US Should Designate Iran's Khamenei As A Terrorist - Former Envoy To UN

Nearly 20 workers at Iran’s AzarAb Industries Construction company – which employs more than 2,500 people – were suspended from work for one year, and a local court sentenced them to 30 lashes, and three months imprisonment over their participation in a protest in late May. 

The workers of the company say their salaries have been paid regularly in the past two months but there is no stability in the managerial team and they keep changing. 

Iranian workers and pensioners have been holding regular nationwide protests during the past months to demand better work conditions and higher salaries on par with the increasing prices of essential foods and other commodities. 

On August 9, Iranian pensioners held another round of demonstrations in protest to the government’s decision to a 10-percent increase in payments while the inflation rate stands at 55 percent, denouncing the government's move to ignore decrees by the Supreme Labor Council, which had stipulated a 38-percent increase in the minimum wage.

Amid a dire economic situation in Iran that has been worsening in recent months, at least 10 workers have committed suicide in the last three months due to dismissal from their jobs and "livelihood problems".

With food prices rising faster after four years of United States’ ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, Iranian workers and retirees have been holding regular protests or strikes to demand higher salaries. In June, Iran’s currency fell to a historic low of 333,000 rials to the US dollar.

Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the Kayhan daily, the flagship hardliner newspaper affiliated with the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei argued on Thursday that no guarantee by the United States is worth the paper it is written on.

“I would dare to say that no guarantee from the United States is reliable” or valid Shariatmadari wrote, recounting the withdrawal of the Trump administration from the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA.

The ultra-hardliner editor is also Khamenei’s representative at the Kayhan.

As nuclear talks between Iran and the West have reached a critical stage, with the Biden administration reviewing the latest written Iranian response to a European Union text, some Khamenei loyalists continue to make more demands. But Shriatmadari’s article was re-published in most Iranian websites on Wednesday, even those considered to be “reformist’.

Shariatmadari, writing in his Editor’s Note, questioned the value of any US guarantee, a key demand by Iranian negotiators that is still preventing an agreement. Referring to the unilateral withdrawal of the Trump administration from the JCPOA, he said that Washington can again easily renege and abandon any new agreement.

He even fired a shot at foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian for saying that a US verbal guarantee should be presented in writing.

Shariatmadari dismissed this demand, saying that no US guarantee, even endorsed by the UN Security Council, can be trusted.

He argued that the only guarantee for Iran would be wording in the new agreement that it will withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if the United States once again abandons a restored JCPOA. He said Iran would be accountable to no one, not even the United Nations, if it decides to leave the NPT.

Leaving the non-proliferation agreement would mean no international monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities, Shariatmadari said, assuring readers that there would be no consequence for Iran, as article 10 of the treaty allows signatories to withdraw from the agreement.

The Khamenei loyalist also demanded that all US sanctions should be verifiably lifted, not just those imposed since 2018 when former President Donald Trump exited the JCPOA. If sanctions imposed “under hostile and ad hoc labels such as human rights, regional presence or missile program” stay, then it means no sanctions have been removed and new ones can be imposed in the future, Shariatmadari argued.

Since the US presidential election in November 2020, and Biden’s announcement that he would return to the JCPOA, Iran has been demanding the removal of all sanctions, but Washington says it will not lift terrorism and other non-nuclear sanctions.

Iran’s negotiating team “has stood against excessive demands of the rival” so far, but they should “demand the removal of all sanctions in the upcoming agreement,” no matter what their label might be, Shariatmadari said. Otherwise, “Rest assured that practically no sanction can be considered lifted.”

According to a New York Post interview published on Wednesday, Hadi Matar said he had only "read a couple pages" of Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses" and that a tweet in the winter announcing the author's visit to the Chautauqua Institution gave him the idea of going there.

Rushdie has lived with a bounty on his head since "The Satanic Verses" published in 1988 prompted Khomeini to issue a fatwa urging Muslims to kill him.

"I respect the Ayatollah. I think he's a great person. That's as far as I will say about that," the Post cited Matar as saying in a video interview from the Chautauqua County Jail.

"I don't like him very much," Matar said of Rushdie, adding that "He's someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems."

Some Western politicians and media have said that Iran's death fatwa against Rushdie makes it responsible for the incident and the United States should not continue nuclear talks with Tehran.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman on Monday, August 15, denied any links with the 24-year-old who stabbed the 75-year-old Indian-born author on August 12.

Vice News reported on Sunday, August 14, that according to European and Middle Eastern intelligence sources, Matar had been in contact with elements of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), a charge Matar denied. Matar was charged with attempted murder on Saturday.

Informed sources told Iran International Wednesday that the Intelligence Ministry as well as the security division of the country’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance have threatened more than 100 film industry figures to withdraw their signatures from a May statement titled “Lay down the gun”. They have been threatened to be banned from working in the film industry and leaving Iran unless they withdraw their signatures. 

The statement called on military and security forces who “have become tools for cracking down on the people,” not to suppress protesters during popular demonstrations in May.

The artists and moviemakers have been asked to announce that the signing of this statement was done under pressure by Mostafa Alehahmad and Mohammad Rasoulof, two filmmakers who were arrested July 8 as part of the crackdown on the signatories. 

According to reports, under the threat of security forces, about 15 people have so far withdrawn their signatures from the statement.

Iran International’s sources also said that 10 documentary makers have been informed that they are banned from leaving the country and that a list of artists who are banned from working will be announced next week.

In July, Iran’s judiciary said award-winning film director Jafar Panahi has been sent to Evin prison to serve his six-year sentence, after he was arrested as he was protesting the detention of Rasoulof and Alehahmad at the prosecutor’s office of the Evin prison.

Israeli ambassador George Deek released a video on Tuesday, saying that Iran’s ambassador to Azerbaijan Abbas Mousavi recently threatened to kill him. 

“He tweeted that I crossed a red line and that I would be buried by the people of Iran,” the Israeli envoy said, adding that “You can imagine my thoughts when I heard that author Salman Rushdie was stabbed before a speech; Iran also said that he had crossed a red line; Iran also threatened him with death. And the terrorist just tried to murder him in broad daylight.”

He added that “As someone who only weeks ago was directly threatened by an Iranian official, I urge you in the strongest possible terms: Take the threats of this murderous regime seriously.” “Don’t let them intimidate you, but do not dismiss them even for a single second.”

He referred to the Iranian threats to kill atheists, activists, and anyone who disagrees with them. “They threaten to spread terrorism throughout the world. They threaten to destroy Israel, democracy, and our freedom. They mean it; just ask Salman Rushdie,” he noted. 

He called on the international community to make sure the attack on Rushdie was the last stabbing in the name of medieval hatred through confronting the Iranian terrorism. 

Earlier on Tuesday, more than 250 Iranian public figures said in a statement that the United States must release details of the alleged ties between Rushdie’s attacker and the Islamic Republic.