TEHRAN: Iran’s government has warned it will not tolerate any signs of “instability” as the first anniversary nears of the death of Mahsa Amini and the months-long protests it sparked.
Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, died on September 16 last year after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.
Her death triggered months of nationwide demonstrations under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom.”
Hundreds of people were killed in street clashes, including dozens of security personnel, before authorities moved to quell what they branded foreign-instigated “riots.”
One year on, no plans for demonstrations have been overtly announced to mark the anniversary of Amini’s death on Saturday, which is also a religious public holiday.
President Ebrahim Raisi issued a warning in a television interview on Tuesday.
“Those who intend to abuse Mahsa Amini’s name under this pretext, to be an agent of foreigners, to create this instability in the country, we know what will happen to them,” he said.
Security services will be vigilant, the deputy head of the judiciary, Sadeq Rahimi, said late last month.
“The intelligence and security agencies are monitoring all the movements and will identify and deliver to judicial authorities those who want to... take to streets in the coming days and create problems,” he warned.
Last week, Iranian authorities shut down at least five social media pages and arrested the six individuals behind them, on accusations they were “organizing riots” for the anniversary.
Last year’s wave of protests posed a major challenge for the Iranian government, which is also at odds with Western powers over its nuclear program and under punishing sanctions.
“No incident in the history of the Islamic republic has driven such a wedge between the system and the people as the death of Mahsa Amini,” said Fayyaz Zahed, a professor of contemporary history.
He said he believes the government “cannot solely rely on security and repressive responses” to contain the issue.
Mohammad Sadegh Javadi-Hessar, a reformist activist based in the northeastern city of Mashhad, said many people “are still traumatized by last year’s events.”
The months-long demonstrations, aside from the bloodshed, also saw thousands of people arrested.
In February, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the end of the unrest and the defeat of the “plot” fomented by the “enemy,” a reference to the Western governments and Iranian exiled opposition groups that backed the demonstrations.
On Monday, Khamenei accused Iran’s arch foe the United States of intending to exploit “issues they think can cause crisis in Iran” including that of women.
Women in Iran have been required to cover their heads and necks since shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and encouraged to wear modest garments.
While last year’s protests have cooled, many Iranian women, especially in the capital Tehran, have been increasingly flouting the strict dress code.
“The most remarkable effect the Mahsa movement had on Iranian society was the change in the society... which has become more colorful and livelier,” said Zahed.
“Women’s clothing has changed significantly,” he said, also noting a shift to brighter colors.
Authorities have pushed back, installing surveillance cameras in public places to monitor violations and shutting businesses where rules have been breached.
Iran’s parliament has discussed a bill that would toughen penalties on those flouting the dress code.
But not everyone backs the strict punishments.
Prominent Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi has expressed his rejection against using “violence and pressure” to impose the hijab headscarf.
Reformist leaders have also denounced the recent dismissal of dozens of university professors.
Local media has quoted several professors as saying they were dismissed against the backdrop of their political views in support of the protest movement.
While the issue of hijab remains critical, for many in Iran, where inflation hovers at nearly 50 percent, economic pain is a priority, said Javadi-Hessar, the activist.
“The main demand of the people is the improvement of the economy, ahead of civil and political freedoms,” he said.
Iran on alert ahead of Mahsa Amini’s death anniversary
https://arab.news/wax6z
Iran on alert ahead of Mahsa Amini’s death anniversary
- Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, died on September 16 last year after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women
Tunisia says 612 migrants rescued, 18 bodies recovered at sea
- Tunisia has in recent years become a key departure point in north Africa for migrants making the perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing in hopes of reaching a better life in Europe
TUNIS: Tunisia’s national guard said on Monday its forces had rescued 612 migrants and recovered the bodies of 18 others in several operations overnight off the country’s Mediterranean coast.
Sharing images of some of those rescued, including women and children, after their boats capsized, the force said they were all migrants from sub-Saharan African countries attempting to cross the sea to Europe.
The survivors were rescued in several operations in the Sfax region to the east of the center of the country after their boats capsized or broke down, according to the national guard.
Exhausted people including women and children, some of whom appear to be dead, can be seen in the images. Some are pictured clinging on to large buoys.
In another image, a woman struggles to hoist a child, his body rigid and apparently lifeless, aboard the rescue boat.
Maritime guard members “succeeded in thwarting several separate attempts to reach Europe clandestinely,” the national guard said in a press release.
Along with Libya, Tunisia has in recent years become a key departure point in north Africa for migrants making the perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing in hopes of reaching a better life in Europe.
Its coastline in some places lies fewer than 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the Italian island of Lampedusa, often their first port of call.
Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing.
Rights advocates urge Morocco to annul activist’s prison term
- The signatories said the sentence was part of a “repressive policy” by governments across the region, “aimed at silencing any voices advocating for freedom of expression, respect for human rights and democracy”
- Prosecutors argued that his statements constituted “allegations harmful to the kingdom’s interests” and went “beyond the limits of freedom of expression, amounting to criminal offenses punishable by law”
TUNIS: Nearly 300 rights advocates and experts from countries in North Africa and France have signed a petition calling on Morocco to free activist Fouad Abdelmoumni, sentenced to jail for “spreading false allegations” online.
