95% Of Abortions Are Done Illegally In Iran – Official

In an open letter on Wednesday, a group of 68 current and former EU and UN judges, special advisers, and legal experts, wrote to Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, “Rather than helping to foster impunity in Iran by releasing a convicted terrorist, the Belgian government should unequivocally declare that Assadollah Assadi will not be released back to Iran."

Earlier in the month, Iran’s foreign ministry reiterated calls for release of the former official. Assadi, 50, a former attaché at the Iranian embassy in Austria, was convicted of plotting to bomb a gathering of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) near Paris on June 30, 2018. Iran says Nouri’s detention is driven by “false allegations” made by the MEK. 

They expressed their deep concerns that “Releasing Assadollah Assadi back to Iran would only fuel the culture of impunity that exists for Iran's officials.”

Referring to a treaty between Tehran and Brussels on expatriation of convicts, they said that article 13 of the treaty states that "Each Party may grant pardon, amnesty or commutation of the sentence in accordance with its Constitution or other laws,” which would “effectively allow the Iranian government to grant pardon to Assadi the moment he arrives in Iran.”

Iran has been accused of wrongfully detaining at least a dozen foreign and dual nationals on trumped up charges, effectively as hostages to extract concessions from Western governments. Most of them are held on spurious spying charges.

State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a press briefing on Tuesday that the US “is seeking to secure the release of four wrongfully detained US citizens with the utmost urgency, and will continue to urge Iran to do the same.”

“Iran must allow Baquer (Bagher) and Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi (Shargi), and Morad Tahbaz to return home to their loved ones,” he said, declining to comment on Bagher’s medical issues over privacy concerns. 

Bagher Namazi, 85, and his son, Siamak, are both jailed by the Islamic Republic, while the elder is in need of surgery “within weeks,” his family said. According to a statement from Perseus Strategies, which represents the family, he already had health problems when he was detained in 2016, and has developed further medical issues during his six years of imprisonment. 

“According to multiple neurologists, Namazi must undergo surgery within weeks to clear life-threatening blockages in his left internal carotid artery,” the statement read, adding that “At the time of his arrest, Bagher was 79 years old and already suffering from numerous health conditions... The horrific prison conditions, denial of proper care, and overall trauma of the past six and a half years have been devastating for Bagher’s physical and mental health. He developed stress induced, adult-onset epilepsy, as well as severe depression.

On Tuesday, Amnesty called on the Islamic Republic “to immediately quash the convictions and death sentences,” and release Zahra Sedighi-Hamedani and Elham Choubdar.

“Iran's authorities must end persecution of LGBTI people now,” the group added. The verdict was issued by the Revolutionary Court of the city of Orumiyeh (Urmia), in West Azarbaijan province against Zahra Sedighi-Hamedani (31), known as Sareh, Elham Choubdar (24). Another woman, Soheila Ashrafi (52), was involved in the joint case, but her verdict has not been issued yet.

In July, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Sedighi-Hamadani has been slapped with new charges of "trafficking Iranian women" to Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, referring to her as Zahra Mansouri Hamedani. She was first arrested on charges linked to an appearance in a BBC documentary on gay rights in Iraqi Kurdistan.

She was arrested while trying to cross the border and seek asylum in Turkey on October 27, 2021. She was held in solitary confinement for 53 days, during which, the Revolutionary Guard subjected her to intense interrogations, insulted her identity and appearance, threatened to execute her and to take away custody of her children.

On January 16, Sareh was accused of “spreading corruption on earth,” including through "promoting homosexuality”, “communication with anti-Islamic Republic media channels” and “promoting Christianity.”

Amnesty International appealed to Iran’s Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei on January 25, calling for her release.

In an open letter, signed by the sister of French citizen Benjamin Briere, the wife of Austrian Kamran Ghaderi, the wife of Swedish-Iranian doctor on death row Ahmadreza Djalali and the daughter of German citizen Jamshid Sharmahd and addressed to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, they said their loved ones “wonder whether EU officials have forgotten them and how much longer they will have to endure this ordeal.”

“We, the families of French, Swedish, German, and Austrian citizens, who have been illegally detained by the Iranian regime, are outraged that the European Union seems to be ignoring these crimes,” they added.

The families also listed legal and other mistreatments their loved one have had to endure. “These European citizens have been subjected to torture, grossly unfair trials based on fabricated charges, without access to legal counsel or proper medical care. All of them are held hostage by a dictatorial regime that does not even abide by the minimum standard of international legal and human rights.”

Briere has been detained since May 2020 and sentenced to eight years in jail on spying charges while Ghaderi has been held for almost seven years since January 2016. Djalali has been in jail for six years and is awaiting execution in Iran on charges of spying for Israel leading to the killing of nuclear scientists.

Amnesty International has accused the Islamic Republic of taking Djalali "hostage" and using him as “a pawn in a cruel political game." Sharmahd was kidnapped in Dubai and transferred to Iran in late July 2020 as Iran accused him of bombing a mosque in Shiraz 2008 that killed 14 people and wounded more than 200 others.  

Iran has been accused of wrongfully detaining at least a dozen foreign and dual nationals on trumped up charges, effectively as hostages to extract concessions from Western governments. Most of them are held on disputed spying charges.

According to the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), there are currently some 20 dual nationals and foreign nationals with US or European passports detained in Iran.

Borrell said on Monday he was “less confident” about efforts to restore the landmark nuclear deal, which was abandoned by former US president Donald Trump in 2018.

Earlier in the month, Iran reiterated its call for the release of its former officials imprisoned in Europe while Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an academic previously jailed in Iran for over two years, said Tehran is on the hunt for both Swedes and Belgians to exchange with them.

Foreign ministry’s spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Saturday that Assadollah Assadi, serving a 20-year sentence in Belgium over a terror attack in Paris, and former jailor Hamid Nouri, sentenced to life in prison in Sweden for his role in 1988 prison purges, should be released as their trials were illegal.

Assadi, 50, a former attaché at the Iranian embassy in Austria, was convicted of plotting to bomb a gathering of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) near Paris on June 30, 2018. Iran says Nouri’s detention is driven by “false allegations” made by the MEK.

Babak Paknia said in a tweet on Tuesday that his clients Amir Hossein Moradi, Saeed Tamjidi, and Mohammad Rajabi, all under 30 years of age, have now been sentenced to five years behind bars. 

Iran’s supreme court had confirmed the death sentences, but after reconsideration another court had earlier revised the decision to life imprisonment. 

Paknia had earlier said that during the trial, the defense attorney was not allowed to participate in the process and a notorious judge, Abolghasem Salavati finally sentenced them to death. Judge Salavati, also known as the “hanging judge” among Iranian activists, was sanctioned by the United States for violations of human rights and “unfair trials in Iranian Kangaroo courts.”

Moradi, Tamjidi and Rajabi were reportedly subjected to torture during interrogation to obtain forced confessions, and the judiciary had said they were linked to the exiled Albania-based opposition group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK).

According to some reports, in the "bloody November" of 2019 at least 3,000 protesters were killed by the Islamic Republic’s security forces and nearly 20,000 were arrested. Earlier estimates ranged from 300 to 1,500 civilians killed nationwide. The protests were the most widespread against the regime since its establishment in 1979, and the internet outage gave security officials the opportunity to commit mass killings amid a news blackout for about 10 days.