Ex-Security Chief Warned Khamenei Of UN Rights Investigation

Lawyer Pegah Banihashemi, told Iran International on Sunday that "Salehi has been detained for more than 230 days, and a few days ago, his trial was held behind closed doors. Considering that there are reports about his beating, the US government has announced that it will monitor his case."

On June 22, representatives of the German, Austrian, New Zealand, and Italian parliaments, who have become Salehi's political sponsors, announced that the court proceedings concerning the singer's charges were held 230 days after his arrest without media coverage or official notification.

Milad Rasaimanesh, a political activist, also said “the more famous people inform about the case of Toomaj Salehi, the better the situation will be for him.”

Three parliament members of Germany, Italy and Austria also demanded access to his file.

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"We are very concerned. There is no transparency at all. We don't know anything: Not how the court date went. Not when the next court date will be. Not when the verdict will be announced," Ye-One Rhie, a member of Germany's parliament, stated on Twitter.

"We demand direct access to Toomaj himself. We demand access to all court files," she underlined.

Inside Iran, public protests against the imprisonment of the dissident singer continue with people chanting slogans or putting up posters of Salehi in various cities.

Earlier, Shirin Ebadi, a lawyer and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote about the judicial process of Toomaj, saying that he was denied the right to have a lawyer of his choice.

The Iranian diaspora also organized several rallies across Europe and America in recent months to support Salehi and other political prisoners.

Salehi, 33, is an artist mostly known for his protest songs about Iran's social issues and injustice by the government. Salehi was arrested on October 30th as part of the crackdown on opponents.

His arrest came shortly after his interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, saying that “You are dealing with a mafia that is ready to kill the entire nation... in order to keep its power, money and weapons.”

In his politically charged songs such as “Buy a Rat Hole” (2021), Toomaj, a 32-year-old metalworker in Esfahan, spoke out against repression, injustice, poverty, and authorities’ own corruption and impunity from prosecution.

The arrests happened after anti-regime protests in the Sistan and Baluchestan province on June 23, including four young teens, Amir Alizahi, 13, Adnan Alizahi, 14, Iraj Hashemzahi 14, and Esfandiar Hashemzahi, 15.

Amir and Adnan Alizahi, cousins, were reportedly released on Friday evening after 10 hours of detention and torture by the security forces in the province which has become the heartland of anti-regime activity.

Haalvsh website, which covers the events in Sistan-Baluchestan province, reported that in the city of Rask alone, plainclothes agents forced four citizens, including two teenagers, into a car and abducted them.

"At least 50 people from a village, who had attended the Friday prayer, were arrested by the repressive forces on Friday," Haalvsh wrote of the unrest in Rask.

So far, no information has been published about the exact number of those arrested in different cities of the flashpoint province on Friday.

This Friday was the 38th consecutive week that people of the province held demonstrations against the government following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September, but the rallies were significantly larger following calls for protests by Sunni clerics and activist groups as the regime seems to have intensified its campaign against their religious leader Mowlavi Abdolhamid.

The prominent religious leader has been relentless in his condemnation of authorities in his weekly Friday sermons since September when nationwide protests erupted in the country.

Secretary General of Germany's Liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) Bijan Djir-Sarai criticized the meeting of European Union foreign policy official Enrique Mora with Iranian Deputy Foreign minister Ali Bagheri-Kani, who is also Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator.

The two met this week in Qatar and discussed the chances of reviving the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement. Iran’s nuclear program is fast advancing with a high level of uranium enrichment.

In a tweet on Friday, Djir-Sarai called the meeting “wrong and shameful”, saying there is a need to adopt a new strategy in this regard, not to stabilize the Islamic Republic.

There have been reports of an intention on the part of the United States to offer financial incentives to the Islamic Republic in return for a freeze on uranium enrichment at 60-percent purity. Critics argue that a partial agreement, not totally limiting Iran's enrichment, but giving billion of dollars to the regime is abad idea, because it will enable further adventures and strengthen its military.

