LONDON: Iranian authorities are facing pressure from a leading human rights NGO to quash the convictions of five activists who face up to four years in prison for filing a complaint against the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mehdi Mahmoudian and Mostafa Nili were each sentenced to four-year jail terms and two-year bans from media appearances, while Arash Keykhosravi, Mohammadreza Faghili, and Maryan Afrafaraz face two years, one year, and 95 days in prison respectively.
Human Rights Watch is calling for their release amid a broader crackdown on political activism by the Tehran regime.
Tara Sepehri Far, a senior Iran researcher at HRW, said: “Sending human rights defenders to prison for attempting to hold the government accountable for its dismal mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis is sadly an unsurprising outcome in Iran.
“Iranian judicial authorities seem more concerned with protecting the state from scrutiny than delivering justice for ordinary people.”
The convictions follow the August 2021 arrests of seven human rights defenders, four of whom are lawyers, as they prepared to file the complaint in the court under Iranian law over the authorities’ mismanagement of the pandemic response.
Under article 34 of the Iranian Constitution, “it is the indisputable right of every citizen to seek justice by recourse to a competent court” with articles 170 and 173 stating every citizen has the right to complain before a court when the government’s rules and regulations conflict with laws or norms.
The country’s national pandemic task force was specifically identified in their complaint, with the health minister and other officials also facing the scrutiny of the activists.
Of the seven arrested, Leila Heydari and Mohammad Hadi Erfanian, both lawyers, were released without charge after a few hours, with the rest facing charges including “establishing an illegal group” and “propaganda against the state.”
Mahmoudian is already serving a four-year prison sentence he received on what HRW calls “politically motivated” charges of “propaganda against the state,” and “assembly and collusion to act against national security.”
These charges were brought for his support for victims of state repression including for calling for a vigil for the victims of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in January 2020.
Sepehri Far added: “Human rights defenders in Iran should be able to carry out their peaceful activities without fear of state reprisal.”
Despite being hit by more than 140,000 deaths linked to COVID-19, Iranian authorities initially banned procuring vaccines produced in the US and Britain, choosing instead to prioritize and promote the production of a domestic vaccine with substantial government resources.
Critics of Iran’s pandemic mismanagement must be freed, urges rights group
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Critics of Iran’s pandemic mismanagement must be freed, urges rights group
- Five activists face up to four-year jail terms for engaging in constitutional rights
UN says Gaza death toll still over 35,000 but not all bodies identified
- Haq said those figures were for identified bodies — 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men — adding: “The Ministry of Health says that the documentation process of fully identifying details of the casualties is ongoing”
UNITED NATIONS/GENEVA: The death toll in the Gaza Strip from the Israel-Hamas war is still more than 35,000, but the enclave’s Ministry of Health has updated its breakdown of the fatalities, the United Nations said on Monday after Israel questioned a sudden change in numbers.
UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said the ministry’s figures — cited regularly by the UN its reporting on the seven-month-long conflict — now reflected a breakdown of the 24,686 deaths of “people who have been fully identified.”
“There’s about another 10,000 plus bodies who still have to be fully identified, and so then the details of those — which of those are children, which of those are women — that will be re-established once the full identification process is complete,” Haq told reporters in New York.
Israel last week questioned why the figures for the deaths of women and children has suddenly halved.
Haq said those figures were for identified bodies — 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men — adding: “The Ministry of Health says that the documentation process of fully identifying details of the casualties is ongoing.”
Oren Marmorstein, spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Monday accused Palestinian militants Hamas of manipulating the numbers, saying: “They are not accurate and they do not reflect the reality on the ground.”
“The parroting of Hamas’ propaganda messages without the use of any verification process has proven time and again to be methodologically flawed and unprofessional,” he said in a social media post.
Haq said UN teams in Gaza were not able to independently verify the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) figures given the ongoing war and sheer number of fatalities.
“Unfortunately we have the sad experience of coordinating with the Ministry of Health on casualty figures every few years for large mass casualty incidents in Gaza, and in past times their figures have proven to be generally accurate,” Haq said.
The World Health Organization “has a long-standing cooperation with the MoH in Gaza and we can attest that MoH has good capacity in data collection/analysis and its previous reporting has been considered credible,” said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris.
“Real numbers could be even higher,” she said.
