WASHINGTON: The United States issued fresh charges over the attempted Tehran plot to kidnap and assassinate an Iranian-American journalist in New York, indicting an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) official among others in the case, according to a court document on Tuesday.
US prosecutors have previously charged other suspects in the case, including one man in 2022 and two more in January 2023. Tuesday’s filing did not name the alleged victim, but one of the previously charged suspects in the case was arrested for having a rifle outside the Brooklyn home of journalist and activist Masih Alinejad.
“Today’s indictment exposes the full extent of Iran’s plot to silence an American journalist for criticizing the Iranian regime,” said US Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray
The IRGC official, Ruhollah Bazghandi, was a brigadier general who previously served as chief of the corps’ counterintelligence department, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn.
Bazghandi was previously sanctioned by the US Treasury Department. Prosecutors said that Bazghandi’s Internet activity, as well as that of three other individuals whose names were unsealed on Tuesday, pointed to their involvement in multiple assassination plots.
Bazghandi and the other newly charged defendants are based in Iran and remain at large, prosecutors said. The man arrested outside Alinejad’s home, Khalid Mehdiyev, and another man allegedly involved in the plot, Rafat Amirov, are in US custody and have pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire charges.
Prosecutors have said that the defendants had plotted to lure Alinejad out of her house by asking her for flowers from her garden then gun her down.
US charges IRGC official, others in Iran-backed plot to assassinate journalist
https://arab.news/9ryeh
US charges IRGC official, others in Iran-backed plot to assassinate journalist
- Brigadier General Ruhollah Bazghandi allegedly plotted to kidnap and assassinate an Iranian dissident, believed to be journalist and activist Masih Alinejad
Apple agrees to $95 million deal to settle Siri eavesdropping suit
- A class action lawsuit filed five years ago accused Siri of listening in on private conversations of people with iPhones, iPads, HomePods or other Apple devices enhanced with the digital assistant
SAN FRANCISCO, California: Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit accusing its digital assistant Siri of listening in on users’ private conversations.
The proposed settlement detailed in a court filing accessed on Thursday came with Apple holding firm that it did nothing wrong.
“Apple has at all times denied and continues to deny any and all alleged wrongdoing and liability,” the tech titan said in the proposed settlement, which requires a judge’s approval to be finalized.
A class action lawsuit filed five years ago accused Siri of listening in on private conversations of people with iPhones, iPads, HomePods or other Apple devices enhanced with the digital assistant.
The California-based tech giant has made user privacy a big part of its brand image, and one of the reasons it tightly controls its “ecosystem” of hardware and software.
Talk captured by “unintended Siri activation” were obtained by Apple and perhaps even shared with third parties, according to the suit.
A proposed settlement fund of $95 million would be used to pay no more than $20 per Siri device to US owners who had private conversations captured without permission, the settlement indicated.
The agreement also requires Apple to confirm it has deleted any overheard talk and make user choices clear when it comes to voice data gathered to improve Siri.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2023, Amazon agreed to pay more than $30 million to the US Federal Trade Commission to settle litigation accusing the company of violating privacy with its Ring doorbell cameras and Alexa digital assistant.
Blowback online to Jewish Chronicle article claiming Palestinian solidarity is antisemitic
- Newspaper faces criticism after writer Melanie Phillips suggests advocating for Palestinian rights fosters ‘deranged and murderous Jew-hatred’
- One social media user wrote: ‘Your exploitation of antisemitism is seriously disturbing. But why would Zionists care that they endanger Jews by merging their identity with Israel?’
LONDON: British newspaper The Jewish Chronicle is facing intense criticism over an article in which the writer equated support for the Palestinian cause with antisemitism.
The piece was written by British commentator Melanie Phillips and published on Tuesday with the headline “If you support the Palestinian cause in any form, you’re facilitating Jew-hate.” It was subsequently edited and the headline changed to “The Truth of the Palestinian cause,” without any editorial note of the changes.
In her article, Phillips suggested that advocating for Palestinian rights fosters “deranged and murderous Jew-hatred.”
She wrote: “Jew-hatred has not only been normalized. It’s been rebranded as social justice because support for Palestinianism, which seeks to write the Jews out of their country, their history and the world, is what now passes for a moral sense among swathes of the public, the entire intelligentsia and even — heaven help us — many Jews.”
Phillips continues: “Let’s not hear any protests that you were once a member of Habonim or have a holiday home in Herzliya … If you support the Palestinian Arab cause today, you are facilitating deranged and murderous Jew-hatred. Own it.”
The article was widely condemned on social media.
The user Torah Jews wrote in a message posted on X: “Your exploitation of antisemitism is seriously disturbing. But why would Zionists care that they endanger Jews by merging their identity with Israel?”
Miqdaad Versi, a spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain, wrote that even after the “secret” edits to the article, Phillips’ words “remain disgusting.” He added: “Always good to see the cranks at The Jewish Chronicle show their true colours.”
Some critics accused the newspaper of promoting “Israeli propaganda.” Others warned that such rhetoric undermines efforts to combat true antisemitism by conflating it with solidarity for the Palestinian people.
Political commentator Owen Jones said: “Melanie Phillips is explicitly stating what Israel’s cheerleaders have long been pushing for. They want to redefine antisemitism as ‘any form of solidarity with Palestinians,’ rather than the very dangerous hatred of Jewish people that it is.”
