Amnesty Int. Decries Death Sentence For Two Iranian LGBTQ Activists

In an open letter, signed by the sister of French citizen Benjamin Briere, the wife of Austrian Kamran Ghaderi, the wife of Swedish-Iranian doctor on death row Ahmadreza Djalali and the daughter of German citizen Jamshid Sharmahd and addressed to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, they said their loved ones “wonder whether EU officials have forgotten them and how much longer they will have to endure this ordeal.”

“We, the families of French, Swedish, German, and Austrian citizens, who have been illegally detained by the Iranian regime, are outraged that the European Union seems to be ignoring these crimes,” they added.

The families also listed legal and other mistreatments their loved one have had to endure. “These European citizens have been subjected to torture, grossly unfair trials based on fabricated charges, without access to legal counsel or proper medical care. All of them are held hostage by a dictatorial regime that does not even abide by the minimum standard of international legal and human rights.”

Briere has been detained since May 2020 and sentenced to eight years in jail on spying charges while Ghaderi has been held for almost seven years since January 2016. Djalali has been in jail for six years and is awaiting execution in Iran on charges of spying for Israel leading to the killing of nuclear scientists.

Amnesty International has accused the Islamic Republic of taking Djalali "hostage" and using him as “a pawn in a cruel political game." Sharmahd was kidnapped in Dubai and transferred to Iran in late July 2020 as Iran accused him of bombing a mosque in Shiraz 2008 that killed 14 people and wounded more than 200 others.  

Iran has been accused of wrongfully detaining at least a dozen foreign and dual nationals on trumped up charges, effectively as hostages to extract concessions from Western governments. Most of them are held on disputed spying charges.

According to the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), there are currently some 20 dual nationals and foreign nationals with US or European passports detained in Iran.

Borrell said on Monday he was “less confident” about efforts to restore the landmark nuclear deal, which was abandoned by former US president Donald Trump in 2018.

Earlier in the month, Iran reiterated its call for the release of its former officials imprisoned in Europe while Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an academic previously jailed in Iran for over two years, said Tehran is on the hunt for both Swedes and Belgians to exchange with them.

Foreign ministry’s spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Saturday that Assadollah Assadi, serving a 20-year sentence in Belgium over a terror attack in Paris, and former jailor Hamid Nouri, sentenced to life in prison in Sweden for his role in 1988 prison purges, should be released as their trials were illegal.

Assadi, 50, a former attaché at the Iranian embassy in Austria, was convicted of plotting to bomb a gathering of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) near Paris on June 30, 2018. Iran says Nouri’s detention is driven by “false allegations” made by the MEK.

In response to a question about the Israel’s efforts to dissuade Washington from reviving the nuclear deal in a news briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, "The US and its allies are equally preparing for scenarios with or without mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).”

“The US president will only conclude a deal that he determines is in the national security interests of the US," she noted, adding that the ultimate goal is to make sure Iran never acquires nuclear weapons.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Israel will continue to act in all areas against the revival of the Iran nuclear agreement and the threat posed by the Islamic Republic.

During a visit to Nevatim airbase in southern Israel, which houses the Israeli Air Force’s squadron of F-35 fighter jets, he said it is too soon to know if Israel has succeeded in thwarting the looming nuclear agreement with Iran.

US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides said Monday that President Biden has assured Lapid that Washington will never tie Israel’s hands to defend itself against Iran. “We understand the aggression of Iran,” he said, adding that “[Biden] was very clear to the prime minister in that belief.”

Robert Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who was part of a congressional delegation visiting Israel, said on Monday that Biden has pledged to submit any agreement on Iran’s nuclear program to Congress for review.

Mossad chief David Barnea is also in Washington to attend closed-door classified meetings of House and Senate intelligence committees.

During a visit to Nevatim airbase in southern Israel, which houses the Israeli Air Force’s squadron of F-35 fighter jets, he said it is too soon to know if Israel has succeeded in thwarting the looming nuclear agreement with Iran. 

