Iran Bans 5 US Entities, 7 Individuals Over Supporting Israel

A Bushehr Teachers Union member, Reza Amanifar, was arrested as Iranian educators took to the streets on Thursday. The demonstration followed the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers' Trade Associations' call for a nationwide rally with protests held in the face of a heavy presence of security forces in areas such as Yasuj and Rasht.

Also, three education activists were arrested in Tehran for demonstrating in front of the Planning and Budget Organization. According to the Teachers Association Telegram channel, they were released shortly thereafter, amid intenstified security and judicial pressures on teachers' union activists.

On Wednesday, International Workers' Day, Esmaeil Abdi, a teacher, civil activist, and member of the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Union who has been arrested and imprisoned for his union activities on multiple occasions, was summoned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence. An additional 17 teachers and union activists from Sanandaj city have also been summoned to the city's security institutions.

A statement issued by the Teachers Association before today’s gatherings pointed out a “decrease in student motivation for learning due to the high cost of living and inflation" with many excluded from education since 2022 for supporting the nationwide uprising sparked by the death in morality-police custody of Mahsa Amini.

“Security forces and the judiciary suppressed and threatened demanding teachers rather than battling embezzlers and corrupt individuals,” the statement added, with wide-sweeping sacking of teachers who have supported protests since 2022. 

In December, a report slammed the country's education system saying it "has turned into an arena for those in power to pursue their political goals,” explaining that schoolbooks and teacher training and selection have become engineering tools to ensure the political and ideological goals.

Religious censorship has invaded many textbooks, including literature and history, and reports indicate that religious extremists controlling parliament and enjoying influence in the presidential administration, have begun hiring thousands of their followers as teachers and school principals, regardless of qualification.

Amid the 2022 uprising, thousands of students suffered mysterious poisoning, suspected to have been a state-sanctioned means of suppression as the country rose up in its biggest anti-government action since the founding of the Islamic Republic.

“The Secretary-General has repeatedly spoken about his concern of human rights violations in Iran. There is a special rapporteur on Iran and there are other human rights mechanisms. And I think whatever information the BBC has brought should be sent to those mechanisms,” Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, told reporters on Wednesday.

Shakarami, 16, was an iconic figure in Iran’s 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement triggered by the death in morality-police custody of Mahsa Amini.

Citing a “very confidential” document addressed to the the IRGC's commander-in-chief, BBC World released a report Tuesday on how the teenager was arrested, sexually assaulted and murdered by the regime’s security forces in September 2022.

Meanwhile, Dujarric was asked to provide the UN’s stance on the death sentence handed down to Iranian dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi.

“We have stood and continue to stand against any use of the death penalty. And we very much hope that this does not come to pass … These are issues that have been regularly brought up with the Iranian authorities,” he went on to say.

Last week, an Iranian revolutionary court sentenced the outspoken artist to death for his songs supporting the 2022 nationwide uprising.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi is the highest-ranking Iranian official who has so far reacted to the BCC’s report on Shakarami’s rape and murder. On Wednesday, he rejected the report as “false and far from reality,” further saying that it has covered a “very ridiculous topic all aspects of which are clear.”

Meanwhile, the Iranian state media reiterated the same stance as that of the interior minister towards the BBC probe.

IRNA, Iranian state news agency, accused the broadcaster of addressing issues that can “disturb and anger the Iranian society.”

IRNA also referred to “inconsistencies” in BBC’s report, saying it fails to match the remarks made by Shakarami’s mother and aunt regarding the time and location of her disappearance.

Following the news of Shakarami’s disappearance and murder in September 2022, the Iranian state TV conducted interviews at that time with her mother and aunt who confirmed the government’s narrative that the teenager had committed suicide.

However, their later remarks regarding Shakarami’s murder prove that their interviews with the Iranian state TV were made under the pressure of the regime’s security forces, who have been notoriously involved in a long-standing tradition of forced interviews.

The flagship hardliner newspaper Kayhan and Javan daily, affiliated with the IRGC repeated the same accusations against the BBC investigation.

Meanwhile, Farhikhtegan newspaper, close to Iran’s hardliners, criticized the reactions of some ‘reformist’ politicians and figures to the report of the rape and murder of the protesting teenager.

“In Iran, several political figures that are opposed to some social policies, immediately endorsed the BBC report without any consideration,” Farhikhtegan wrote, further warning any confirmation of the report can “pave the way for a new crisis” in the country.

The relatively independent media in Iran, however, have been largely silent on the BBC investigation into the murdered teen in what seems an urgent order from the regime’s security and intelligence agencies. On Wednesday, the Tehran Prosecutor's Office filed charges against several journalists who have shared the report.

