US Commander Says CENTCOM Deterring Iran's 'Malign Activities'

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) reported Thursday that 17 people were executed in Iranian prisons on drug-related charges and 21 for murder.The grounds were unclear in the remaining eight cases.

The number jumped from 27 the same month in 2021, 33 in 2020, and 36 in 2019. Fifteen of the 46 were Baluchi, a minority people living in Iran’s south east bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The rights group said that only six executions were reported by Iranian media and officials, but that it had verified the other 40.

IHRNGO Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said “the international community” should “not turn a blind eye” to the wave of executions as talks continued in Vienna to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

“We reiterate that the international community must prioritize human rights, especially the death penalty, in any negotiations with the Islamic Republic,” Amiry-Moghaddam said. “Sustainable peace and stability are impossible without upholding human rights.”

Iran this week executed two gay men convicted on charges of sodomy who had spent six years on death row. A total of 299 people were executed in 2021, including four juvenile offenders, a 26-percent increase on 2020.

Lotfollah Siyahkali told Khabar Online that while agreements with China covering various aspects of the economy required parliamentary ratification, there would “probably” be agreement in “information and communication technology” (ICT).

An ad hoc parliamentary committee, called the Joint Siyanat Committee, is reviewing a draft bill on cyberspace regulation proposed to parliament in June, to further restrict access to various apps and websites.

Some of the bill’s supporters argue Iran should emulate China's in creating a national intranet. "The Chinese have unique and innovative experience in this field, which we can put to use," lawmaker Ali Yazdikhah said January 18.

"Passage of time proved that speculation over imitating the Chinese in Internet restriction are more true than other theories [such as using European models, which have generally aimed to extend non-digital rules into cyberspace]," the reformist Etemad newspaper wrote January 25.

China uses its ‘Great Firewall,’ a fortified digital border, to manage access to information entering and exiting the country through the Internet.

If passed, the legislation currently under review in Iran would require foreign and domestic social-media networks and messaging applications to register with a regulatory and supervisory body that would include representatives of intelligence organizations. The ministry of communications and information technology would be charged with blocking any social networks or messaging applications that failed to gain approval.

Lawmakers behind the bill, including the committee spokesman Siyahkali, want foreign social networks and messaging applications to designate a responsible Iranian company as their legal representative and to agree to abide by rules set by the regulator.

The Great Firewall

Iran has been heavily restricting access to the Internet for the past 20 years. Many foreign and Iranian websites, including media websites, are already blocked in Iran although controls are readily sidestepped by VPNs (virtual private networks) and anti-filtering software. While Instagram is the only major social-media platform not blocked in Iran, millions of Iranians use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WhatsApp.

Despite China’s national intranet, the Chinese use various means, including VPNs, to circumvent restrictions.Tech Rader, the technology news and reviews website, recently recommended for visitors and residents the top five VPNs for piercing China’s ‘Great Firewall.’

Tehran in March signed a 25-year cooperation agreement with Beijing. It was launched during Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's recent visit to China. With around 18 percent of the world’s population, China is home to 20 percent of Internet users globally.

The spokesman of teachers’ trade associations Mohammad Habibi said in a tweet on Thursday that Mostafa Ranjbaran was a high school teacher in the city of Minab in the southern province of Hormozgan, and described his death as another catastrophe for the community.

Habibi added that such suicides among teachers, workers, retirees, and students is a kind of systematic murder, saying the authorities of Islamic republic are responsible for the deaths.

In recent months, there have been other reports about teachers committing suicide due to financial problems, including Gholamabbas Yahyapour, a mathematics teacher from the city of Gerash in the Fars province who killed himself in September.

On Wednesday, a street vendor in the western city of Khorramabad set himself on fire after an argument with municipality who stopped his business.

Teachers held demonstrations in many cities this week to follow up on their demands for higher pay and release of their colleagues arrested in previous rounds of protests.

