IWR1239

No. 1239 July 7, 2020

Editor's Note

Explosions at Nuclear Sites; and in Society:

The Regime is in Turmoil

Last week, the Iranian regime continued to use brute force and suppression in order to rein in simmering social discontent. At least 22 people were executed last month, according to human rights groups.

There were at least 219 social protests recorded for the month of June. Among the sectors protesting in 74 cities and 24 provinces were workers, laborers, teachers, pensioners, farmers, and nurses.

The main Iranian opposition said the coronavirus death toll surpassed 66,400 cases.

At the same time, Iran's national currency slid to a new historic low against the dollar, a fresh sign of a rapidly declining economy.

There were also explosions at the regime's nuclear sites that caused confusion in the Iranian capital last week.

Ali Safavi, member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran's (NCRI) Foreign Affairs Committee, told Arab News that the regime's poorly executed attempt at hiding the truth about the Tehran blasts came as no surprise since "deception, denial and duplicity have been a part of this regime's DNA since 1979."

Alireza Jafarzadeh,Deputy Director of NCRI's U.S. Representative Office, told Arab television channel Alhurra: Whatever the cause of the damage [in Natanz] or whoever did it, it is a reaction against the Iranian regime's nuclear program because people feel that the regime is spending billions of dollars on a nuclear program, the missile program, and funding of terrorism. People reject this regime.

This week's featured article by former member of the European Parliament, Sturan Stevenson, says: "Whatever the truth is, it will never be revealed by the mullahs. They fear the dire consequences of either admitting a major breach of security that enabled foreign agents or dissidents to infiltrate key nuclear sites, or admitting the incompetence of their military experts who allowed two huge blasts to take place in the space of 10 days. This is a regime in turmoil."

Human Rights

Iran Human Rights Monitor monthly report - June 2020
Iran HRM (June 30) - June 2020 saw tighter clampdown on political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and mistreatment of human rights advocates. Beset by a whole host of economic, social, and political crises, the Iranian regime has been trying to rein in simmering social discontent by the use of brute force. There have been reports on death sentences issued against young men for taking part in street protests, hand amputation sentences issued contrary to international law, and lashing dissidents and prisoners being brutalized in Iran's prisons. Horrendous executions, including those of political prisoners, continue as the regime tries to instill fear in the social atmosphere. Iran executed 22 people in June. Read more...

Nov. protester on death row despite declining mental health
Iran HRM (July 6) - Increased physical and mental pressure on a prisoner compelled him to attempt suicide at the Greater Tehran Penitentiary. On July 4, Siamak Moghimi attempted suicide by slitting his wrists. His cellmates found him lying in a pool of blood in the bathroom and took him to the prison's clinic. He was returned to the ward after a quick check-up. Siamak Moghimi, 25, has previously attempted suicide five times after he was sentenced to death for taking part in November 2019 protests over a sharp rise in the price of petrol. ... All this pressure caused by the death sentence and inhumane living conditions have had devastating impacts on him and have affected his mental health. Read more...

Court sentences 7 Iranian Christian converts to prison
Iran News Wire (June 30) - A Revolutionary Court in southern Iran sentenced seven Iranian Christian converts to prison, exile, a financial penalty, and a ban on work and social activities. The Human Rights News Agency identified the Iranian Christian coverts as Habib Heidari, Sam Khosravi, Sasan Khosravi, Maryam Fallahi, Marjan Fallahi, Pouria Pima and Fatemeh Talebi. The seven men and women were sentenced by a Revolutionary Court in Bushehr on June 21 for "spreading propaganda against the state." Read more...

Dire conditions at Evin Women's ward amid pandemic
Iran HRM (July 5) - The notorious Evin Prison is located in the north of the Iranian capital. There are several wards in this 40-hectare compound. One of these wards is the Women's Ward made up of two main halls. One of the halls in the Women's Ward of Evin Prison holds political prisoners and the prisoners of conscience, and has three rooms. Room No. 1 holds 12 prisoners, room no. 2 holds 10 prisoners and room no. 3 holds 8 prisoners. After the coronavirus outbreak and upon insistence of political prisoners, Hall no. 2 was used for temporary isolation of female prisoners suspected of Covid-19 infection. The windows in this hall are covered by metal and plastic sheets preventing entrance of sunlight. Presently, there are two new arrivals in Hall no. 2, and another two prisoners are quarantined in a room in the administrative section for 14 days. Read more...

