Rights groups call for probe into Iran’s President-elect Raisi for crimes against humanity

In this file photo taken on June 06, 2021 Iranian presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi gestures during an election campaign rally in the city of Eslamshahr. (AFP)
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Updated 20 June 2021
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Rights groups call for probe into Iran’s President-elect Raisi for crimes against humanity

  • Iran’s new leader will control all regime’s branches, fill Cabinet with radicals: Expert

JEDDAH: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Ebrahim Raisi’s election as Iran’s new president was a blow for human rights and called for him to be investigated over his role in the extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.

“That Ebrahim Raisi has risen to the presidency instead of being investigated for the crimes against humanity, enforced disappearance and torture, is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran,” said London-based Amnesty Secretary-General Agnès Callamard, citing the group's report

“In 2018, our organization documented how Ebrahim Raisi had been a member of the ‘death commission’ which forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed in secret thousands of political dissidents in Evin and Gohardasht prisons near Tehran in 1988. The circumstances surrounding the fate of the victims and the whereabouts of their bodies are, to this day, systematically concealed by the Iranian authorities, amounting to ongoing crimes against humanity.”

The report also said: “‘As Head of the Iranian Judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi has presided over a spiralling crackdown on human rights which has seen hundreds of peaceful dissidents, human rights defenders and members of persecuted minority groups arbitrarily detained.

“We continue to call for Ebrahim Raisi to be investigated for his involvement in past and ongoing crimes under international law, including by states that exercise universal jurisdiction,” she added.

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New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) echoed this. “Iranian authorities paved the way for Ebrahim Raisi to become president through repression and an unfair election,” Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at HRW, said.

“As head of Iran’s repressive judiciary, Raisi oversaw some of the most heinous crimes in Iran’s recent history, which deserve investigation and accountability rather than election to high office.”

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist, told Arab News “With Raisi’s victory, Iran’s hard-liners will be controlling all the regime’s branches — the executive, legislative and the judiciary. The last time the hard-liners were in such a position was during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Raisi will most likely choose members of radical organizations such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, the Ministry of Intelligence, and paramilitary groups Basij to fill his Cabinet.”  

Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, said: “Ebrahim Raisi, the henchman of the 1988 massacre and murderer of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, is Khamenei’s final bid to preserve his regime. Weak, crisis-riddled, and rattled by looming uprisings, Khamenei purged all rivals to install Raisi as president, one of the vilest criminals against humanity since World War II.”

“There is no longer any justification for the international community to deal with, engage, or appease a regime whose president is a notorious criminal,” said Rajavi.

Reza Pahlavi, son of deposed shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and heir to the throne before the 1979 Islamic revolution, tweeted that Iranians had shown “unity and solidarity” by “boycotting and saying no to the authoritarian regime in Iran”. 

Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, said that after a poll that was “not an election (but a) selection,” Raisi should not be absolved of his “long record of gross human rights violations.”

Describing him as a “major rights violator,” he said that as well as the 1988 killings, in two years as overall judiciary chief he “has been responsible for countless, severe violations of citizens’ rights.”

Dressed in a black turban and cleric’s coat, Raisi casts himself as an austere and pious figure and an corruption-fighting champion of the poor.

Critics charge the election was skewed in his favor as strong rivals were disqualified, but to his loyal supporters he is Iran’s best hope for standing up to the West and bringing relief from a deep economic crisis.

Raisi is not renowned for great charisma but, as head of the judiciary, has driven a popular campaign to prosecute corrupt officials.

Raisi is set to take over from moderate Hassan Rouhani in August.


(With AFP)

 

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Syria unable to import wheat or fuel due to US sanctions, trade minister says

Updated 11 sec ago
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Syria unable to import wheat or fuel due to US sanctions, trade minister says

  • The sanctions were imposed during Assad’s rule, targeting his government and also state institutions such as the central bank