Abdelmoumni, a human rights advocate, was sentenced in early March to six months in prison for charges related to a post he had shared on Facebook, alleging that Morocco had spied against France.
A petition, which by Monday has gathered 295 signatures, said that “Abdelmoumni should have been prosecuted under the press code, which does not provide for prison sentences. But he was charged under the penal code.”
He would be taken into custody “if the verdict is upheld” by an appeals court, said the petition shared on Abdelmoumni’s Facebook page.
The signatories said the sentence was part of a “repressive policy” by governments across the region, “aimed at silencing any voices advocating for freedom of expression, respect for human rights and democracy.”
They called for “the annulment of his sentence and the release of all political prisoners held in Morocco and other Maghreb countries.”
The signatories include former Doctors Without Borders president Rony Brauman, French-Tunisian historian Sophie Bessis, and Tunisian activists Mokhat Trifi and Sana Ben Achour.
In his Facebook post last year, Abdelmoumni echoed accusations of Moroccan espionage against France.
Prosecutors argued that his statements constituted “allegations harmful to the kingdom’s interests” and went “beyond the limits of freedom of expression, amounting to criminal offenses punishable by law.”
Abdelmoumni shared the post during a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron, which had marked a thawing of diplomatic ties between Rabat and Paris after three years of strained relations, partially over the espionage allegations.
In 2021, Morocco was accused of deploying Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to monitor prominent figures including Macron.
The allegations were based on a report by investigative outlet Forbidden Stories and rights group Amnesty International, which Morocco called “baseless and false.”
The spyware, developed by Israeli firm NSO Group, can infiltrate mobile phones, extracting data and activating cameras.
Lebanon and Syria agree to ceasefire after 2 days of border clashes, defense ministry says
- Lebanon’s president earlier Monday ordered troops to retaliate against source of gunfire from Syrian side
- Fighting happened after Syrian government accused Hezbollah militants of crossing border
BEIRUT: Lebanese and Syrian defense officials reached an agreement late Monday for a ceasefire to halt two days of clashes along the border, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported.
The agreement also stipulates “enhanced coordination and cooperation between the two sides,” the statement from the Syrian Ministry of Defense said.
Lebanon’s president earlier Monday ordered troops to retaliate against the source of gunfire from the Syrian side of the border after more deadly fighting erupted overnight along the frontier. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported that seven Lebanese citizens were killed and another 52 injured in the clashes, including a 4-year-old girl.
The fighting happened after Syria’s interim government accused militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group of crossing into Syria on Saturday, abducting three soldiers and killing them on Lebanese soil. Hezbollah denied involvement and some other reports pointed to local clans in the border region that are not directly affiliated with Hezbollah but have been involved in cross-border smuggling.
It was the most serious cross-border fighting since the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December.
Syrian News Channel, citing an unnamed Defense Ministry official, said the Syrian army shelled “Hezbollah gatherings that killed Syrian soldiers” along the border. Hezbollah denied involvement in a statement on Sunday.
Information Minister Paul Morkos said Lebanon’s defense minister told a Cabinet meeting that the three killed were smugglers.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said five Syrian soldiers were killed during Monday’s clashes. Footage circulated online and in local media showed families fleeing toward the Lebanese town of Hermel.
Lebanon’s state news agency reported that fighting intensified Monday evening near Hermel.
“What is happening along the eastern and northeastern border cannot continue and we will not accept that it continues,” Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said on X. “I have given my orders to the Lebanese army to retaliate against the source of fire.”
Aoun added that he asked Lebanon’s foreign minister, who was in Brussels for a donors conference on Syria, to contact Syrian officials to resolve the problem “and prevent further escalation.”
Violence recently spiked in the area between the Syrian military and armed Lebanese Shiite clans closely allied with the former government of Assad, based in Lebanon’s Al-Qasr border village.
Lebanese media and the observatory say clans were involved in the abductions that sparked the latest clashes.
The Lebanese and Syrian armies said they have opened channels of communication to ease tensions. Lebanon’s military also said it returned the bodies of the three killed Syrians. Large numbers of Lebanese troops have been deployed in the area.
Lebanese media reported low-level fighting at dawn after an attack on a Syrian military vehicle. The number of casualties was unclear.
Early on Monday, four Syrian journalists embedded with the Syrian army were lightly wounded after an artillery shell fired from the Lebanese side of the border hit their position. They accused Hezbollah of the attack.
Meanwhile, senior Hezbollah legislator Hussein Hajj Hassan in an interview with Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television accused fighters from the Syrian side of crossing into Lebanese territory and attacking border villages. His constituency is the northeastern Baalbek-Hermel province, which has borne the brunt of the clashes.