The Flight PS752 Commemorative Scholarship Program was launched last year and will run for five years with 176 one-year scholarships being awarded, averaging $25,000 per recipient.

The Government of Canada's website stated on Wednesday, “Among these victims were brilliant minds and dedicated students who made significant contributions to Canadian educational institutions.”

Students must have a field of study that aligns with a victims’ academic or professional backgrounds or focuses on the prevention of air disasters, as the program aims to commemorate the tragedy.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) shot down the plane shortly after it took off near the Imam Khomeini International Airport near Tehran on January 8, 2020, killing all 176 people on board, including 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, ten Swedes, four Afghans, and three Britons.

In July, Britain, Canada, Sweden, and Ukraine filed complaints against Iran at the International Court of Justice, alleging that the Islamic Republic purposefully shot down the plane. In January, they also filed a complaint with the UN Aviation Council to hold Iran accountable for the downing.

In April last year, a Tehran military court sentenced the operator of the system who fired missiles at the plane to 13 years in prison. No high-ranking military or government officials of the Islamic Republic were named among the military personnel accused.

The US Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that between December 2018 and December 2019, Muzzamil Zaidi, 40, and Asim Mujtaba Naqvi, 40, collected payments of khums—a religious tax on wealth—and donations purportedly from individuals in the US to help victims of the ongoing civil war in Yemen.

In 2018, Zaidi was granted permission to collect this tax on behalf of several Imams, according to court documents from the Justice Department.

To avoid law enforcement scrutiny, the pair enlisted friends, family, and other associates to transport cash out of the US in amounts less than $10,000.

One dollar transfer to Iran involved a group of 25 travelers going on a religious pilgrimage in Iraq and the subsequent transport of US dollars hand-carried by those travelers to Iran. They were arrested in Houston on Aug. 18, 2020. Zaidi's sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 13, and Naqvi's for Oct. 1.

Due to US economic sanctions imposed on Iran since 1995, money transfers are illegal. The State Department has designated Iran a state sponsor of terrorism every year since 1984. Additionally, on June 24, 2019, former US President Donald Trump imposed additional sanctions on the Supreme Leader of Iran, prohibiting the provision of funds to or for his benefit.

The Biden administration has been trying to push Saudi Arabia and Israel to sign a peace agreement for months. A deal was said to be close last summer but it fell apart and effectively died on 7 October 2023, when Iran-backed Hamas rampaged Israeli border areas, killing several hundred civilians, and Israel began its onslaught on Gaza, which has killed at least 30,000 people.

Now in his last six months in office, Joe Biden seems eager to somehow revive the pact with Saudi Arabia, even though Israel has rejected any notion of a Palestinian state, which is central to Saudi Arabia’s offer of ‘normalization.’ A trilateral deal, therefore, seems unlikely. But President Joe Biden is hoping that a second-choice bilateral deal with Saudi Arabia would help restrain the Israeli government, further isolate Iran, and keep the door open to a potential deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia at a later date.

“These people imagine the matter [of Palestine] will be settled if they persuade regional countries to normalize relations with the Zionist regime,” Khamenei said in a speech Wednesday. “They’re wrong. The problem won’t be solved until Palestine is returned to the Palestinian people.”

Khamenei did not mention the kingdom in his speech, but it was not hard to guess who he had in mind. The regime in Iran would not welcome any such arrangement, bilateral or trilateral, especially at a time of marked improvement in its relationship with Saudi Arabia –and a time when the crisis in Gaza seems to have bettered its standing in the eyes of the public in some parts of the region.

Iran’s unprecedented attack against Israel last month was cheered on by many across the Muslim world, who resent what they view as their own leaders’ inaction in the face of Israeli brutalization of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. But the attack also drew some Arab governments closer to Israel, as they joined forces with the US to fend off Iran’s large-scale missile and drone attack.

This new alignment could be cemented if the Biden administration manages to persuade Israel and Saudi Arabia to ‘normalize’ ties. But that’s a big if, since the kingdom is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, both of which the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected. And on the other side, Biden has little time left in the White House to get his darling deal done.

Some experts say if a trilateral agreement is unlikely, a bilateral one without Israel, is almost impossible, because it would have to be approved by the Senate, and Senators would not do so if Israel is excluded.

“Now is the time to be crystal clear about what can and cannot happen in the US Senate regarding potential agreements between the US and Saudi Arabia,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) posted on X Wednesday. “Without normalizing the Israeli-Saudi relationship and ensuring the security needs of Israel regarding the Palestinian file, there would be very few votes for a mutual defense agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia. This has been true since the very beginning and remains so today.”