Iran Digest Week of June 9- June 16
/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.
Nuclear Accord
Hoping to Avert Nuclear Crisis, U.S. Seeks Informal Agreement With Iran
The Biden administration has been negotiating quietly with Iran to limit Tehran’s nuclear program and free imprisoned Americans, according to officials from three countries, in part of a larger U.S. effort to ease tensions and reduce the risk of a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic.
The U.S. goal is to reach an informal, unwritten agreement, which some Iranian officials are calling a “political cease-fire.” It would aim to prevent a further escalation in a long-hostile relationship that has grown even more fraught as Iran builds up a stockpile of highly enriched uranium close to bomb-grade purity, supplies Russia with drones for use in Ukraine and brutally cracks down on domestic political protests.
The broad outlines of the talks were confirmed by three senior Israeli officials, an Iranian official and a U.S. official. American officials would not discuss efforts to win the release of prisoners in detail, beyond calling that an urgent U.S. priority.
Women of Iran
Dreaming of a New Iran
The uprising began in September, after a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of Iran’s morality police. She had been arrested on accusations of violating mandatory-hijab rules, and a gruesome photo and video of her unconscious in a hospital bed went viral, sparking outrage and grief. The protest movement — known as Woman, Life, Freedom — quickly morphed into broader demands for an end to the Islamic Republic’s rule.
Marches, led by women, spread across the country from September to January, and the government has cracked down violently. Authorities have also dismantled the morality police and are trying new methods to enforce the dress code.
To this day, acts of civil disobedience continue. Women and girls appear in public without the hijab. At night, Iranians chant antigovernment slogans from their rooftops.
‘Your car will be confiscated’: Iran women defy hijab law despite threats
Women in Iran are defying fresh attempts by authorities to use technology to enforce the compulsory dress code that has been a focus of continuing protests across the country.
In April, national police chief Ahmad Reza Radan announced the launch of a "smart" programme involving surveillance cameras to identify women failing to cover their hair or wear loose-fitting clothing in public despite the threat of fines or imprisonment.
He warned that those caught breaking the hijab law for a second time would be referred to courts, that cars carrying female passengers with uncovered hair would be confiscated, and that businesses turning a blind eye would be closed.
(BBC)
Health
Children Are Dying Because Companies Are Too Scared To Sell Medicine To Iran
Amir Hossein Naroi, an Iranian boy, was only 10 years old when he died from thalassemia, an inherited blood disease. The condition is highly prevalent in the southern Iranian province of Sistan-Balochistan, where Naroi’s family lives; tens of thousands of people in the region are believed to suffer from the disease. It is not an inevitably fatal condition: Thalassemia can be treated with regular blood transfusions and oral medications designed to remove the excess of iron built up in the bodies of patients. For much of his short life, Naroi was able to get treatment. His fate, however, was decided when access to the necessary medicines inside Iran began to dry up in recent years.
In the earliest years of his life, Naroi was taking a specialized drug known as Desferal, which is manufactured by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis. Starting in 2018, however, around the time that President Donald Trump launched a “maximum pressure” campaign of economic sanctions against Iran, supplies of the iron-chelating drug in Iran — along with other medicines used to treat critical diseases — started to become difficult or impossible to access inside Iran, according to local NGOs supporting patients with the disease. By the summer of 2022, his organs failing due to complications from the disease, including damage to his organs from excess iron in his blood, Naroi passed away in a hospital, surrounded by his family.
Economy
US Confirms Release Of $2.7bn Debt Funds From Iraq To Iran
The United States has finally confirmed it allowed Iraq to release $2.7 billion of its debts to Iran.
The mechanism by which the money would be released remains murky, but Washington claims it is part of a number of humanitarian transactions which have been taking place consistently over years since the previous administration.
Speaking in this week’s press briefing, Matthew Miller, spokesperson for the US Department of State, told reporters: “Iran can only access its funds held in accounts for Iraq for humanitarian and other non-sanctionable transactions.”
Inside Iran
Afghan migrants kidnapped and tortured on Iran-Turkey border
Afghans fleeing the Taliban are being kidnapped and tortured by gangs as they try to cross the border between Iran and Turkey on their way to Europe, a BBC investigation has found. The gangs then send videos of the abuse to the families of migrants being held hostage, demanding a ransom for their release.
Shackled together on a mountain-top with padlocks around their necks, a group of Afghan migrants beg for their release.
"Whoever watches this video, I was kidnapped yesterday, they are demanding $4,000 (£3,200) for each one of us. They beat us day and night non-stop," says one man, with a bloodied lip, his face caked in dust.
(BBC)
Iran tested suicide drone in Gulf, U.S. official says
Iran tested a suicide drone against a practice vessel in the Gulf and fired one other missile or drone without warning ships in the area, a U.S. official in the region said.
The one-way drone was launched on Wednesday from the Jask area of Iran 8-9 miles out to sea - within Iran's territorial waters - against a practice barge, the official said, citing U.S. intelligence data.
"Essentially practicing hitting merchant vessels. That's the only reason why you would do that in the Gulf of Oman," the official said.
(Reuters)
Police Chief In Iran Vows ‘To Break The Neck’ Of Hijab Opponents
A police chief in norther Iran has threatened to “break the neck” of anyone who speaks out against compulsory hijab, adding that he will take responsibility for that.
Hassan Mafkhami police commander in Mazandaran province on the shores of the Caspian Sea was inspecting beaches where millions of Iranians visit from the capital Tehran and other cities during the summer. Women are forbidden to bathe without cloths and should be fully cladded on the beaches.
He told law enforcement agents, “In this province and its towns if someone God forbid raises her voice, break her neck according to law and I will take responsibility for it.”
Global Relations
Iran’s Raisi secures array of agreements on Latin American tour
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has returned from a tour of Latin America, where he signed dozens of agreements with three allies who share Tehran’s defiance of Western powers.
The Iranian president, who was accompanied by his ministers of foreign affairs, defence, petroleum and health, arrived in Tehran on Friday after a five-day trip that took him to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Throughout the trip, Raisi criticised the United States and the economic sanctions imposed on Iran and its allies in Latin America.
Analysis
The Biggest Scandal in Trump’s Indictment: US War Plans for Iran
By: Branko Marcetic
The blockbuster news of the past week was Donald Trump’s latest indictment, this one on more robust ground than his first for the unprecedented act of prosecuting a former president. It’s worth reading the whole indictment, if for no other reason than the high comedy of Trump’s cartoonish levels of lawbreaking and self-incrimination: placing boxes upon boxes of classified documents in his bathroom and on stage in his ballroom in full public view, privately discussing how to lie to and mislead the FBI, and constantly telling visitors how very, very secret his documents are and how he shouldn’t even be showing them to people.
The case has monopolized national attention the past few days, with a broad range of commentators expressing outrage and condemning Trump for potentially compromising US nuclear secrets, weapons capabilities, defensive vulnerabilities, and plans for waging war on Iran.
Wait — war with Iran?
