Expat Iranians Hold Rallies In Many European, American Cities

Meysami, 53, who has been in jail since 2018 for supporting women activists protesting against Iran's forced hijab policy, began his hunger strike on October 7 to protest recent government killings of demonstrators, the dissident's lawyer said.

Social media images purported to be of an emaciated Meysami have caused outrage online as supporters warned on Friday, he risks death for protesting hijab and opposing the death penalty.

Also, 380 female rights activists wrote a letter Saturday asking him to end his hunger strike.

"When relentless violence does not stop its continuous attack, one must survive to resist," they said in the letter.

"We call for your demands and will not stop fighting the oppression until they are realized," reads the letter.

At the same time, a campaign was launched by "a group of friends and supporters of Farhad Meysami" to collect signatures about his dire situation and the call for his immediate release. About seven thousand people have signed the petition so far.

On Friday, Amnesty International also called for Meysami’s "immediate and unconditional" release.

However, Iran's judiciary denied that he was on hunger strike and said the photos were from four years ago when Meysami, a physician, did go on hunger strike.

The report on Saturday said US officials are in advanced discussions on the sanctions and have zeroed in on Tiandy Technologies Company, an electrical equipment manufacturer based out of the Chinese city of Tianjin whose products have been sold to units of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“Chinese customs data shows exports of video-recording equipment to Iran jumped last year amid mass protests sparked by the September death of a young woman while in police custody for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code,” reported the WSJ on Saturday.

According to the Journal, the US is also looking at whether Zhejiang Uniview Technologies Co., another large Chinese provider based in the eastern Chinese tech hub of Hangzhou, has sold surveillance tools to Iran security forces.

“If implemented, the move could put the company at risk of being cut off from the American financial system and cripple its ability to conduct business in US dollars.”

Tiandy is a private firm based in the northern city of Tianjin, which ranks among the top video surveillance companies in China and the world.

An industry survey says the annual sales revenue of Tiandy was more than $800 million in 2021 with branches in over 60 countries.

Reuters quoted four sources close to the plan on Friday saying that the effort by state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and the state-owned National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) to boost fuel output at the Paraguana Refining Center marks a step toward ending Venezuela's reliance on US refinery technology.

The two sides are expected to ink in the coming weeks a 460-million-euro contract to overhaul the 955,000-bpd Paraguana refinery complex on the coast of western Venezuela.

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian arrived in Caracas on Friday and met Venezuela's oil minister Tareck El Aissami.

Venezuela, which has the world's largest crude reserves, has struggled in recent years to produce enough gasoline and diesel due to refinery outages, a lack of investment and US sanctions.

At least 400 Iranian workers will work alongside between 1,000 and 1,500 local staff and contractors in this project, the sources said.

Venezuelan officials are responsible to find temporary housing and vehicles for the workers, including the possibility of building a camp close to Paraguana.

The Islamic Republic has boosted relations with Venezuela in recent years, providing crude and condensate as well as parts and feedstock for Venezuela's aging 1.3 million barrel per day oil refining network.

Clint Watts, the general manager of Microsoft's Digital Threat Analysis Center, said Friday that the hackers, who called themselves "Holy Souls," were from Iranian cybersecurity firm Emennet Pasargad.

Emennet Pasargad was the employer of two Iranians, Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi and Sajjad Kashian, who were indicted by the United States Justice Department in November 2021.

They allegedly conducted a cyber campaign "to intimidate and influence American voters, and otherwise undermine voter confidence and sow discord" during the 2020 US presidential election.

In early January Holy Souls announced they had obtained the personal information of more than 200,000 Charlie Hebdo customers and published a sample of the data as proof.

It came after the magazine published a series of cartoons that negatively depicted Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The caricatures were part of a media campaign that Charlie Hebdo said was intended to support anti-government protests in Iran that swept the country following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in mid-September.

Iran publicly vowed an "effective response" to the "insulting" cartoons, and summoned the French envoy in Tehran, while also ending activities of the French Institute of Research in Iran and saying it was re-evaluating France's cultural activities in the country.

According to a column by Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on Friday, senior officials of the Biden administration asked to see if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would agree to keep its conduct within the red lines in Palestinian territories outlined by the US government in exchange for cooperation over Iran and the promotion of normalization with Saudi Arabia.

The report claimed that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) William J. Burns have traveled to Israel in the past few days to make the deal. 

As per the purported deal, “the United States offers Israel broad cooperation in covert and semi-covert operations inside Iran -- not war,” and if the Islamic Republic gets closer to building a nuclear bomb, Washington will consider further moves.

In exchange for American cooperation over Iran and Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu will keep the calm in the area, maintain the status quo on al-Aqsa Mosque, strengthen the Palestinian Authority and curb the settlements. 

The terms of the agreement seem vague, and Netanyahu’s office also denied such a deal. However, it added Netanyahu did not agree to any conditions, but he would uphold such policies because they were the promises he made for his election campaign.