Four Iranian Kurdish Men Forcibly Disappeared For Months: Amnesty

As the national currency dropped to historic lows this week, conservative lawmaker Javad Nikbin said that President Ebrahim Raisi should be accountable for the chaotic situation and the parliament should put questioning the President on its agenda. He said the Raisi and his economic team are responsible and they should not blame others or the previous government for the country's economic crisis.

Meanwhile, Kamal Hosseinpour, a lawmaker from Piranshahr, who also criticized Raisi and his government for "simply watching the situation rather than trying to solve the problem," warned that a new wave of inflation is on its way.

Hosseinpour charged that the government's economic team has given up trying to solve the country's economic crisis as the national currency is in a downward spiral, triggering higher inflation.

It is not clear why the government has not changed its inefficient economic team, he complained, and introduced new officials who would know how to tackle the problem. He added that while the government is turning a blind eye, the automobile industry’s “mafia” is increasing car prices and has an insatiable appetite for money.

The car manufacturing industry is largely owned by the state and inefficient managers have plunged companies into debt and keep increasing car prices.

On Monday, the government banned a leading newspaper for reporting the rising price of meat in Iran and saying that government policies have deprived both the middle and working classes of meat. On Tuesday the government acknowledged a shortage of red and poultry meat.

Iranian journalist Ali Mojtahedzadeh wrote in an article in Etemad newspaper that "it is not the media's fault that prices in Iran have reached a record high under the Raisi administration." He pointed out that by banning a newspaper for reporting the problem, the government is fighting the truth. He added that last year, even before the first anniversary of Raisi’s presidency, the prosecutor of Tehran reported a more than 50 percent rise in the number of complaints made against the media by the government.

He pointed out that the media should not be punished for publishing reports that politicians do not like. The problem of rising prices is the politicians' fault, and they should be criticized by the media, he said.

In another development, prominent economist Morteza Afghah said in an interview with Didban Iran website that it is highly unlikely the government can control the markets before reaching a nuclear agreement that would lead to the lifting of US and international sanctions against Iran. Even then, he said, Iran should accept the terms of the FATF, an international financial watchdog, to facilitate international trade without causing any concern about money laundering or international terrorism.

Afghah added that rising liquidity and the government's attempts to make up for its budget deficit are the main causes of rising inflation. Referring to rial’s fall, Afghah said that some economist believe the government benefits from it by selling its foreign currencies at a higher rate.

He also pointed out that the most important problems that lead to rising prices in Iran are sanctions and Iran's international isolation. He added that because of these problems Iran is currently selling oil at a discounted price and takes huge losses to repatriate the revenue.

The index shows that families have spent 53% more on buying the same goods and services in comparison to the same period last year.

The main reason for the jump in prices has been the daily decline in the value of the national currency. The US dollar has climbed to more than 500,000 rials this week, a more than 60 percent decline for the Iranian currency since August.

Meanwhile, official figures show food prices rising well over 70 percent in the past 12 months as a falling currency makes imports more expensive.

Reports say the highest monthly inflation rate has been recorded for meat and vegetables. In the past month, meat had an inflation rate of 10.5% and vegetables 4.4%, which is the highest level of inflation among food items.

Reza Gheibi, an economy journalist told Iran International that Iran is expected to experience higher inflation in the coming months as the government is not able to take any tangible measures to control soaring prices.

“If the over-50-percent inflation continues in the next months, it would turn into hyper-inflation and Iran would turn into a new Venezuela,” noted Gheibi.

In the past days, many citizens reported a sharp rise in food prices, especially red meat and nuts.

Inflation along with the decrease in people's purchasing power may lead to more anti-government protests in the already tense situation.

Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's nearly 12-year conflict. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli air strikes meant to curb Tehran's extraterritorial military power.

A source close to the Syrian government with knowledge of Sunday's strike and its target said it hit a gathering of Syrian and Iranian technical experts in drone manufacturing, though he said no top-level Iranian was killed.

"The strike hit the center where they were meeting as well as an apartment in a residential building. One Syrian engineer and one Iranian official - not high-ranking - were killed," the source told Reuters.

This rocket strike, along with others that Israel says target infrastructure of Syria's military and its allies, reflect an escalation of what has been a low-intensity conflict aimed at slowing down Iran's growing entrenchment in Syria, according to Israeli military experts.

