Three US Hikers Jailed In Iran Over Alleged Espionage Sue Tehran

An empty chair stood in for Panahi during the screening of "No Bears," a movie about two parallel love stories in which the partners are thwarted by the forces of superstition and mechanics of power.

Panahi, who has made several award-winning movies, including "The Circle", "The White Balloon" and "Taxi", sent a letter from his prison cell which festival director Alberto Barbara read out this week in a panel on filmmakers in peril. "The work we create is not commissioned (so) some of our governments see us as criminals. Some (directors) were banned from making films, others were forced into exile or reduced to isolation. And yet, the hope of creating again is a reason for existence,” read the letter.

In July, Iran’s judiciary said the award-winning film director has been sent to Evin prison to serve his six-year sentence, after he was arrested as he was protesting the detention of two other filmmakers Mostafa Alehahmad and Mohammad Rasoulof at the prosecutor’s office of the Evin prison. Panahi is sentenced to six years in prison – five years for “conspiracy and collusion against national security” and one year for “propaganda against the system.”

The two had been detained on July 8 as part of the Islamic Republic's crackdown on the signatories of a statement titled “Lay down the gun,” which 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. Since then, Iran’s security apparatus is increasing pressure on the signatories to rescind their signatures.

Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Kurdish rights group, reported on Saturday that the convict, identified as Morteza Jalali, was transferred from another prison to Tehran’s Evin prison for the amputation last week. 

His fingers were cut off with a guillotine-like device that the prison recently acquired at the infirmary of the detention center.

Iran has amputated fingers of several prisoners during the past few months while authorities said several cases of amputations for robbery are currently at the execution stage, calling on judges not to hesitate to issue death and amputation sentences.

Late in June, the head of the Iranian association of surgeons, Iraj Fazel, called on the judiciary not to allow the amputation of fingers to punish thieves, describing the practice as "worrying and horrifying."

According to Islamic Sharia law, punishment for theft can be amputation of fingers or hands.

Human rights group Amnesty International said late in July that Iranian authorities must be held accountable for amputating the fingers of prisoners. “These amputations are particularly harrowing displays of the Iranian authorities’ contempt for human rights and dignity,” said Diana Eltahawy, a deputy director of the group.

Prosecutors said on Friday that police confiscated 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds) of heroin in the port city of Hamburg at the end of August, but the arrests were made overnight on Thursday, September 8, when police searched 10 premises in the eastern cities of Dresden and Chemnitz, as well as in Hamburg and in the Netherlands.

The detainees were an unnamed 35-year-old Iranian in the Netherlands, a 40-year-old Turkish-Serbian suspected ringleader, a 54-year-old German suspected of using his firm's logistics fleet to transport drugs, and a 53-year-old Turkish go-between.

One was detained in Germany, one in Spain, and two others in the Netherlands. Prosecutors are seeking the extraditions of the three who were arrested abroad. 

Last year in September, Indian officials said they had seized nearly three tons of heroin originating from Afghanistan and shipped from Bandar Abbas Port in Iran to Gujarat Mundra port worth an estimated 200 billion rupees ($2.72 billion). More than 2,988 kg of heroin was recovered in one of India's biggest such hauls to date.

In May, Jordan said Iran-backed forces in the Syrian army and militias loyal to Tehran are trying to smuggle hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of drugs across the Jordanian border to Persian Gulf markets.

Malley met on Thursday with the leaders of several US Jewish organizations, including The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Union for Reform Judaism, American Jewish Committee, Democratic Majority for Israel and AIPAC, the Jewish Insider reported on Friday. 

Participants declined to share information about what was discussed, but a JFNA spokesperson said that “Federations appreciated the engagement from the White House, and we’re pleased the meeting took place.”

Most of the participants had publicly criticized the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – or the JCPOA -- and similarly spoken out against ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran. 

Earlier in the day, a statement by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said Mossad chief David Barnea has shared "sensitive intelligence materials" with heads of CIA, FBI, Pentagon and other top officials, warning US against being cheated by the Islamic Republic’s lies.

Earlier in September, Yair Lapid said the country is leading “an intensive campaign” meant to prevent the signing of “a dangerous” nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides said on September 5 that President Joe Biden has assured Lapid that Washington will never tie Israel’s hands against Iran.

Also on Friday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina predicted that a new Iran deal will not be finalized until after the upcoming US midterms and Israeli elections, set for November 1, and talked of plans for multiple legislative initiatives aimed at countering Tehran.

Expressing hope that the talks to restore the deal go nowhere, the senator for Texas told our correspondent Arash Aalaei on Thursday, "The Biden White House seems bound to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars into the hands of a theocratic despot who routinely chants 'death to America' and 'death to Israel'."

“If this deal goes through, that money will be used to murder Americans and our allies, and it would dramatically accelerate the process of the Ayatollah getting a nuclear weapon which if God forbid, he does, could well be used to murder millions of Americans,” he added. 

Cruz went on to criticize President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, which, he claims, have emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine. “This (Ukraine) war should never have happened. It only happened because of Joe Biden's weakness and appeasement.” 

“First of all, in surrendering Afghanistan and signaling weakness to all of our enemies, but then secondly in waiving sanctions on Nord Stream 2 pipeline, handing a multi-billion-dollar gift to Putin, which was the direct and incipient cause of Putin's invasion of Ukraine,” he said.