The Iranian regime has a long history of projecting its own wrongdoing and illicit behaviors upon foreign adversaries. For any given topic that brings...
On Thursday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement condemning the execution, earlier that same day, of a juvenile offender...
This article is part of our series that explores Tehran's terror activities and Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi's role in a bombing plot against the...
Last Friday, a group of United Nations human rights experts issued a statement highlighting the case of one detained human rights defender and urging...
On October 14, the British intelligence agency MI5 acknowledged the perception of an increasing overall threat from Iran and other key adversaries of the...
On Thursday, the United States announced the imposition of yet another package of sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran, this time targeting two...
On Wednesday, it was reported that yet another person with Western citizenship, specifically an Iranian-British dual national, had been detained in the Islamic Republic amidst escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf. The BBC identified the arrestee, Kameel Ahmady, as a social anthropologist who has done research on such topics and female genital mutilation and the persistent practice of child marriage in Iran. This background raises the possibility that he has been targeted on the basis of perceived ideological challenges to the theocratic regime, but it is equally likely that his dual citizenship alone was sufficient motivation for security services to arrest him.
Questions swirled on Tuesday about British foreign policy regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. Such questions have been prevalent ever since Boris Johnson was installed as the UK’s new Prime Minister in late July. And since then, his government has faced pressure from two sides: those advocating for a hardline strategy in line with the White House’s “maximum pressure,” and those who favor a conciliatory approach that is more in line with the status quo.
As Reuters reported on Tuesday, representatives of Syria’s Assad regime and the Islamic Republic of Iran entered into new banking transfer agreements following a meeting in Damascus. The move is being viewed as an opportunity for the two countries to expand upon their increasingly close alliance and to bolster trade while potentially circumventing US sanctions that have increased in strength since President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last May.
It remains unclear what, if any, charges have actually been filed against the American, who reportedly traveled to Iran to visit a woman with whom he had maintained a long-distance relationship, and whom he visited in the country on two previous occasions. In cases of political imprisonment or the reflexive arrest of dual and foreign nationals, Iranian authorities frequently retain people in custody without charge for long periods of time, subjecting them to interrogation and sometimes torture as they attempt to manufacture a case or elicit a false confession.
It was widely reported on Monday that new information had come to light indicating that the White House National Security Council had previously asked the Pentagon to formulate options for a military strike on Iran. The request apparently came in response to an incident last year in which Iran-backed militants fired mortars into the vicinity of the American embassy in Baghdad. Although no one was injured in the attack, it raised new alarms over the growing extent of Iranian influence in the surrounding region, and the prospective consequences for Western interests.