Special: Coronavirus Crisis in Iran

Coronavirus death toll surpasses 66,400 in Iran
NCRI (July 6) - The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) announced this afternoon, July 6, 2020, that Coronavirus has taken the lives of more than 66,400 in 342 cities across Iran. The death toll in various provinces include: 5075 in Khuzestan, 4690 in Khorasan Razavi, 3255 in Isfahan, 2065 in Alborz, 1945 in East Azerbaijan, 1880 in West Azerbaijan, 1690 in Kermanshah, 1485 in Hamedan, 716 in Ardabil, 675 in Markazi (Central), 670 in Bushehr, 470 in Ilam. This is in addition to reports obtained from other provinces.

Spokesperson of the regime's Health Ministry said on Monday that 160 people have died of the novel coronavirus during the past 24-hour period and 3,201 are in intensive care units. "The provinces of Khuzestan, Hormozgan, Bushehr, Kermanshah, Kurdistan, Ilam, East and West Azerbaijans, and Razavi Khorasan are in code red conditions. The provinces of Golestan, Alborz, Kerman, Yazd, Hamedan, and Sistan & Baluchistan are in alarming conditions," she added, according to the regime's official IRNA news agency.

"The number of COVID-19 cases and even fatalities are higher than published statistics because all of the individuals dying of coronavirus do not reach a hospital. Furthermore, most of the tests do not precisely identify COVID-19 cases," said Masoud Mardani, a member of the National COVID-19 Task Force, on Monday, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.

"The numbers that we have been witnessing in the past 75 days are unprecedented and if we are not careful Tehran could return to harsh conditions," said the head of Tehran's famous Beheshte Zahra Cemetery regarding the number of people being buried due to COVID-19. "Cemeteries across the country are all in special circumstances and stats in Tehran cannot be compared to anywhere across the entire country," he added on Monday, according to the Tasnim news agency, an outlet affiliated to the regime's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Quds Force. Read more...

Nurses protest across Iran against regime mistreatment
NCRI (July 4) - Iran is perhaps the only country in the world where, during the COVID-19 pandemic, medical professionals, who are on the frontlines of the fight against the virus, are mistreated by the regime. The regime has delayed paying nurses' paychecks and has not improved their working conditions. Reports from Iran indicate that there have been various protests by nurses across Iran against the regime's mistreatments. Yet instead of answering their demands, the regime's security forces resort to cruelty and suppression. Nurses in Mashhad staged a protest gathering against extreme pressures, terrible living conditions, and overdue wages. In response, the regime's security forces attacked them with batons and tasers and arrested several of them. Read more...

Protests & Economy

219 protests in Iran in June
Iran Focus (July 6) - Iranians held 219 recorded protests across 74 cities and 24 provinces in June, according to the Iranian Resistance, which works out to an average of seven or eight per day. Workers held 105 protests in 37 cities (averaging four per day), mainly over unpaid wages and insurance, lack of coronavirus-related safety protocols, and lack of job security. The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF), which represents 10 million workers, expressed solidarity with Haft Tappeh sugarcane workers. ... Teachers and educators held nine protests in Tehran and Ahwaz over job insecurity, poor living conditions, recruitment tests, and unpaid wages. Pensioners held eight protests in four cities in June to demand unpaid pensions and benefits, as well as an increase in their pensions because most Iranian pensioners live under the poverty line. Farmers held five protests in four cities in June to protest being deprived ownership of their lands, a lack of accountability over farming problems, water rerouting, and the government's failure to buy their products. There were over 80 protests in 42 cities from other sectors of society, most notably the protests by locals in several areas over the lack of water. Read more...

Iran rial slides to new low as coronavirus, sanctions weigh
Reuters (July 4) - The Iranian rial fell to a new low against the U.S. dollar on the unofficial market on Saturday, as the economy comes under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic and U.S. sanctions. The dollar was offered for as much as 215,500 rials, softening from 208,200 on Friday, according to foreign exchange site Bonbast.com. The economic daily Donya-e-Eqtesad's website gave the dollar rate as 215,250, compared with 207,500 on Friday. ... The rial lost about 70% of its value in the months after May 2018 as Iranians snapped up dollars. Read more...