People from different walks of life, including nurses, firefighters, and even staff members of the judiciary department and prison guards, have held regular protest rallies or strikes to demand higher salaries.

Food prices have risen by more than 60 percent in recent months, on top of high inflation in the previous three years, while teachers earn less than $200 a month.

Israel's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday Benny Gantz would sign a security cooperation agreement with Bahrain, which along with the UAE normalized relations with Israel in 2020, partly out of shared concerns about Iran.

Bahrain hosts the Fifth Fleet's headquarters as well as some operations for CENTCOM, a US military coordination umbrella organization for the Middle East that Israel joined last year.

"Against a backdrop of increasing maritime and aerial threats, our ironclad cooperation is more important than ever," Gantz said on Twitter after the naval base visit.

Israel this week is joining a 60-nation US-led Middle East naval exercise alongside the UAE and Bahrain and, for the first time, publicly alongside Saudi Arabia and Oman, two counties it has no diplomatic relations with.

Israel's defense ministry gave no details of what a security accord with Bahrain would include.

Gantz flew to Bahrain for the two-day trip on an Israeli air force transport plane. It was the first time an Israeli defense chief had visited the Gulf nation or that an Israeli military aircraft had landed there.

The UAE on Wednesday said it intercepted three that entered its airspace over unpopulated areas in the fourth such attack in the past few weeks.

Report by Reuters

This followed the US denying visas to six members of the Iranian party, including Dabir, two wrestlers, a coach, the team manager, and a referee. The federation president conveyed the decision in a letter to the president of USA Wrestling, Bruce Baumgartner.

Earlier, a controversy had erupted when Dabir publicly repeated the slogan "Death to America" often used by supporters of the clerical regime in Iran.

Dabir, a Sydney Olympics gold medalist in freestyle wrestling, was the first to be denied a US visa, which came after remarks he made in a television program in early January.

"We always chant ‘Death to America’ but it's important to show it in action,” Dabir said during an interview on the anniversary of the 2020 killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani by a US drone strike in Baghdad. "Some talk a lot but don’t do much. We need to prove [our beliefs] in action.”

Sardar Pashaei, an Iranian wrestler who moved to the US in 2009, called in a tweet January 5 for Dabir to be denied a visa as he was “anti-American.” Pashaei alleged that Dabir held a US ‘green card,’ which would entitle him to live and work in the US, although Dabir later explained he had surrendered the card seven years ago because he did not "like the US".

In his letter to USA Wrestling, Dabir criticized the late decision over the Iranians’ visit. “Your country’s officials refused to issue visas despite all preliminary arrangements made by members of the Iranian team, presenting all necessary documents and repeated follow-up inquiries,” he wrote, adding that US consular officials in Dubai had carried out a "five-hour-long interview-interrogation" of the team's coach.

US Team Invited To Iran

Dabir invited the US wrestling team to visit Iran to hold the competition there. "I am personally sure that you and the good American wrestlers had and have no role in these political, anti-athletic matters," he wrote, saying wrestling fans would receive them "with open arms."

In 1998, in what was widely dubbed ‘sports diplomacy,’ a wrestling team became the first US sports team to visit Iran since the 1979 Revolution that toppled the US-backed Shah. Six American wrestlers with the American flag emblazoned on their tracksuits competed at the Takhti Cup in Tehran and were cheered by Iranian wrestling fans.

Since then, the US wrestling team has visited Iran 15 times for tournaments, while Iranian wrestlers have made 16 visits to the US. In January 2017, Iran was among seven majority-Muslim nations whose citizens were banned from visiting the US by President Donald Trump.

The Iranian government bars its athletes to compete against Israelis and many Iranian sports people have gone into exile for this and other restrictions.

Pashaei, one of these athletes, welcomed the decision to bar the Iranians. "This is a clear message to those who say ‘Death to America’ and at the same time want to come to America," he tweeted Thursday.