Iran Digest Week of May 26- June 2
/AIC’s Iran digest project covers the latest developments and news stories published in Iranian and international media outlets. This weekly digest is compiled by associate Samuel Howell. Please note that the news and views expressed in the articles below do not necessarily reflect those of AIC.
US-Iran Relations
US sanctions Iranians over alleged plots to kill John Bolton and others around the world
The U.S. imposed sanctions Thursday on an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official and others it says took part in wide-ranging plots to kill former national security adviser John Bolton and others around the world, including at least one additional U.S. government official.
The alleged 2021 plot against Bolton, one of the best-documented of the alleged assassination efforts, is part of what U.S. prosecutors and former government officials describe as ongoing efforts by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to kill Trump-era officials behind a 2020 U.S. airstrike that killed the head of the Iranian guard’s elite Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani.
In all, Thursday’s sanctions accuse three people based in Iran and Turkey, a company affiliated with Iran’s Quds Force and two senior officials of Iran’s Intelligence Organization in global plots to kill former U.S. officials, journalists and Iranian dissidents abroad, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
(ABC News)
Nuclear Accord
Iran puts its nuclear programme beyond the reach of American bombs
It is exactly five years since Donald Trump pulled America out of the deal with Iran to constrain its nuclear programme in exchange for economic-sanctions relief. Since then, Iran has not stood still. Satellite pictures appear to confirm that Iran is building a nuclear facility in the Zagros mountains, near the existing Natanz enrichment site (shown above). It seems to be so deep under the ground that it will be invulnerable even to America’s most powerful bunker-busting bomb.
If analysis of these pictures by the James Martin Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, an American ngo, is correct, four entrances have been dug into the mountainside, each six metres wide by eight metres high. The facility is 80-100 metres deep down inside. The Americans had developed a bomb, known as the gbu-57, specifically to be able to destroy an earlier underground facility, at Fordow. Also known as the Massive Ordinance Penetrator (mop), the 14,000kg precision-guided bomb can burrow through 60 metres of earth and rock before detonating. But that may no longer be enough to destroy Iran’s hideout.
Women of Iran
Female Activists Speak Up About Forced Stripping In Prisons
Several Iranian female political activists have spoken up about prison guards unnecessarily forcing them to strip naked, even in front of cameras, to humiliate them.
Anti-compulsory hijab activist, Mozhgan Keshavarz, who was the first to raise the humiliating stirp search of female detainees, told Iran International Monday via video conference that she was first strip-searched after her arrest in April 2019 and detention at Vozara Detention Center in Tehran where the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in custody on September 16 last year.
Keshavarz said the search took place in front of a camera and was repeated when she was taken to Qarchak Prison for women, and then at a Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) detention center where she was photographed completely naked and was told the photos were taken to add to her case file to make sure she would not later claim she was tortured during her detention.
Economy
Iranian Banks Keep Foreign Currency From Oil Revenues – Leaked Document
Documents obtained from a hack into servers of Iran's president office revealed that €3.6 billion worth of oil revenues remained in banks and not entered the government’s systems.
According to a confidential report by the Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Ministry, leaked by the hacktivist group ‘Uprising till Overthrow,' banks kept currencies they received from government entities exporting oil and did not transfer them to the country’s special currency scheme known as NIMA.
NIMA is set up for foreign currencies to be sold at a lower rate by exporters and for importers to buy what they need at the same low rate to finance their purchases from other countries. However, only traders with connections to the regime can use the system to their advantage, and ordinary businesspeople would not be allowed to use such benefits. The official rate at NIMA is at least 40 percent lower than in the foreign currency free market.
Environment
‘Loss for Iran’s wildlife’: woman jailed in Tehran calls for environmentalists’ release
Aras Amiri has kept a low profile since she was released from Iranian detention two years ago, avoiding interview requests after returning to the UK. But now, the former British Council employee, who spent three years in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, wants to speak. An injustice has compelled her: the detention of seven friends and environmentalists she left behind.
Kept in solitary confinement for 69 days, Amiri was allowed to return to Britain after serving just under a third of a 10-year prison sentence. In the women’s ward, she not only met fellow British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, but Niloufar Bayani and Sepideh Kashani, two of the seven members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation in jail since 2018. Of the nine originally jailed, one has been released after serving his two-year sentence and another, the founder of the group, Kavous Seyed Emami, died in his prison cell only two weeks after his arrest. The authorities called it suicide, but produced no autopsy.
Inside Iran
Iran executions spike by 76% with 142 people hanged in May: Report
A new report on Thursday has revealed alarming figures for Iranian executions this year, a killing spree that rights groups say is intended to intimidate the Iranian people.
In May alone, at least 142 people were executed in the country, the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said in its report. The number, which averages to over four people executed per day, is the highest monthly figure in the country since 2015.
At least 307 people have been executed this year, a 76% increase compared to the same period last year, the report showed.
Regional Politics
As Iran Seizes Tankers in Gulf, U.A.E. Pulls Back From U.S.-Led Maritime Force
The United Arab Emirates announced on Wednesday that it had stopped participating in a maritime security force led by the United States, the latest hint of tensions between Washington and key Persian Gulf allies who complain that America has not done enough to protect them from Iranian threats.
The unusual public statement came after Iran seized two commercial tankers in waterways near the Emirates in quick succession over the past two months. The Emirati Foreign Ministry said the country “withdrew its participation” from the Combined Maritime Forces two months ago “as a result of our ongoing evaluation of effective security cooperation with all partners.”
Political analysts say the Emirati statement could be intended as a message to the United States that the country is displeased with the level of American protection for its allies in the Persian Gulf against threats from Iran and must look out for its own interests. Emirati and Saudi officials have repeatedly expressed frustration with U.S. policy toward Iran.
What caused deadly Afghan-Iran border clashes? What happens next?
Last week, deadly clashes broke out between Afghan and Iranian guards at their border raising fears of a new conflict.
Both sides have accused each other of initiating the shooting in which at least two Iranian and one Afghan guard were killed. However, they have issued measured statements aimed at de-escalating the situation.
Following the border violence, Iranian authorities closed the Milak-Zaranj border post, an important commercial crossing – and not the site of the clash – until further notice, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported.
Global Relations
Ukraine’s parliament approves sanctions against Russia ally Iran
The Ukrainian parliament has approved a sanctions package against Iran, a Russian ally it accuses of sending weapons to Moscow during its more than year-long invasion of Ukraine.
The measures were approved on Monday, a day after Ukraine said Russia used Iranian-made Shahed drones in the largest such attack on the capital, Kyiv, since the beginning of the invasion.
“The resolution synchronises Ukrainian sanctions with the actions of the entire civilised world on the path to the complete isolation of Iran,” the Ukrainian parliament said on its website.
Analysis
Are Egypt and Iran ready to start a new chapter?
By: Mohammad Salami
Representatives from Egypt and Iran have been meeting in Iraq since March with the mediation of Baghdad, according to Iraqi sources.
The talks covered tensions over Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria. The possibility of a meeting between the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, was also discussed.
On Monday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a meeting with Oman's Sultan that Tehran welcomes better diplomatic relations with Egypt.