DAMASCUS: Syria is unable to make deals to import fuel, wheat or other key goods due to strict US sanctions and despite many countries, including Gulf Arab states, wanting to do so, Syria’s new trade minister said.
In an interview with Reuters at his office in Damascus, Maher Khalil Al-Hasan said Syria’s new ruling administration had managed to scrape together enough wheat and fuel for a few months but the country faces a “catastrophe” if sanctions are not frozen or lifted soon.
Hasan is a member of the new caretaker government set up by Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham after it launched a lightning offensive that toppled autocratic President Bashar Assad on Dec. 8 after 13 years of civil war.
The sanctions were imposed during Assad’s rule, targeting his government and also state institutions such as the central bank.
Russia and Iran, both major backers of the Assad government, previously provided most of Syria’s wheat and oil products but both stopped doing so after the rebels triumphed and Assad fled to Moscow.
The US is set to announce an easing of restrictions on providing humanitarian aid and other basic services such as electricity to Syria while maintaining its strict sanctions regime, people briefed on the matter told Reuters on Monday.
The exact impact of the expected measures remains to be seen.
The decision by the outgoing Biden administration aims to send a signal of goodwill to Syria’s people and its new Islamist rulers, and pave the way for improving basic services and living conditions in the war-ravaged country.
At the same time, US officials see the sanctions as a key point of leverage with a new ruling group that was designated a terrorist entity by Washington several years ago but which, after breaking with Islamist militant group Al Qaeda, has recently signalled a more moderate approach.
Washington wants to see Damascus embark on an inclusive political transition and to cooperate on counterterrorism and other matters.
Hasan told Reuters he was aware of reports that some sanctions may soon be eased or frozen.


Libya military says air strikes target smuggling sites

Updated 07 January 2025
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Libya military says air strikes target smuggling sites

  • The Libyan Army said the air strikes “targeted and destroyed fuel trafficking sites in Zawiya, specifically in Asban,” a semi-rural area outside of the city

ZAWIYAH, Libya: Libya’s UN-recognized authorities have launched air strikes targeting drug trafficking and fuel smuggling hubs west of the capital, a military statement said on Monday.
It remained unclear if there were casualties from the strikes in Zawiya, a city on the Mediterranean coast about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the capital Tripoli.
Libya was plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed strongman Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, with armed groups exploiting the situation to fund their activities through fuel smuggling and the trafficking of migrants.
The Libyan Army said the air strikes “targeted and destroyed fuel trafficking sites in Zawiya, specifically in Asban,” a semi-rural area outside of the city.
It also called on locals to clear areas it labelled as “strongholds for trafficking and crime.”
In May 2023, the Tripoli-based government carried out drone strikes as part of an anti-smuggling operation, killing at least two people and injuring several others, authorities said at the time.
Those strikes followed clashes between armed groups suspected of involvement in human trafficking and smuggling of fuel and other contraband goods.
Libya’s eastern-based parliament accused the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity of targeting the home of one of its lawmakers, an opponent of the government.
Libya is divided between the Tripoli-based GNU and a rival administration in the east, backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
Footage posted on the army’s Facebook page showed a military truck smashing into the facade of a small dwelling.
Other footage showed tanks and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns driving through Zawiya.
The city hosts Libya’s second-largest oil refinery, with smugglers trafficking the fuel across the border into neighboring Tunisia.
 

 


UN envoy in rare Yemen visit to push for peace

Updated 07 January 2025
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UN envoy in rare Yemen visit to push for peace

  • Grundberg’s office said his visit would also “support the release of the arbitrarily detained UN, NGO, civil society and diplomatic mission personnel”

SANAA: Hans Grundberg, the United Nation’s special envoy for war-torn Yemen, arrived Monday in the rebel-held capital in a bid to breathe life into peace talks, his office said.
Grundberg last visited the capital Sanaa, controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis, in May 2023 for meetings with the rebels’ leaders in an earlier effort to advance a roadmap for peace.
The envoy’s current visit “is part of his ongoing efforts to urge for concrete and essential actions... for advancing the peace process,” Grundberg’s office said in a statement.
Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the Houthis forced the internationally recognized government out of Sanaa. The rebels have also seized population centers in the north.
A UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022 calmed fighting and in December 2023 the warring parties committed to a peace process.
But tensions have surged during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, as the Houthis struck Israeli targets and international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in a campaign the rebels say is in solidarity with Palestinians.
In response to the Houthi attacks, Israel as well as the United States and Britain have hit Houthi targets in Yemen over the past year. One Israeli raid hit Sanaa’s international airport.
Grundberg’s office said his visit would also “support the release of the arbitrarily detained UN, NGO, civil society and diplomatic mission personnel.”
Dozens of staff from UN and other humanitarian organizations have been detained by the rebels, most of them since June, with the Houthis accusing them of belonging to a “US-Israeli spy network,” a charge the United Nations denies.
 