In a clear signal to Tehran, Lapid also issued a video message on the anniversary of Operation Orchard of September 6, 2007, when Israel destroyed Al Kibar site, a suspected nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria. Lapid reiterated “If Iran continues to test us, it will discover Israel’s long arm and capabilities.”

“We will continue to act in all fronts against terrorism and against those who seek to harm us," Lapid noted. 

“As agreed between me and [US] President [Joe] Biden, we have full freedom of action to do whatever is appropriate to prevent Iran from the opportunity of becoming a nuclear threat,” Lapid added.

“It is still too early to know if we have indeed succeeded in stopping the nuclear agreement, but Israel is prepared for any threat and any scenario,” he added.

US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides said Monday that President Biden has assured Lapid that Washington will never tie Israel’s hands to defend itself against Iran. “We understand the aggression of Iran,” he said, adding that “[Biden] was very clear to the prime minister in that belief.”

As minister of state for the Middle East, Africa and North America until February, Cleverly has direct experience of dealing with Iran. Three months after President Ebrahim Raisi took office, Cleverly met November 2021 in London with Ali Bagheri Kani, a deputy Iranian foreign minister and lead nuclear negotiator.“The new government coming in did give us an opportunity to reset,” Cleverly told Sky News later, in March 2022.

While Cleverly said immediately after the meeting he had urged Iran to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, his meeting with Bagheri-Kani seems to have centered on detained dual British-Iranian nationals Nazanin Zeghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori. Families of the detainees and many analysts refused to believe claims by both Tehran and London that the detentions were not formally linked to Britain’s failure to honor a £400 million ($460 million) debt owed Iran for failure to deliver weapons in the 1970s that Tehran had paid for up front.

On the release of Zeghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori in March 2022, Cleverly, still a minister of state but no longer covering the Middle East, said talks had been “incredibly difficult” and that London had taken “every precaution” that the £400 million would be used for ‘humanitarian’ purposes.

"There was a legal decision which went against the UK, and we abide by that legal decision, but there were practical difficulties,” Cleverly said. “You can't just write a cheque because of all those sanctions, because of all those counter-terrorism and counter-money laundering laws.”

He floated the idea that the talks over the debt repayment and prisoner release could set a wider precedent: “I would hope that Iran sees that a shift in their behavior can bring about positive changes, but ultimately, they are the ones responsible for this. And if they were to change their behavior, then the international posture towards them could be reviewed.”

Cleverly also insisted that Britain was working hard to secure the release of a third detainee in Iran, Morad Tahbaz, who holds US as well as British and Iranian nationality.

While some commentators have suggested Liz Truss may take a harder line towards Iran than her predecessor Boris Johnson, Truss’ long record of pragmatism suggests she may try to maintain a common approach with the Biden administration, France, and Germany. Cleverly, a strong Truss supporter who first joined the cabinet in only 2019 and currently education secretary, seems a ready ally in such an approach.

During his speech in the Bundestag on Tuesday, Isaac Herzog called the Islamic Republic “ineligible for concessions, under any circumstances,” and warned of “dark forces of hate, led by Iran” that threatens both Israel and stability in the Middle East, calling on the international community to stand on the “right side of history.” 

Iran is behind “radical forces sowing terror, grief and devastation and seeking to menace everyone in the world,” he added, saying, “The possession of weapons of mass destruction by a UN member state that calls on a daily basis for the annihilation of another UN member state is simply inconceivable. Threats and endeavors to annihilate Israel are inconceivable.”

Following his meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin, Herzog said “Iran is openly striving for Israel’s destruction, and the international community must treat it severely, firmly and assertively. Toothless and watered-down accords and sweeping benefits will not stop Iran.”

Reiterating that Iran “has proven that it cannot be trusted,” he said that Israel “will stand up and assertively and powerfully defend its citizens and Jewish communities all around the world. We expect our allies to stand firmly by our side at this hour.”

Germany is one of the main world powers currently negotiating the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal as an agreement is seen likely in the next few weeks despite persistent gaps between Tehran and Washington.