Bankrupt economy shows signs of a regime nearing its end
BPR (June 29) - The value of Iran's national currency, the Rial, has been steadily tumbling in recent months. As of last Monday, $1 US was equal to 200,000 Rials. That's a record low and a 14 percent fall compared to the same period last month when one US dollar was worth 175,000 Rials. For background, one dollar was worth 75 Rials prior to Iran's 1979 revolution. ... The 2020 budget is about 20 quadrillion Rials -or $480 billion using the official exchange rate. The regime has nowhere near that sort of income. ... IMF forecasts last October said Iran's economy would shrink by 9.5% by the end of the 2019/20 financial year, while the World Bank said the Iranian economy would be 90% of its size just two years ago. ... The possibility of Iran's terrorist theocracy collapsing can be seen from various perspectives. This prospect is particularly visible when looking at the regime's bankrupt economy. Read more...

Addiction rate is rising 3x faster than population growth
Iran News Update (July 3) - Farzaneh Sohrabi, Social deputy of the CUDRAS institute, previously announced that the growth of addiction in Iran is three times more than the growth of the population. This rate of growth alone shows the depth of the disaster that is an addiction in Iran. Farzaneh Sohrabi said: "The growth of addiction in the country is three times the population growth. The growth of addiction in the country has been about eight percent annually, while the population of the country in the most optimistic state has grown by about 2 percent; As a result, the number of addicts seems to be growing by more than 3% annually." Read more...

Terrorism, Regional Meddling & Cyberwarfare

Zarif says he "coordinated everything" with Qods commander
Iran News Wire (July 5) - Iran's Minister of Foreign Affairs said in a heated speech today in Parliament that he "coordinated" everything with the now dead commander of the Quds Force. Javad Zarif said that he had weekly sessions with Qasem Soleimani and coordinated with him. "In regional talks, whatever we did, we coordinated with each other," he said today. He told lawmakers who were calling him out for "lying" that those who knew Soleimani and other known regional terrorists knew that he worked very closely with Soleimani. Read more...

Iran's international assassins are getting away with murder
The Scotsman (op-ed, July 3) - There must have been blind panic in Tehran last week when the mullahs heard that the fugitive judge Gholamreza Mansouri had been arrested in Romania on an Interpol warrant issued by the Iranian regime and, after being released from custody, was under police watch in a Bucharest hotel. Mansouri had been accused of accepting a £450,000 bribe in his capacity as a judge and the Iranian authorities were desperate to bring him back to Tehran, where he faced almost certain execution. A Romanian court on June 12 postponed the extradition of Mansouri, demanding that Tehran present documents and evidence against him. His exposure as a thief by the clerical regime surprised no-one, as almost the entire Iranian elite are venally corrupt. But Mansouri's fate has shone some light on a murkier tale. Read more...

Iran military-owned conglomerate sets up shop in Venezuela
The Wall Street Journal (July 5) - An Iranian conglomerate owned by the country's military and tied to its missile program has established a retail foothold in Venezuela, according to officials and records detailing the move, deepening Tehran's involvement with the Maduro government. The Iranian firm is working with the Maduro government's troubled emergency food program, which is the subject of U.S. enforcement action as an alleged money-laundering operation, compounding U.S. concerns regarding the move. The arrival of the company, which also has ties to Iran's elite military Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, designated by the U.S. as a terror organization, bolsters Tehran's foothold in the Western Hemisphere and comes as Venezuela increasingly seeks assistance from U.S. foes, including petroleum from Iran and energy-industry assistance from Russia. Read more...

Sanctions, Nuclear, Missiles & Western Policy

Khojir, Natanz explosions wreck Iran's strategy of deception
Arab News (July 5) - A huge explosion east of Tehran in the early hours of June 26 caused widespread fear and confusion in the Iranian capital. ... The development of such a dangerous arsenal of long-range missiles, though, has come at a significant cost. ... Michael Elleman, director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Programme, says despite the wishful thinking of some observers, Thursday's blast will not significantly curtail the danger posed by the Iranian missile program. ... The development of such a dangerous arsenal of long-range missiles, though, has come at a significant cost. Ali Safavi, a member of Iran's Parliament in Exile and president of Near East Policy Research, says ultimately it is the Iranian people who pay the price. "The mullahs care very little about the concerns, the welfare and the livelihood of the Iranian people," he told Arab News. "The Iranian economy is in free fall. Not only due to the maximum pressure policy of the US, but also falling oil prices." He accused Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his government of pouring money into the IRGC's outsized advanced weaponry program, while ignoring schools, hospitals and rampant poverty. "In such a disastrous economic situation, one would assume the regime would focus the resources they have on addressing their social and economic problems," Safavi said. "Instead, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on these ballistic missiles that they do not seem capable of safely handling." The regime's poorly executed attempt at hiding the truth about the Tehran blast came as no surprise to Safavi, who argues that "deception, denial and duplicity have been a part of this regime's DNA since 1979." Read more...