 


US says anti-Daesh operation in Iraq kills coalition soldier

US army soldiers stand on duty at the K1 airbase northwest of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on March 29, 2020. (AFP)
Updated 07 January 2025
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US says anti-Daesh operation in Iraq kills coalition soldier

  • US officials have said Daesh is hoping to stage a comeback in Syria following the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar Assad

WASHINGTON: The US military said on Monday operations against Daesh in Iraq over the past week led to the death of a non-US coalition soldier and wounded two other non-US personnel.
It also detailed operations in Syria against Daesh militants led by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, including one that resulted in the capture of what the US military’s Central Command said was an Daesh attack cell leader.
US officials have said Daesh is hoping to stage a comeback in Syria following the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar Assad.  

 


West Bank camp under fire as Palestinian forces face off militants

Updated 38 min 8 sec ago
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West Bank camp under fire as Palestinian forces face off militants

  • Gunshots occasionally rung out from inside the camp, an AFP correspondent reported this week

JENIN, Palestinian Territories: A month into a crackdown by Palestinian security forces on militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the streets of Jenin refugee camp are deserted, except for a few residents briefly checking on their homes.
Shops are closed, and militants have erected metal barricades to block Palestinian forces, in the area where Israeli army raids are more common.
Black military vehicles from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited control over the West Bank, are stationed beyond roadblocks at the camp’s entrances.
“I only came back to check on my house,” said Muayyad Al-Saadi, a 53-year-old resident of Jenin camp, riding a bicycle down roads stripped of pavement.
Saadi, one of around 17,000 Palestinians who live in the camp, fled when clashes began in early December, citing a lack of electricity and running water.
The fighting, triggered by the arrests of several militants, has involved Palestinian militant factions affiliated with opponents of the PA’s leadership.
One of these factions, the Jenin Battalion, is largely made up of fighters affiliated with Islamic Jihad or Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.
Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, is the main political rival of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, which dominates the PA.

Fourteen Palestinians have been killed, including six security forces, seven civilians, and one gunman in the clashes.
Gunshots occasionally rung out from inside the camp, an AFP correspondent reported this week.
Since bakeries have closed, an unusually long line stretched from a shop that delivers bread from outside the camp.
“I’ve lived through wars since I was eight years old,” said the shopkeeper, Umm Hani, who is in her 70s.
She said there was “never anything like this” since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel captured the West Bank.
“Let them (the security forces) come and arrest whoever they want. We have nothing to do with it,” said Umm Hani.
Another woman, in her 30s, said: “Everyone wants to speak out, but they’re afraid of repercussions from both sides.”
“We’re suffering. We can’t leave or enter the camp freely.”
The intra-Palestinian clashes erupted amid a major PA raid on the camp after the December 5 arrest of a Jenin Battalion commander on charges of possessing weapons and illicit funds.
Armed factions in Jenin and elsewhere see themselves as more effective resistance to Israeli occupation than the PA, which coordinates security matters with Israel.
“They (the PA) don’t want any resistance against the occupation,” said a fighter carrying an M16 rifle, blocking a road with militants.

The militants accuse the PA of cutting off the water and power supply to the camp, a claim the Ramallah-based authority denies.
“The gunmen fire at electricity and water crews whenever they attempt to repair the networks,” Anwar Rajab, spokesman for the PA forces, told AFP.
He said militants were also shooting at distributors of food aid.
Rajab added that the PA was trying to spare civilians, accusing militants instead of disrupting the lives of residents.
“We’re not besieging the camp. People are entering and leaving the camp normally.”
One gunman said the fighting has been “incredibly difficult for civilians. They have no water, no food, and they’ve stopped working.”
Walls throughout the camp are riddled with bullet holes, some from past Israeli army incursions and others from the recent fighting.
A 19-year-old Hamas fighter, who requested anonymity, said residents of Jenin camp have been exposed to violence long before the current operation.
“Every house here has a martyr, a prisoner or an injured person,” he said.
The fighter accused the PA’s forces of firing indiscriminately.
Both sides have traded blame for the deaths of the seven civilians, including a father and son killed on a rooftop on Friday.
“If they’re targeting us — the resistance factions and the Jenin Battalion — why don’t they come for us directly instead of targeting civilians?” said the young militant.