Exclusive: Iran Guards Torture Ecologists Accused Of ‘Espionage’

The council, which is part of the Iranian judiciary, said in a statement that a report by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, which is to be presented to the UN’s Human Rights Council meeting in its 50th regular session from June 13 to July 8, 2022, was politically motivated. The council criticized the UN for not consulting Iran during the report’s preparation.

Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of the council, tweeted earlier in the week that the report was “copy-pasting the unsubstantiated allegations churned out by Javaid Rehman” and that it “tarnishes the UN credibility.” Rehman, a British-Pakistani law professor, has been the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran since 2018.

In his report submitted June 16 – covering June 11, 2021 to March 20, 2022 – Guterres expressed concern over excessive force used against dissidents and protestors, a high number of executions, and arbitrary arrests of activists and journalists.

The council said Iran had “provided detailed and reasoned comments and arguments regarding each paragraph and the allegations made in the previous reports of the Secretary-General and the Special Rapporteur.” The authors had paid little attention to Iran’s input, the council asserted, with Tehran’s comments “minimally reflected in the final report.”

According to the Meteorological Organization of Iran on Tuesday, temperature in the city of Abadan hit a staggering 52.2 degrees Celsius – or about 126 degrees Fahrenheit – a new record for the city and the province for June temperatures for the first time in 70 years, when the city’s weather station was established. 

Factoring in the humidity in the province, it is practically impossible to determine how hot it actually feels as the weather cannot fit on the heat index (HI) -- that combines air temperature and relative humidity. 

The heat wave in Khuzestan follows reports about a new wave of drought in the province.

The flow in downstream areas of the Dez River, which is a 400-kilometer-long tributary of the Karun River, has decreases drastically, alarming environmental activists and villagers.

In 2021, large-scale water protests took place in two important provinces, Khuzestan and Esfahan, with several people killed and hundreds injured by security forces.

Iran has been suffering from drought for at least a decade and this year officials are warning of a further decrease in precipitation.

Authorities said earlier in the month that water inflow into Tehran’s dams decreased by about 21 percent since March compared with last year.

As drought persists, more underground water is exploited for irrigation, depleting natural reservoirs formed during thousands of years. The drought has also led to a reduction in hydroelectric power generation.

The prosecutor of Zahedan said on Tuesday that the three Mossad-linked agents will put on trial in the near future.

"The three were planning to assassinate our nuclear scientists according to intelligence assessments," Mehdi Shamsabadi said, without specifying the nationality of the detainees.

Late in April, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced the arrest of “three spies” by "a court order" over links to the Israeli intelligence agency, adding “that these individuals were involved “in the dissemination of classified information and documents.”

The Islamic Republic periodically announces it has busted “terrorist” or spying networks, but it rarely provides any follow-up news or concrete information and almost never holds public trials. In some cases, individuals convicted of ties with Israel have been executed.

In October, Iran announced that ten people were arrested for “links with intelligence services” of regional “adversaries” without disclosing which intelligence service had established the alleged network inside the country. But the use of the term ‘regional adversary’ could refer to Israel which is suspected of conducting spectacular sabotage acts against Iran’s nuclear, military and strategic economic targets since July 2020, or it could mean Saudi Arabia.

Tensions have risen between Israel and Iran as the Biden administration has tried to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement. Israel regards the prospect of Iran developing nuclear weapons as a threat to its existence and could act independently to stop Iran's nuclear program should the international community fail to do so.

Babak Paknia said that in addition to years of imprisonment, they were also banned from carrying out their professions as well as media activities. 

According to him, Mehdi Mahmoudian and Mostafa Nili were sentenced to four years in prison in addition to two years of deprivation of any form of media activities, while Nili was also sentenced to a two-year ban from his job.

Arash Kaykhosravi was sentenced to two years behind bars, one year deprivation of the right to practice law and one year ban on media activities, Mohammad Reza Faghihi was sentenced to six months in prison and Maryam Afrafraz received a 95-day imprisonment sentence. 

The group of five, who were arrested on August 15 last year and put on trial at Branch 29 of Tehran Revolutionary Court in April, has come to be called 'Defenders of Right to Health' by the media.

Ali Khamenei ruled out importing United States- and British-made Covid-19 vaccines in January 2021, arguing that the US and Uk cannot be trusted. At the time, the US-German Pfizer, US-made Moderna and the British-made AstraZeneca were the only vaccines approved internationally and available in early 2021.

The group's litigation apparently sought to establish that decisions by Khamenei, former President Hassan Rouhani, and others led to thousands of unnecessary deaths when a severe wave of infections hit Iran from June to August 2021.

The head of the Iranian Nursing Organization, Mohammad Mirzabeigi, wrote a letter to the president on Monday to express anger and disappointment about remarks by the head of Gilan Medical Sciences University, whom Raisi cited as the source of his contentious comment. 

In the letter, Mirzabeigi said that the nursing community, along with other medical staff, is at the forefront of serving the people and patients and sacrificed a lot during the Covid-19 outbreak. 

Describing nurses, physicians and paramedical personnel as the most committed forces in the country, he also called on the president to express gratitude for the efforts of the community and console the nurses and their families, many of whom have lost their loved ones on the line of duty during the pandemic. 

In addition to Mirzabeigi, social media users also reacted to Raisi’s remarks, strongly criticizing the mass layoff of nurses after the height of the Covid health crisis was over.

Moreover, reports say that with the pandemic easing about 5,000 nurses who were working under temporary contracts have been fired.