Libya customs officers arrested over huge gold shipment
- The country is split between Abdelhamid Dbeibah’s UN-recognized government in Tripoli and a rival administration in the east, backed by strongman Khalifa Haftar
TRIPOLI: Libyan authorities have arrested several customs officials for attempting to traffic abroad about 26 tons of gold worth almost 1.8 billion euros ($1.9 billion), prosecutors said.
The Libyan prosecutor’s office did not detail the suspected origin of the massive amount of precious metal, greater than the national gold reserves of many countries.
Authorities in Misrata, western Libya, made the arrests related to the trafficking operation at the port city’s international airport, the office said Sunday night.
“The investigating authorities ordered the arrest of the director general of customs and customs officials at the international airport of Misrata,” it said in a statement released on Facebook.
The officials had attempted in December 2023 to traffic the gold bars weighing some 25,875 kilograms, currently worth almost 1.8 billion euros, the statement said.
Libyan law says only the central bank can export gold, said the office, which opened an investigation into the case in January.
Libya has been plagued by political instability and violence since the 2011 overthrow and killing of longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
The country is split between Abdelhamid Dbeibah’s UN-recognized government in Tripoli and a rival administration in the east, backed by strongman Khalifa Haftar.
Misrata, east of the capital Tripoli, played a key role in fighting Qaddafi’s forces, as well as against the Daesh group’s fighters in 2016, and in battling against a failed offensive by Haftar’s forces against the capital Tripoli in 2019.
The US-based non-government group The Sentry, which investigates trafficking in conflict areas, said that chaos-torn Libya has become a key hub for illicit gold trafficking over the past decade.
“Particularly since 2014, Libya has been used as a transit area toward places such as the UAE and, to a lesser extent, Turkiye” for trafficking gold, according to report the group published last November.
“Two crucial points of transit are used to export gold on an illicit basis: the port and airports of the Misrata-Zliten-Khums area and those of Benghazi” in the east, the report said.
Five Iraqi soldiers killed in Daesh attack, sources say
- Iraq’s defense ministry issued a statement mourning the loss of Col. Khaled Nagi Wassak “along with a number of heroic fighters of the regiment as a result of their response to a terrorist attack”
BAGHDAD: An Iraqi commanding officer and four soldiers were killed and five others injured on Monday in an attack by suspected Daesh militants on an army post in eastern Iraq, two security sources said.
The attack took place between Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, a rural area that remains a hotbed of activity for militant cells years after Iraq declared final victory over the extremist group in 2017.
Iraq’s defense ministry issued a statement mourning the loss of a colonel and “a number of heroic fighters of the regiment as a result of their response to a terrorist attack.”
Security forces repelled the attack but there were many casualties in the process, the statement added.
Iraq has seen relative security stability in recent years after the chaos of the 2003-US-led invasion and years of bloody sectarian conflict that followed.
Baghdad is now looking to draw down the U.S-led international coalition that helped defeat Islamic State and remain in the country in an advisory role, saying local security forces can handle the threat themselves.
UAE president presents Indonesia’s defense minister with Order of Zayed
- Subianto receives UAE’s highest civil honor in recognition of his contribution to improved bilateral cooperation
DUBAI: UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan on Monday presented Indonesia’s defense minister, Prabowo Subianto, with the Order of Zayed, the UAE’s highest civil honor, in recognition of his contribution to the enhancement of cooperation between the countries.
During the meeting in Abu Dhabi, Subianto conveyed greetings from Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo and expressed his desire for the continued advancement and prosperity of the UAE, the Emirates News Agency reported. Sheikh Mohammed responded with similar wishes for Indonesia.
The president and defense minister also discussed the relationship between their countries, particularly as it relates to defense and military affairs, and ways in which it might be enhanced in the interests of both countries, and reviewed regional and international issues of mutual interest.
Sheikh Mohammed said he was keen to leverage the strong strategic ties between the UAE and Indonesia to deepen cooperation so that both nations benefit from shared opportunities for development and prosperity.
Kuwaiti emir, Omani sultan meet for official talks
- Leaders discussed the longstanding relationship between their countries
KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah hosted Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tareq at Bayan Palace in Kuwait City on Monday for official talks.
The leaders discussed the longstanding relationship between their countries and explored avenues for enhancing cooperation in various sectors, the Kuwait News Agency reported.
They also addressed strategies for the advancement of the Gulf Cooperation Council, matters of shared interest and various regional and international affairs.
The meeting came during the sultan’s two-day state visit to Kuwait and was followed by a banquet held in his honor.
Kuwait’s Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah and other officials from the two countries also attended the meeting.
