![]() ![]() Roger Macmillan, Director of Safety, Security & Resilience for the broadcaster said: “We have faced an inordinate amount of pressure over the last six to seven months since the murder of Mahsa Amini.” READ MORE: Biden orders deadly airstrikes after Iran drone attack kills American Ms O'Brien said: "The same happens to Iranian journalists in countries all over the world, in France, in Germany, in Turkey…" She stressed that this “transnational aspect” was of “great concern”, and should be recognised as such by UK politicians. RSF claims more than 71 journalists have been arrested, detained or called in for questioning since the protests began – with 25 imprisoned to this day. ![]() According to the Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), more than 19,600 people were arrested and at least 527 were killed by the beginning of the year as suppression efforts by the authorities turned violent.Ī harsh crackdown on the media ensued to hide the extent of these crimes. ![]() Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s regime has come down hard on the popular demonstrations of the past eight months. The country executes more people each year than any other country except China, according to rights groups.In a Westminster committee hearing on April 19, Fiona O’Brien, UK Bureau Director for RSF said: “Lots of independent journalists in the UK are being targeted when they’re trying to write about Iran." Rights group Amnesty International said his trial had been “grossly unfair” and he had been tortured. In April Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd, 67, for alleged involvement in a deadly mosque bombing in 2008, which he denies. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said his execution was a “callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime”. In an audio message to BBC Persian he said he had been tortured and forced to confess on camera to crimes he did not commit. In January Iran executed British-Iranian man Alireza Akbari, 61, after he was convicted of spying for the UK, which he denied. Its judiciary says two other dual-nationals have been sentenced to death or executed on security chares so far this year. Iran has arrested dozens of Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency in recent years, mostly on spying and national security charges. They alleged that other leaders of the group were based in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden and the group received financial and logistical support from Saudi Arabia.Įarlier this year regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to restore diplomatic relations, seven years after severing them in a bitter row. Prosecutors said Chaab had been involved in attacks since 2005 “under the protection of two spy services, including the Mossad and Sapo”, which are Israel and Sweden’s spy agencies. He was convicted of being “corrupt on earth”, a capital offense. Once inside Iran, state TV showed him appearing to admit involvement in the 2018 attack. ![]() Iranian officials have not provided details of how Chaab was arrested. The 2018 attack on a military parade in the city of Ahvaz saw gunmen open fire at Revolutionary Guard troops, killing 25 people including soldiers and civilians watching the parade.Ĭhaab was reportedly lured to Istanbul to meet a woman before being kidnapped and smuggled into Iran in an operation said to have been orchestrated by a notorious Turkey-based Iranian crime boss. The oil-rich province has a large Arab minority which has long complained of marginalization and discrimination, which Tehran denies. Iran’s judiciary accused Chaab of leading Harakat al-Nidal, or the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, which Iran says is a terrorist group behind attacks in the south-west of the country. “The death penalty is an inhuman and irreversible punishment and Sweden, together with the rest of the EU, condemns its application under all circumstances,” he said. Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said his government had urged Iran not to execute Chaab. He had been living in exile in Sweden for a decade when he was abducted by Iranian agents in Turkey in 2020. Habib Chaab was a founder of a separatist group calling for independence for ethnic Arabs in Iran’s south-western Khuzestan province. Iran has executed a Swedish-Iranian man accused of being behind a deadly 2018 attack on a military parade. ![]()
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