This is not the first time the writer and the newspaper have caused controversy. Phillips has long argued that solidarity with Palestinians should be considered antisemitic, and she has denied the existence of Islamophobia.
In September, The Jewish Chronicle was criticized after it emerged that one of its writers had fabricated details in several high-profile stories. The revelations prompted a mass exodus of staff, with departing employees complaining of poor editorial standards under the present management.
Malaysia grants WeChat, TikTok licenses to operate under new law
- Telegram and Meta are pursuing licenses, while X and Google have yet to apply, officials confirm
- The licensing requirement stems from new legislation targeting the surge in cybercrime
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s communications regulator said it granted Tencent’s WeChat and ByteDance’s TikTok licenses to operate in the country under a new social media law, but that some other platforms had not applied.
The law, aimed at tackling rising cybercrime, requires social media platforms and messaging services with more than 8 million users in Malaysia to obtain a license or face legal action. It came into effect on Jan. 1.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said messaging platform Telegram was in the final stages of obtaining its license, while Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, had begun the licensing process.
The regulator said X had not submitted an application because the platform said its local user base did not reach the 8 million threshold. The regulator said it was reviewing the validity of X’s claim.
Alphabet’s Google, which operates video platform YouTube, had also not applied for a license after raising concerns about the video sharing features of YouTube and its classification under the licensing law, the regulator said. It did not state the concerns or how they relate to the law but said YouTube must adhere.
“Platform providers found to be in violation of licensing requirements may be subject to investigation and regulatory actions,” the regulator said.
Malaysia reported a sharp increase in harmful social media content in early 2024 and urged social media firms, including Meta and short video platform TikTok, to step up monitoring of their platforms.
Malaysian authorities deem online gambling, scams, child pornography and grooming, cyberbullying and content related to race, religion and royalty as harmful.
The companies do not publish the number of users per country on their platforms.
According to independent data provider World Population Review, WeChat has 12 million users in Malaysia.
Advisory firm Kepios said YouTube had about 24.1 million users in Malaysia in early 2024, TikTok 28.68 million users aged 18 and above, Facebook 22.35 million users, and X had 5.71 million.
Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily
- Committee suspends the broadcaster’s operations over the broadcast of “inciting material"
CAIRO: The Palestinian Authority suspended the broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily over “inciting material,” Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported on Wednesday.
A ministerial committee that includes the culture, interior and communications ministries decided to suspend the broadcaster’s operations over what they described as broadcasting “inciting material and reports that were deceiving and stirring strife” in the country.
The decision isn’t expected to be implemented in Hamas-run Gaza where the Palestinian Authority does not exercise power.
Al-Jazeera TV last week came under criticism by the Palestinian Authority over its coverage of the weeks-long standoff between Palestinian security forces and militant fighters in the Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank.
Fatah, the faction which controls the Palestinian Authority, said the broadcaster was sowing division in “our Arab homeland in general and in Palestine in particular.” It encouraged Palestinians not to cooperate with the network.
Israeli forces in September issued Al-Jazeera with a military order to shut down operations, after they raided the outlet’s bureau in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Syria’s new information minister promises free press
- Syria’s ruling Baath party and the Assad family dynasty heavily curtailed all aspects of daily life, including freedom of the press
- Reporters Without Borders, a freedom of information watchdog, ranked Syria second-last on its 2024 World Press Freedom Index
Damascus: Syria’s minister of information in the country’s transitional government told AFP he is working toward a free press and committed to “freedom of expression,” after decades of tight control under the country’s former rulers.
“We are working to consolidate freedoms of the press and expression that were severely restricted” in areas controlled by the former government of Bashar Assad, said the minister, Mohamed Al-Omar, after Islamist-led rebels on December 8 ended more than five decades of rule by the Assad clan.
Syria’s ruling Baath party and the Assad family dynasty heavily curtailed all aspects of daily life, including freedom of the press and expression with the media a tool of those in power.
Reporters Without Borders, a freedom of information watchdog, ranked Syria second-last on its 2024 World Press Freedom Index, ahead only of Eritrea and behind Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
“There was a heavy restriction on freedom of the press and expression under the regime which practiced censorship. In the period to come we are working on the reconstruction of a media landscape that is free, objective and professional,” Omar said during an interview with AFP on Tuesday.
He is part of the interim administration installed in Damascus by the victorious rebel coalition led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
The group has its origins in the Syrian branch of the jihadist group Al-Qaeda and is designated a terrorist organization by numerous governments, but has sought to soften its image in recent years.
Diplomats from around the region and from the West have made contact with Syria’s new rulers, who have also vowed to protect the country’s religious and ethnic minorities.
Omar was previously minister of information in the self-proclaimed Salvation Government, the civil administration set up in 2017 by HTS in the rebel holdout of Idlib province, in Syria’s northwest. It was from Idlib that the rebels began their lightning advance toward Damascus, 13 years into the country’s civil war.
After the conflict erupted in 2011 with the government’s brutal repression of pro-democracy protests, Assad tightened restrictions on independent journalism.
“We don’t want to continue in the same way, that is, have an official media whose aim is to polish the image of the ruling power,” Omar said.
Following Assad’s overthrow and flight to Moscow, Syrian media outlets which had trumpeted his regime’s glories quickly adopted a revolutionary fervor.
On Tuesday Omar held an exchange with dozens of Syrian journalists to discuss the transition.
