Brussels Court Temporarily Bans Extraditing Iranian Diplomat

The new campaign began with an Instagram story by reformist activist and sociologist Mohammad Reza Jalaeipur on July 20 when he urged religious women who wear the hijab by choice to oppose the government's pressure on other women to comply with forced hijab.

Jalaeipur’s story went viral and tens of thousands of hijab-wearing women either shared his story or posted their own pictures with the hashtag “I wear the hijab but am against morality police patrols”.

The campaign which is a separate initiative from the anti-hijab campaign launched earlier this month by women’s rights activists has angered many hardliners.

Meanwhile, in a statement Friday, fifteen prominent Iranian figures who are usually referred to as “religious intellectuals”, some of whom have a background in Shiite seminaries condemned the government policy of compulsory hijab and suppression of women.

They also urged religious scholars to display solidarity with Iranian women and condemn forced hijab and tools of suppression such as morality police’s hijab enforcement patrols.

However, hardliner clerics did not mince words in their Friday sermons, calling those who campaign for freedom of choice traitors.

Jalaeipur, a practicing Muslim, has long been speaking against the government's policy of forcing all women to abide by the prescribed hijab rules and argues that imposing these violates the rights of the majority citizens who are against compulsory hijab.

“When are you going to accept that the policy of compulsory hijab has failed and when exactly are you going to revise it?” Jalaeipur had challenged the authorities for a response in a Telegram post on June 27.

Iran’s government which is now fully controlled by hardliners has adopted a harsher than usual approach amid economic crisis and hardship for tens of millions. Government and military officials have warned the population a disobeying hijab rules and the morality police hijab enforcement patrols have detained many women, sometimes violently, on the streets.

The government also designated July 12 as the Hijab and Chastity Day this year and celebrated it with gatherings of women with full hijab at stadiums and other public venues.

Hundreds of thousands have supported the anti-hijab campaign on social media in the past few weeks. Many women have shot videos of themselves with uncovered hair in public places and posted the videos on social media with the ‘No2Hijab’ hashtag to display civil disobedience in reaction to the government’s harsh treatment of women for hijab.

Several activists have been arrested for their defiance of the hijab rules in July including Souri Babai-Chegini, a civil activist who published a video of herself removing her hijab, and Nazi Zandieh, a twenty-one-year-old student who also supported the anti-hijab campaign.

Officials usually insist that complying with hijab rules is “the demand of the majority of Iranians”.

Several surveys in the past few years, including a survey by Gamaan polling agency in the Netherlands, show that more than 50 percent of all Iranians and 75 percent of citizens in larger cities including the capital Tehran, oppose the compulsory hijab rules.

Results of surveys conducted by Iranian government agencies are usually not made public but according to Mehdi Nasiri, the former managing director of the hardline Kayhan newspaper, a survey carried out by the ministry of Islamic guidance in 2015 showed that more than 70 percent of Iranians did not agree with compulsory hijab.

Mohammad Eslami, vice president and the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said on Friday that since President Ebrahim Raisi made a visit to the site in January, the pace of the projects have changed thanks to the president’s emphasis. 

Eslami did not elaborate on the details nor did he mention that Russia is responsible for the projects.

Vienna negotiations hit a bump in the road on March 5 when Russia asked that sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine should not impact implementation of a revived 2015 nuclear deal , the JCPOA. Moscow later said it received the needed assurances from the US.

The Bushehr reactor is not part of the current nuclear dispute between the West and Iran, as Russia handles the nuclear fuel cycle. Iran has been enriching uranium and stockpiling more purified fissile material at other facilities.

The United States had expressed reservations about Russia building the Bushehr nuclear power plant but finally relented in late 2000s, saying that as long as Russia controls the fuel, it did not see the project as a proliferation risk.

Russia commissioned Iran's first nuclear power plant, Bushehr, in 2011. It has one operational unit that generates 1,000 megawatts, providing less than two percent of the country’s electricity.

Iran is expanding the Bushehr reactor to generate more electricity as the country suffers from a chronic shortage of electrical power, with daily outages that cripple industry and anger home consumers.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani tweeted on Friday in English that the “false dichotomy between JCPOA, of which Iran unlike US remains a party, and good ties between Iran and its neighbors, including Russia, doesn't hide the fact that indecision of the unfaithful US is the main hurdle for a deal.”

He added, “Our neighborly policy is not contingent on JCPOA or US permission.”

Kanaani made the comments in reaction to remarks by US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley who said Iran either agrees to return to the nuclear deal and mend its relations with the world or stick to Russia and become more isolated. 

Following a trip to Tehran by Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, Malley, said on July 19 that Iran "can opt for a position of relative dependency on Russia ... or it can choose to come back into the deal that’s been negotiated."

Echoing the comment, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said on July 20 that Iran has a choice; siding with Russia, or choosing the path of diplomacy and taking up the deal that has been on the table for some time now, to have an economic relationship with other countries around the world.

On July 21, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iran is making efforts to strengthen relations with its Persian Gulf neighbors, UAE and Kuwait, noting that both countries will be sending their envoys to Tehran soon.

In an interview broadcast on state television Thursday evening, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, "Last week we received a message from Iraqi foreign minister [Fuad Hussein] saying that the Saudi side is ready to move the talks from a security phase to a political and public one.”

"We also expressed our readiness to continue talks at the political level so that it leads to the return of Iran-Saudi Arabia ties to the normal level," he added. 

Late in June, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi traveled to Iran and met with President Ebrahim Raisi after a visit to Saudi Arabia and meeting with the kingdom’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aimed at jumpstarting stalled talks between Tehran and Riyadh. 

Iran and Saudi Arabia -- which are locked in proxy conflicts around the region -- have held several rounds of talks mediated by Baghdad since 2021. In April, they finally held the much-anticipated fifth round of negotiations, saying that a clear outlook was reached for the resumption of regular talks. 

However, it was the Islamic Republic that suspended the talks earlier in April a day after Saudi Arabia announced it had beheaded 81 men, for “heinous crimes.” Forty-one were Saudi Shiites, Human Rights Watch reported, apparently convicted over protests.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in 2016 when mobs attacked its embassy in Tehran after Riyadh executed 47 dissidents including the leading Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

As he stepped into his new role -- with responsibility for military operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and across the region, Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich told reporters at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Thursday that such assaults could lead to a new escalation, while Russia and China are vying for economic and military influence across the Mideast.

“We’re in this position where we’re not under attack constantly, but we do see planning for attacks ongoing. Something will occur that unleashes that planning and that preparation against us,” Grynkewich said. 

He also expressed concerns about Iran preparing to send Russia armed and unarmed drones to use in its war on Ukraine, saying it “is not a surprise … but it’s concerning.”

He also referred to Tehran’s rapidly growing stockpile of near-weapons-grade nuclear fuel in recent months, saying, “Everyone in the region is very concerned.”

His remarks came as the Syrian defense ministry said an Israeli strike killed three Syrian soldiers and wounded seven others near Damascus early Friday. 

According to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor the attack targeted an "Iranian weapons depot", an air force intelligence facility and a high-ranking officer's office, as well as a car near the Mezzeh military airport.

It said three Syrians were killed in military positions hosting air defense batteries in the perimeter of the Mezzeh airbase, as well as three non-Syrians and two “collaborators” of the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group at a workshop for manufacturing Iranian drones near the town of Sayyidah Zaynab, commonly known as Sitt Zaynab, 10 kilometers south of Damascus.