Iran says incident at nuclear site caused 'significant' damage
NBC News (July 6) - A fire last week at the Natanz nuclear site, Iran's main uranium enrichment facility, caused "significant" damage, the country's nuclear agency said, lifting part of the mystery surrounding the event. It still remains unclear, however, exactly what happened at the site in central Isfahan province. Iranian authorities at first appeared to downplay it, saying only that a fire had broken out early Thursday at an "industrial shed." Read more...

U.S. vows to secure permanent U.N. arms embargo on Iran
The Washington Free Beacon (July 1) - The United States will seek a permanent extension of an arms embargo on Iran that is set to expire later this year, setting up a confrontation at the United Nations with Russia and China, Iranian allies poised to block the Trump administration's efforts. The October expiration of the United Nations arms embargo on Iran was a key part of the Obama-era nuclear deal that blocked nations from exporting arms to Tehran. The Trump administration has vowed to keep the embargo alive and in recent months expended significant diplomatic capital preparing a U.N. resolution to accomplish that goal. Read more...

Iranian Resistance

International conference in Ashraf-3, Albania, on June 20, 2020

Free Iran Global Summit: Standing with the Iranian people

NCRI (July 2) - The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) will hold its annual "Free Iran Global Summit" on July 17. This event will be attended by thousands of supporters of the Iranian Resistance, along with hundreds of renowned politicians from across the globe. The Iranian regime is riddled with crises. The regime's 40 years of oppression and its institutionalized corruption and warmongering policies have resulted in nothing but misery for the Iranian people. These actions however have turned the Iranian society into a powder keg. ... On the other hand, the regime's lobbyists and apologists desperately try to convey the narrative that there is no viable alternative to the religious fascism ruling Iran. Therefore, the 2020 summit will not only send a strong message of support and solidarity to the arisen people of Iran. But it will also confirm that regime change in Iran is imminent. The democratic alternative is ready and capable of achieving it. So, the international community should stand with the Iranian people and their organized resistance movement. Read more...

How MEK and Ashraf 3 have become a source of hope
PMOI (July 6) - After the November 2019 nationwide uprising in Iran, in which the regime felt the danger of being overthrown, many of its officials and state media acknowledged the leading role of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in the protests. ... The main question is, why is the regime so hysterically afraid of Ashraf 3? Ashraf 3 is the home to about 3,000 members of the MEK in Albania. For many Iranians it is seen as the capital of hope and symbolizes more than a hundred years of struggle of the Iranian people for freedom. Before Ashraf 3, MEK members were in Ashraf 1 and 2, in Iraq. For more than two decades, Ashraf 1 and 2 had kept the flame of resistance alive inside Iran. ... On June 2019, for the first time, the Free Iran event, which took place in Paris from 2004 to 2018, was organized in Ashraf 3, and hundreds of international dignitaries from 47 nations came to support the Ten-Point Plan presented by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Read more...

Iran's Fake News campaign suffers a heavy blow
Tsarizm (July 3) - Iran's Fake News operations have just suffered a major setback. Last Wednesday, a court in Germany issued an emergency ruling, stating that an article published last month in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung contained a litany of false allegations demonizing the largest democratic opposition group to the mullahs. It ordered the editors to delete the false charges or face a fine and prison time. The ruling marks the second time in two years that German courts have ordered European publications to delete bogus charges against members of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), who reside in a camp in Albania. On March 21, 2019, a court in Hamburg ruled that Der Spiegel had acted illegally in publishing false allegations of "torture" and "terrorist training" by the MEK in Albania. Read more...

Feature

Explosive situation in Iran hints at cover-up

By Struan Stevenson
UPI (op-ed)
July 6, 2020

There are strange goings-on in Iran. On June 25, there was a massive explosion near the Parchin military weapons development complex, east of Tehran.

