Turkmenistan Holding Crew of Iranian Fishing Boat

Iranian media reported today that in December the Turkmen naval vessels opened fire on an Iranian fishing boat, killing one of the fishermen, sinking the boat and took the surviving fishermen into custody. IRNA said as yet “there is no exact information and the fate of the crew.” (IRNA/Radio Free Europe, 1 February)

IRNA, the official Iranian news agency, today called the attack and detention of Iranian citizens a move “contrary to international law.” IRNA did not explain why it released the news of the incident after nearly two months, which was coordinated with other Iranian media that released the story today. There were also no information whether the body of the fisherman killed in the attach has been returned to Iran.

File photo: A Turkmen warship on the Caspian Sea coast; September 2012 (AFP/RFURL)

  

Iran Announces Arrest of 130 Sunni Militants

MOIS ‘Stopped and Neutralized’ Two Suicide Bombers

 

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has “stopped and neutralized” two suicide bombers during the Quds Day rallies on 25 July, Minister of Intelligence Ali Alavi said during a Majlis briefing today. The Minister also said that MOIS has arrested 130 members of “Takfiri” (militant Sunni) groups plotting against the Islamic Republic.  

Alavi added that the militants had “significant” amounts of explosives destined for use in an attack on a Shia holy city, and explosive belts were planned for suicide bombings in two separate provinces. He did not say if the holy city was Qom or Mashhad, and did not disclose the names of provinces the suicide attacks were planned to take place.

“The Ministry of Intelligence is in control in its confrontation against all internal and extraterritorial threats,” Alavi said. (Fars News Agency, 7 October)

Iranian government has been concerned about the rise of Sunni militancy in the region, and especially the rapid advance of the Islamic State insurgents, and its effect on the Sunni-dominated provinces forming a belt around Iran; including West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Ilam, Khuzestan, Hormozgan and Baluchistan.

ISIL controls territory in the Iraqi city of Jalula, only 50 kilometers from Iranian border. The concern is about the Islamic State’s ability to mobilize Iranian Sunni militant groups in border areas, as it has done in Sunni-dominated provinces in Iraq. The crackdown on Sunni militant groups, which the minister of intelligence was announcing today, is to prevent Sunni uprising from within those provinces and its possible link to ISIL, hence Alavi’s reference to internal and extraterritorial threats. The Iranian Sunni militants could also cross the border to participate in ISIL’s operations and then return back to Iran.

Photo credit: Iran’s Minister of Intelligence Ali Alavi (FNA)

Why Is Iran Detaining Jason Rezaian?

Laura Secor on Persistence of Iran's Security State

Laura Secor, a contributor at New Yorker, today has published a piece on Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post correspondent in Tehran, who was detained by Iranian security forces on 22 July, along with two other journalists, one of them his wife, and has not been heard of since. To read the article, please click here.

File photo: Jason Rezaian (Zoeann Murphy/Getty Images/The Washington Post)

Iran Jailed My Friends – Anthony Bourdain

“These people I interviewed in Iran clearly loved the country. So why did it put them in jail?”

Anthony Bourdain, host of CNN’s “Parts Unknown” and author of “Kitchen Confidential,” tells the story of his recent reporting from Iran, where he met Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi.

To read the story, please click here.

Photo credit: Jason Rezaian, left, and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, with Anthony Bourdain. Tehran, 2014. (Twitter/@thekarami)

CPJ: Iran Must Explain Journalist Arrests

State Department Calls for Immediate Release of Rezaian

New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today called on the Iranian government to explain why the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian and The National's Yeganeh Salehi, Rezaian’s wife, were arrested, and who has detained them.

It has now been six days since Rezaian and Salehi were detained. Reporters Without Border says an unnamed freelance photojournalist along with her non-journalist husband was also detained.

So far the only official confirmation of the arrests came from Qolam Hossein Esmaili, the head of the Justice Department in Tehran Province, who told the state-run news agency IRNA on Friday that the judiciary would provide information on the arrests after the completion of “technical investigations.”

In April, the very same Esmaili was removed from his previous post as head of Iran's state prisons after dozens of detainees in Evin prison, including at least seven journalists, were severely beaten during a raid. He is now promoted to the position of Tehran's prosecutor general, and has ordered the arrests of Rezaian and his colleagues.

CPJ said it holds the entire government in Iran responsible for the well being of all imprisoned journalists.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department today urged Iran to release Rezaian. Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said Washington had asked the Swiss government, which is in charge of U.S. interest section in Iran, for assistance in resolving the issue of Rezaian’s detention.

“We call on the Iranian government to immediately release Mr. Rezaian and the other three individuals,” Psaki said Monday afternoon during a State Department news briefing. (Washington Post, 28 July)

The Washington Post’s executive editor, Martin Baron, said last week that the newspaper was “mystified” and “deeply concerned” by the arrest.

Rezaian, 38, who holds American and Iranian citizenship, has been The Post’s correspondent in Tehran since 2012. His wife, Yeganeh Salehi, 30, is a correspondent for UAE-based National newspaper.

To read today's Washington Post editorial on Rezaian and his colleagues, please click here.

File photo: A recent picture of Jason Rezaian and His wife, Yeganeh Salehi. (Washington Post)

Iran’s Opposition Leaders Detained Three Years On

Iran’s Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, and his wife Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karrubi have been held without charge or trial for three years today.

Amnesty International said today the detained opposition leaders have no possibility to challenge the lawfulness of their detention, and urged the Iranian authorities to immediately end their arbitrary detention and stop the harassment of their families. (Amnesty.org, 14 February)

Senior Iranian Diplomat Detained in Tehran

Iranian Foreign Ministry today confirmed an earlier report by Reuters that the security agents in Tehran have detained a senior Iranian diplomat. Bagher Asadi, who was a senior member of Iran's U.N. mission in New York and was most recently a director at the secretariat of the D8 group of developing nations in Istanbul, was arrested in mid-March.

The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) said in its news broadcast today that a senior Foreign Ministry officer has confirmed the arrest and detention of Mr. Bagheri. (IRINN, 2 May)

The authorities have not revealed the charges against Bagheri. In January 2004, he wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times supporting the reformist policies of then-President Khatami. He warned of the potential negative consequences of a conservative victory in the 2005 presidential election. Ahmadinejad won that election.

File photo: Bagher Asadi (right) with Kamal Kharazi, then Iran’s ambassador to the U.N., and Kofi Annan, then the U.N. Secretary General, in an undated photo (g77.org/BBC)

Iran Arrests Pro-Reform Journalists

Iranian authorities have arrested the editor-in-chief and political editor of the independent Maghreb daily over an article the criticized the government and reportedly closed down three other news publications. The move is the latest assault on independent and reformist press by the Judiciary under direct supervision of the hardliner Judiciary chief Hojatoleslam Sadeq Larijani. Editor-in-Chief Mohammad Mehdi Emami Nasseri and political editor Ali Reza Aghaeirad were transferred to the notorious Evin prison.