports has indicted that food prices were growing with an annual rate of above 60 percent.

Iran’s currency has fallen eightfold since early 2018, due to US sanctions and inflation has skyrocketed. Millions of working Iranian are now categorized as poor, with the middle class shrinking. A member of parliament’s budget committee recently announced that 20 million people are suffering from absolute poverty.

Teachers, industrial and healthcare workers have been protesting regularly demanding higher wages to keep pace with inflation. A typical worker earns between $120-150 a month, which in large cities is barely enough for rent. The government, faced with a large budget deficit is phasing out food subsidies in coming months.