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Showing posts from November, 2021

Iran regime’s defiance increases tensions with Israel

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  By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh Rising tensions between the Iranian regime and Israel have the potential to spiral into a wider conflict if not adequately addressed. There are several reasons for the heightened tensions. First of all, although the Iranian regime attempts to distract attention from the direct involvement of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria, Tehran continues to increase its military influence there and use its proxies against Israeli targets. Israel last month carried out an airstrike in Syria on a location where Iranian officials were meeting. Iranian leaders were reportedly meeting to discuss developments regarding their country’s drone and ballistic missile capabilities in Syria. The attack occurred on the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the Iranian government for an attack on a vessel owned by an Israeli in the Arabian Gulf. He said: “Last week, Iran attacked an oil tanker … and harmed the international freedom of navigation....

Iran: Culture of Impunity To Blame for Noury’s Impudence in Sweden Trial

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  Written by Mansoureh Galestan In three days of testimony in a Stockholm courtroom that began on November 23, 2021,  Hamid Noury , a prison guard promoted to “assistant public prosecutor” in political prisons, who served as an interrogator, henchman, and executioner in some of the most notorious and terrifying prisons in Iran, inadvertently verified many truths in his trial for crimes against humanity. About 20 former political prisoners have testified as to his intimate involvement in the 1988 massacre since August, and hundreds of others took part in rallies and conferences coinciding with each trial session. Although Noury has verbally denied culpability, the subtext of the comments he made at court may easily be regarded as a tacit admission of guilt. The former official at Gohardasht Prison made desperate efforts to deny that that prison even exists, that he was on duty during the period in question, and that executions took place on the scale alleged. None of these clai...

Iran: Protests in Isfahan and Regime’s Diversion Tactic

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  Written by Shahriar Kia Dictators have been using the “divide and conquer” strategy for centuries. But for Iran’s ruling theocracy with its deceitful essence, this strategy has been a fundamental pillar of policymaking. Following two weeks of farmers’ sit-ins in the dry riverbed of Zayandeh Rud in Isfahan, security forces  stormed  their makeshift camp in the early hours of Thursday and burned their tents. The farmers had already been calling on their fellow citizens for a large gathering on Friday and the crackdown only added to the public anger towards the regime and its security apparatus. Locals who had previously gathered peacefully and were protesting water shortages began chanting political slogans, such as “down with the dictator” and “down with Khamenei”. As the regime sensed the danger of an uprising, it resorted to the usual playbook: deceit and oppression. While the protesters were brutally beaten by anti-riot police and smeared as “thugs and hooligans” by t...

Iran: IRGC Commander Yousef Nouri Appointed Education Minister

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Written by  Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) So Far, 13 Members of Ebrahim Raisi’s Cabinet and Nine Governors Are IRGC Commanders This morning, the clerical regime’s parliament approved  Revolutionary Guard  (IRGC)’s commander, Yousef Nouri, as Ebrahim Raisi’s Education Minister. As an IRGC member since the 1980s, Nouri has played an active role in sending children and students to clear minefields (during the Iran-Iraq war), and this seems to be his only link to Education. He has also been one of the directors of the IRGC’s two largest economic conglomerates, known as the “ Khatam-al Anbiya  Construction Headquarters” and the “Martyrs and Veterans Affairs.” In today’s public session, a regime’s parliament deputy from Neyshabur revealed that Nouri’s appointment is a foregone conclusion. “The parliament has decided to vote for you,” she told Nouri during her speech. In his speech at the parliament, Nouri said, today: “We should turn the ...

The Not So Subtle Message of an Iranian Henchman’s Testimony in Court

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    November 1945 marked the commencement of the Nuremberg trials, which saw the prosecution of the Nazi henchmen who were involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II. The trials sought to bring to justice the perpetrators of one of the darkest episodes in modern history. Almost exactly 76 years later to the day, on Tuesday, a henchman of the Iranian regime, Hamid Noury, testified in court. He is charged by Swedish authorities, whose government recognizes universal jurisdiction, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Specifically, Noury was involved in the massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners in Iran in 1988, over 90% of whom were affiliated with the main democratic opposition  Mujahedin-e Khalq  (MEK). Over the years, the regime has tried to erase all traces and evidence of the massacre. These attempts have gone hand in hand with the mullahs’ well-oiled misinformation campaign to demonize and vilify the MEK in order to tarnish ...

Cracks appear in Iranian regime’s cover-up of its crimes

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    By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh The chief of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, this week left Iran without reaching a deal on an inspections regime. But the Islamic Republic is not only covering up its nuclear weapons ambitions — for more than three decades, the extremist theocracy has tried to cover up one of its most serious crimes against humanity. In what became known as the 1988 massacre, the Tehran regime carried out the systematic killing of thousands of dissidents and opposition activists. Ultimately, an estimated 30,000 people lost their lives in the brutal massacre. But a court in Sweden now appears to be ending the regime’s cover-up. In November 2019, the Swedish authorities arrested a man, Hamid Noury, who is believed to have been involved in the 1988 massacre. In July, after 21 months of investigation, prosecutors at Stockholm District Court issued an indictment against him. His trial began the following month and a verdict is expected ...

Hamid Noury’s Ineffectual Defense Sets Stage for Prosecution of Iran’s Raisi

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   Written by Shamsi Saadati This past week, a district court in Stockholm held  three sessions  in which Hamid Noury, a former Iranian prison official, spoke in his own defense. Noury was arrested upon traveling to Sweden in 2019 and was later indicted for war crimes and mass murder based on evidence that he participated in a massacre of political prisoners during the  summer of 1988 . Since proceedings in his case  began  in August, the court has heard from more than 20 eyewitnesses to that crime against humanity, including seven who reside in Albania at a compound established by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran  (PMOI/MEK) .   Prosecutors requested that the trial be  temporarily relocated  to Albania earlier in November, in consideration of that testimony’s importance. The MEK is the leading voice for a democratic alternative to Iran’s theocratic dictatorship, and in 1988 it was the main target of the nationw...

Hamid Noury Underlines that the MEK’s Name Is a Red Line in Iran

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 Written by Shamsi Saadati A court in Stockholm, Sweden, held the  second  hearing for Hamid Noury on Wednesday. Noury is an Iranian prison official who participated in the  1988 massacre . In his remarks on Tuesday, Noury also acknowledged his role in different crimes committed by the mullahs’ regime in the early 1980s.    During his first hearing, Noury, who had claimed he was mistaken for someone else, showed his  true color  by defending criminals like the regime’s president Ebrahim Raisi, the eliminated terror-mastermind Qassem Soleimani, and Ruhollah Khomeini. Noury also blatantly denied the existence of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, despite this fact has been confirmed by regime top officials who defended their role in this crime against humanity.    In his remarks during his second hearing session, Noury continued rehashing the regime’s baseless allegations against the  Mujahedin-e K...