Syrian state media said at the time that Israel had carried out air strikes shortly after midnight on Sunday against several areas of the Syrian capital, causing five deaths and 15 injuries including civilians.

An Israeli military official declined to confirm or deny that Israel was behind the attack but said some of the casualties were caused by errant Syrian anti-aircraft fire.

The United States and Israel have been increasingly concerned about Iran’s drone manufacturing, and the possibility it would pass on those capabilities to regional proxies such as the heavily armed Hezbollah.

A second source, who spoke to Syrian security personnel briefed on the matter, said Iranians were attending the meeting of technical experts in a Iranian military installation in the basement of a residential building inside a security compound.

He said one of those killed was a Syrian army civil engineer who worked at Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Centre, which Western countries say is a military institution that has produced missiles and chemical weapons. Damascus denies this.

A regional security source said one Revolutionary Guards engineer involved in Iran’s missile program was seriously injured and transferred to a hospital in Tehran, while two other mid-ranking Guards members at the meeting were unharmed.

Another source, a regional intelligence official familiar with the strike, said the target was part of a covert guided missile production program run by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

A fifth, regional source with knowledge of the strike and its target, said officials from Iran and Hezbollah had been targeted. The Lebanese group has sent fighters to help Assad drive back rebels who once nearly encircled Damascus.

REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS LOGISTICS CENTRE HIT?

The targeted building was located in the Damascus neighborhood of Kafr Sousa, a heavily policed area where residents say several Iranian security agencies are located, along with an Iranian cultural centre.

Two Western intelligence sources said at the time the target was a logistics center run by the Revolutionary Guards.

Hezbollah's top commander Imad Moughniyeh was killed in 2008 in a bombing in the same neighborhood. Israel denied Hezbollah accusations that it was behind the assassination.

Although officials rarely acknowledge responsibility for specific operations, Israel has been carrying out air strikes on suspected Iranian-sponsored weapons transfers and personnel deployments in Syria for almost a decade.

Israel has also in recent months intensified strikes on Syrian airports and air bases to disrupt Iran's increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.

Exclusive report by Laila Bassam and Suleiman Al-Khalidi of Reuters

The decision was in protest over Iran sentencing a German national to death, a statement from the foreign office said.

Germany also summoned Iran's charge d'affaires over the issue, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a statement, adding: "He was informed that we do not accept the massive violation of the rights of a German citizen."

"We call on Iran to revoke Jamshid Sharmahd's death sentence and provide him with a fair appeal process based on the rule of law," she added.

Sharmahd, a German-Iranian national, was sentenced to death on charges of "corruption on earth", the judiciary's Mizan news agency reported on Tuesday.

The verdict can be appealed.

Iran accuses Sharmahd, who also has US residency, of heading a pro-monarchist group accused of a deadly 2008 bombing and planning other attacks in the country.

On Tuesday, Baerbock called the sentencing "absolutely unacceptable". She said Sharmahd had been denied a fair trial and that the ministry had been refused consular access.

Tensions between Iran and the West have intensified in recent months, pushing already-stalled efforts to revive talks on Tehran's nuclear program further into the background.

Germany has been a vocal backer of EU sanctions against Iran over its crackdown on protesters in the country. The bloc plans to widen the measures to include Iranian actors involved in the Russian war in Ukraine.

Report by Reuters

The network has been able to find the location of more than 40 unofficial torture centers and undeclared secret prisons in Iran, which are located in government-controlled facilities such as the basement of mosques.

To find the exact location of the secret detention centers, CNN interviewed eyewitnesses and detainees of the recent protests and matched this information with satellite images.

According to the report, eight, six, and five secret torture centers have been identified in Tehran, Sanandaj in the west, and Zahedan in the southeast, respectively.

In other cities such as Karaj, Mashhad, Tabriz, Kermanshah, Amol, Saqqez, etc., dozens of secret prisons have been identified based on the information provided by eyewitnesses.

Based on the CNN report, these secret prisons were places for torturing protesters to force them to confess so that the courts could issue heavy sentences such as death penalty for them.

Keyvan Samadi and Mohsen Sohrabi are two protesters interviewed by the CNN who had been imprisoned in these secret detention centers.

Injecting a substance to keep the prisoner alive, "kissing the neck and body" by the torturer, sexual torture with a baton are the things that Samadi and Sohrabi mentioned in an interview with the CNN.