His reaction was to Enrique Mora's tweet, in which he referred to intensive discussions with Bagheri-Kani in Doha, saying that “For the EU, JCPOA is the best possible, if not the only, framework to address the legitimate non-proliferation concerns of the international community on the Iranian nuclear program.”

Before Djir-Sarai, Norbert Röttgen, a member of the German Parliament, criticized the government for negotiating with the authorities of the Islamic Republic in Abu Dhabi.

By publishing the answer of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs to his question about this meeting, Röttgen said "Now we can see why the inclusion of the IRGC in the list of terrorist groups is not progressing."

“What do you think it was about when the E3 [UK, France, Germany] and the regime [officials] came together? My tip: The atomic program and the JCPOA,” he said in a tweet.

Iranian activists and their supporters in the West have been campaigning for months to convince European countries to designate the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. The United States took that step in 2019.

In a letter, the German Foreign Ministry said the representatives of the three European countries that are JCPOA signatories met with Ali Bagheri-Kani in Abu Dhabi on June 12, but the federal government does not comment on the details of the confidential talks.

Earlier, Stephanie Liechtenstein, an independent Vienna-based journalist, quoted her sources as saying that this conversation focused on issues such as the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, military support for Russia's war in Ukraine, and the situation of foreign prisoners.

Recently, in an exclusive report, the Washington Post revealed the three demands of the Biden administration from the Islamic Republic, which were raised during the indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran, claiming that such demands do not include the "revival of the JCPOA".

Negotiations on restoring the nuclear deal signed in 2015 between Iran and world powers (JCPOA) stalled last year. The US officials have repeatedly said their focus is not on the JCPOA negotiations any longer, but Washington is rather focused on the Islamic Republic’s suppression of its people and Tehran’s military support for Russia in the invasion of Ukraine.

Amir-Abdollahian "voiced support for the rule of law in all countries, including Russia - a neighbor and a friend... and said he was confident that Russia would get through this stage," state media said in a brief report about the phone call with Sergei Lavrov.

Iran and Russia do not share any borders but are close military and diplomatic allies who have fought together in Syria since 2015 to save the regime of Bashar al-Assad in the country’s 12-year civil war.

Tehran’s military ties with Moscow have expanded since the invasion of Ukraine, with Iran supplying hundreds of kamikaze drones that Russia has used against civilian and military targets. Western powers have strongly objected to Iran’s move. The United States has said that stopping its weapons supplies is one of the conditions if Iran wants to see progress in nuclear negotiations and lifting of economic sanctions.

Earlier in the day, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman had also used the same wording in describing Tehran’s reaction to a military rebellion by the head of the mercenary Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

While Tehran might be concerned about Putin’s hold on power, Iranians opposed to the regime have expressed satisfaction that Russian leader is facing domestic turmoil.

Masoud Daneshmand, member of the board of directors of the Center of Transport Institutions said Saturday that most of Iran's shipping vessels are sanctioned and as a result they are inactive.

“The Shipping Company of the Islamic Republic of Iran is under sanctions, and all ports must obtain permission from the US Treasury to accept Iranian ships. If a port does not receive permission from the OFAC, they will be subject to secondary sanctions,” noted Daneshmand.

He further added that some countries like India and South Africa have obtained licenses to accept the Iranian ships, but it should be noted that they cannot berth in all the ports.

In March, the United States imposed new sanctions on Iran-linked shipping and petrochemical companies, including two shipping firms based in China.

The sanctions also targeted 20 shipping vessels linked to firms in China, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates, the Treasury Department's website showed.

The sanctions were issued under a 2018 US executive order that restored sanctions targeting Iran's oil, banking and transportation sectors.

In 2019, OFAC issued an advisory to alert persons around the world that are involved in shipping petroleum or petroleum products from Iran.

“These shipments create significant sanctions risk for entities and individuals in the shipping industry, including shipping companies, vessel owners, managers, operators, insurers, and financial institutions,” read the advisory.