The blast sent a fireball spiraling into the air, turning the skyline bright orange for several seconds. The fire could be seen from Tehran, where the force of the explosion shook residential buildings and led to many exchanges on social media, with people asking each other if they had seen the fireball and heard the two consecutive booms.

The Iranian regime's defense ministry quickly issued a statement claiming the huge blast was caused by a leaking gas tank and that there had been no injuries. Brig. Gen. Davoud Abdi stated that the ensuing fire had been brought under control and added: "Our colleagues are present on the ground and investigating the incident carefully."

Hours after the explosion, the state television station showed a video clip of charred buildings with twisted metal structures and what appeared to be ruptured holding tanks, claiming that this was the scene of the explosion. However, military analysts in the West swiftly countered the Iranian position, questioning whether in fact the explosion had been the result of sabotage, given the importance of the Parchin complex and its close association with the regime's secret nuclear program.

According to Fabian Hinz, a senior researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif.: "Parchin is basically the largest military explosive manufacturing site in Iran. They produce artillery rockets there and had tests related to nuclear weapons designs before 2003."

But the head of emergency services in Tehran briefed reporters that there had been no immediate requests for ambulances to the scene of the explosion. He added that medical aid was, nevertheless, on standby. The theocratic regime's strident denials of a major incident have certainly fueled speculation that the true nature of the disaster at Parchin has been obscured.

Afghon Ostovar, a scholar at the Naval Postgraduate School, said that given Iran's sensitivity about the base, "it's easy to smell a possible cover-up." He added: "It could have also been an accident at a military site, possibly involving fuel for ballistic missiles. A third possibility, of course, is that it wasn't an accident but rather a form of sabotage."

Now there has been a second major incident at a nuclear site. Behruz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, acknowledged that there had been an incident in "one of the industrial sheds under construction" at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in Isfahan Province.

Once again, the regime's spokesman claimed that there had been no fatalities and no radiation contamination, stating that there had been a fire that was quickly extinguished. However, U.S.-based analysts again identified the burned building as a centrifuge assembly workshop, where the mullah's regime controversially produces enriched uranium, which can be used for reactor fuel and for nuclear weapons.

Under the terms of U.S. President Barack Obama's flawed nuclear deal signed in 2015, regular inspections by the IAEA were limited to the Natanz site. Access to other sites, and in particular to military sites controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, were prohibited under the terms of the deal.

Natanz, Iran's main underground nuclear facility with over 19,000 operational centrifuges, was first revealed to Western intelligence agencies by the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main democratic opposition group, in 2002. Until that point, it had been a closely guarded secret by the Iranian regime. In February 2015, the MEK revealed another secret site called Lavizan-3 in a military base in northeast Tehran's suburbs. Again, this had been entirely hidden from Western inspectors.

Following U.S. President Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal and his reimposition of tough sanctions on the regime, the mullahs have begun the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium in open defiance of the nuclear deal, the remnants of which are still being adhered to by China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

After a previous massive explosion at Parchin in 2014, international observers from the International Atomic Energy Agency requested permission to visit the site, but this was denied by the regime. The IAEA was finally allowed back onto the site a year later, when inspectors discovered empty buildings and clear signs that machinery had been removed. The most recent explosion is a clear indication that the site is back in full production.

The lies and denials about the two huge explosions in the past 10 days point to the sinister conclusion that advanced missile and nuclear weapons development is underway at Parchin and Natanz. The Iranian people no longer trust announcements from the theocratic, fascist regime. The ludicrous denials for several days following the shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner exposed the mendacity and deceptions of the mullahs. Their claim that only 10,500 have died from the coronavirus pandemic while the true figure is known to be in excess of 65,000, has further enraged the Iranian population, who are sick of their lying, thieving and murdering government.

Of course, rumors of the involvement of U.S. or Israeli intelligence services behind the explosions are rife. An email received by the BBC's Persian service claimed that dissidents in an organization called the "Homeland Cheetahs" had been responsible for both explosions, stating that they had staged the attacks above ground so that they could not be denied.

Whatever the truth is, it will never be revealed by the mullahs. They fear the dire consequences of either admitting a major breach of security that enabled foreign agents or dissidents to infiltrate key nuclear sites, or admitting the incompetence of their military experts who allowed two huge blasts to take place in the space of 10 days. This is a regime in turmoil.

Struan Stevenson is the Coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change. He was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an international lecturer on the Middle East and is also president of the European Iraqi Freedom Association.