Lebanon has been seeking international support to boost funding for its military as it gradually deploys troops along its porous northern and eastern borders with Syria as well as its southern border with Israel.
Speaking from the southern border on Monday, UN envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert also warned the Security Council that the sustained presence of Israeli forces on Lebanese territory, alongside ongoing Israeli strikes, could easily lead to “serious ripple effects.”
On Monday, Israeli strikes hit several sites in southern Syria, including in the city of Daraa. The Israeli military said it was hitting “command centers and military sites containing weapons and military vehicles belonging to the old Syrian regime, which (the new army) are trying to make reusable.” Since the fall of Assad, Israeli forces have seized territory in southern Syria, which Israel said is a move to protect its border.
Syria’s Civil Defense said that three people were killed and 14 injured in the strikes, including four children, a woman and three civil defense volunteers.
Sudan army inches closer to retaking Khartoum
- Shelling by Rapid Support Forces kills six civilians, including two children
OMDURMAN: Shelling by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed six civilians, including two children, in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman, a doctor said Monday, as the army inched closer to the capital’s presidential palace.
Sunday’s attack also wounded 36 civilians, half of them children, the doctor at Al-Nao Hospital said.
The bombardment struck residential areas in northern Omdurman, hitting civilians inside their homes and children playing on a football field, the Khartoum regional government’s media office said.
The war between the RSF and the army, which began in April of 2023, has escalated recently, with army forces seeking to reclaim territory lost to the RSF early in the conflict in the capital, Khartoum, and beyond.
The army says its units are now less than a kilometer from the presidential palace, which the RSF seized at the war’s outset. In a video address shared on Telegram on Saturday, RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo vowed his troops “will not leave the Republican Palace.”
AFP journalists saw thick plumes of smoke rising over central Khartoum as fighting raged across the capital, with gunfire and explosions heard in several areas.
Nationwide, the conflict has killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million, and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
In Khartoum alone, at least 3.5 million people have been forced from their homes due to the violence, according to the UN.
Further southwest, in the North Kordofan state capital of El-Obeid — roughly 400 km from Khartoum — two civilians were killed and 15 others wounded after RSF forces shelled residential neighborhoods on Monday morning, a medical source at the city’s main hospital said.
Last month, the military broke through a nearly two-year RSF siege of the southern city, a key crossroads linking Khartoum to the vast Darfur region, which is under near-total RSF control.
Across North Kordofan, more than 200,000 people are currently displaced, while nearly a million are facing acute food insecurity, according to UN figures.
Clashes have also erupted in Blue Nile state, which borders South Sudan and Ethiopia, and where the RSF claimed Sunday to have destroyed military vehicles and taken prisoners from the army and allied forces.
In almost two years, the war has nearly torn Sudan into two, with the RSF in control of almost all of Darfur in the west and parts of the south, while the army holds the country’s north and east.
The army has made gains in central Sudan and Khartoum in recent months and appears to be on the verge of reclaiming the entire capital.
Algeria rejects French deportation drive in latest row
- Algerian authorities would not accept a list handed over by France in recent days with the names of around 60 Algerians set for deportation
- French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has said those selected were 'dangerous' or former convicts
ALGIERS: Algeria on Monday opposed a French bid to deport several dozen Algerians, rejecting “threats” and “ultimatums” by Paris as the two countries’ ties came under increasing strain.
The Algerian foreign ministry said in a statement that the authorities would not accept a list handed over by France in recent days with the names of around 60 Algerians set for deportation.
It cited procedural requirements but also said Algeria “categorically rejects threats and intimidation attempts, as well as.... ultimatums.”
In rejecting the French list, Algeria was “solely motivated by the wish to fulfil its duty of consular protection for its citizens” and to ensure “the rights of individuals subject to deportation measures,” the ministry’s statement said.
Hard-line French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has said those selected for deportation were “dangerous” or former convicts.
Relations between Paris and Algiers have been strained since French President Emmanuel Macron recognized Moroccan sovereignty of the disputed territory of Western Sahara in July last year.
But they have worsened since Algiers refused to accept the return of undocumented Algerian migrants from France.
Retailleau has led verbal attacks on Algeria in the media, fueling tensions between the countries.
In late February, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou warned Paris could revoke a special status given to Algerians in France, the former colonial power.
Macron has since voiced his support for “renegotiating,” though not annulling, the 1968 agreement Bayrou was referring to.
Algeria was a French colony from the mid-19th century until 1962 and for most of that period was considered an integral part of metropolitan France.
On February 28, the French president said that agreements mandating the automatic return of nationals, signed between the two countries in 1994, “must be fully respected.”
In recent months, France has arrested and deported a number of undocumented Algerians on suspicion of inciting violence, only for Algeria to send back one of those expelled.
France warned it could restrict visas as a result, as well as limit development aid.
Algeria’s government has previously criticized Macron for “blatant and unacceptable interference in an internal Algerian affair.”
