iran panorama

 Written by Shahriar Kia The European Union deserves praise for its latest sanctions on Iranian officials. But the purpose of that praise ought to be to encourage more of the same, not to give the impression that these measures are sufficient or that they justify offering new concessions to the regime in other areas. The new sanctions are the first in eight years to be imposed by the EU for Iranian human rights violations, and they come a year and a half after the inciting incident, a crackdown on dissent that rivals the scale of anything that has taken place in the Islamic Republic since the decade immediately following the 1979 revolution. This is not to say that nothing had happened in the years leading up to the new sanctions which would have justified more of the same. Quite to the contrary, there are still human rights issues from 2013 onward that demand more serious international attention, as well as unresolved issues from the entire history of the Islamic Republic. Indeed,...

By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) board of governors held its quarterly meeting last week. The meeting was one of several events taking place simultaneously that provided outlets for recommendations about how the international community should approach the Iranian regime’s nuclear development and other malign activities. Meanwhile, without regard for the unresolved tensions over matters such as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, European political and business leaders this month met virtually with their Iranian counterparts for the Europe-Iran Business Forum, a three-day event sponsored by the EU and aimed at expanding bilateral trade relations. In spite of the fact that the Iranian regime has reduced its cooperation with IAEA inspectors, top leaders from Britain, France and Germany have refrained from condemning Tehran. A former member of the European Parliament, Struan Stevenson, rightly criticized European governments for seeking to do business with the...

  By Struan Stevenson It seems that the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, Josep Borrell, wishes to ignore the terrorist bomb plot that could have killed hundreds on European soil. It seems, from his silence on the  Assadollah Assadi  affair, that Mr Borrell is intent on business-as-usual with the criminal Iranian regime. Now he has even invited one of the Godfathers of terror,  Javad Zarif , the Iranian foreign minister, to participate in the Europe-Iran business forum that he has organised to take place from 1-3 March. Borrell has even kindly agreed that the EU should pay for this business-as-usual forum. We heard during the Assadi trial in Antwerp that the former Iranian diplomat also faces further terrorist charges in Germany. When he was arrested in Bavaria by German police, they found a notebook in his car which contained details of the bomb plot and the money paid to his co-conspirators. It also contained information about 289 ...

  By Struan Stevenson As we await the verdict on 4 th  February, following the trial in Antwerp of the Iranian diplomat and his three co-conspirators, we have had time to reflect on the history of decades of appeasement by the EU. We now know that the so-called diplomat,  Assadollah Assadi , is in fact a senior agent of the Iranian regime’s sinister Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). He used the cover of being a diplomat in the Iranian embassy in Vienna to enable him to plan a terrorist bomb attack that would have caused carnage on European soil, potentially killing hundreds of men, women and children, including many prominent European and international politicians. Evidence from the Belgian prosecutor showed how Assadi had allegedly brought the professionally assembled 550 gm TATP bomb on a commercial flight to Vienna from Tehran in his diplomatic bag and passed it, together with an envelope containing €22,000, to two co-conspirators. The court was to...

  By Hamideh Taati The  British Committee for Iran Freedom (BCFIF)  on January 26 strongly condemned the new sentence against Iranian political prisoner  Saeid Sangar , who has been in prison over the past 20 years. British lawmakers called for international intervention since Iran’s regime continues to ignore the international condemnations and shrugs off pleas and recommendations to improve the human rights situation.  Saeid Sangar, 47, was arrested in 2000 for supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). While his prison term has finished, the regime’s Judiciary sentenced him to 11 more months in prison.  “According to reports, Iran’s Judiciary recently sentenced Mr. Sangar to another 11 months in prison in Urmia after he had served the earlier arbitrary conviction of 20 years in prison, without a day of furlough, for supporting the Iranian pro-democracy opposition, the People’s Mojahedin O...

  By Mohammad Sadat Khansari he former Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi and about 20 other former EU officials released a  statement  that highlights the implications of a terrorist case that is currently unfolding in Belgium and involves a high-ranking Iran’s regime’s so-called  diplomat .  That diplomat-terrorist,  Assadollah Assadi , was the mastermind in a bomb plot that targeted a June 2018 annual “Free Iran” gathering in France, organized by the  National Council of Resistance of Iran  (NCRI).   https://youtu.be/NnKyWTWC6EM Fearing the Iranian Resistance’s growing domestic and international influence, Tehran became especially fixated on striking a blow against it in the wake of a  nationwide uprising  at the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018. The regime’s officials underlined the leading role by Iran’s main opposition, th...

  By Mahmoud Hakamian A court in Antwerp, Belgium, will finally announce its verdict about Iran’s incarcerated diplomat-terrorist Assadollah Assadi and his accomplices, who planned to bomb the opposition’s rally in 2018 in France. As the possibility of  Assadi’s  condemnations grows stronger, Iran’s state-run media echo mullahs’ desperation and rage over this historical trial and call for hostage-taking.  After years of spreading terrorism and carrying out political assassination across Europe by using its diplomat-terrorists, it is the first time European countries holding the regime’s diplomat on duty to account for his role in terrorism.  “While Assadollah Assadi’s sentencing hearing has been postponed to February 4, some European media outlets, with the help of the security services of several Western countries, are trying to prepare the ground to file new charges against our diplomat,” wrote state-run  Vatan-e  Emrooz  ...

  By Alejo Vidal Quadras On Sunday, the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry finally spoke publicly about the terrorism case involving Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi, for whom a verdict is due next week. The remarks amounted to a predictable denial of responsibility, and they should serve to further underscore the need for an assertive shift in Western policies, with the aim of holding the entire regime accountable for its terrorist activity in the wake of Assadi’s conviction. Assadollah Assadi , the former third counselor at the Iranian embassy in Vienna is accused of directing three other operatives in an attempt to set off explosives at the  annual gathering  of Iranian expatriate activists. The plot in question was disrupted through the cooperation of multiple European authorities in 2018, the last year the event took place in a Paris suburb before moving the following year to the Albanian compound belonging to the dissident group known as the People’s Mojahed...