Friday, August 8, 2014

Eye on Iran: 2 Men Hanged in Public in Iran - 10 Public Executions in 5 Days








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IHR: "Two men were publicly hanged in the city of Kermanshah (Western Iran) yesterday August 7, reported the Iranian state media... The executions were carried out at the 'Liberty Square' of Kermanshah, which has been the site of many public executions in the recent years. With these executions, the number of executions since the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (last week) has reached to 11. 10 of the executions have been carried out in public. On August 6. four men were hanged publicly in Shiraz (Southern Iran). Two of the men were sentenced to death charged with sodomy, according to the official Iranian sources." http://t.uani.com/1owwWsn

Reuters: "U.S. and Iranian officials had a 'constructive discussion' about Iran's nuclear program in Geneva on Thursday, the U.S. State Department said without providing details. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met in Geneva, where major powers and Iran last year struck an interim agreement giving Tehran some sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear program. 'It was, I would say, a constructive discussion,' State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters in Washington. 'We're not going to get into details.' ... Harf said the six major powers and the European Union would meet with Iran in advance of this September's U.N. General Assembly in New York. The location for that meeting has yet to be decided, she added. The same players would likely meet again during the annual U.N. gathering, possibly with the involvement of their foreign ministers rather than lower level officials." http://t.uani.com/1kr0UCR

NYT: "Jason Rezaian knew he was being watched. A man on a motorcycle had been following him and his wife for weeks, his colleagues said. The tail was so blatant that Mr. Rezaian, The Washington Post's correspondent in Tehran, had even managed to take a picture of the license plate. Like many foreign journalists accredited by the Iranian authorities, Mr. Rezaian had grown painfully accustomed to being under constant suspicion. Opponents of Iran's leaders accuse correspondents of soft-pedaling to avoid being expelled, while conservatives inside Iran often call them spies. Some hard-liners even say they should be executed. 'It's like walking a tightrope,' Mr. Rezaian, 38, said in June. 'When you fall down, it is over.' Then on July 22, plainclothes men waving an arrest warrant signed by Iran's judiciary forced their way into Mr. Rezaian's apartment, taking him and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, a journalist for a newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, to an unknown location." http://t.uani.com/V3RQIv

   

Nuclear Program & Negotiations

Al-Monitor: "Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Jake Sullivan, Vice President Joe Biden's national security advisor, will stay on as special government employees to work to reach a comprehensive Iran nuclear accord after they leave their current posts in the coming weeks, State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said Aug. 7. Sullivan is due to leave his job in Biden's office shortly to teach at Yale Law School, while Burns is due to retire as deputy secretary in October after a three-decade diplomatic career. The decision shows the Obama administration is 'very serious about getting a deal done by November 24,' a senior US official, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor. 'They are not letting anybody get out. It's all hands on deck.'" http://t.uani.com/1opc4It

Sanctions Relief

Trend: "Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the country's inflation rate has dropped below 25 percent. He said he had promised that the inflation rate would fall to 25 percent in the current year, but the current inflation rate is already below 25 percent, Iran's IRNA news agency reported on August 8. He added that he will announce the new inflation rate next week. He also said that the economy will not contract in the current year. When Rouhani took office in August last year, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) had put the inflation rate at 45 percent. The CBI has announced that the inflation rate for the 12-month period that ended on the last day of the Iranian calendar month of Tir (July 22) was 25.3 percent, a 2.4 percent decrease compared to the previous month, ISNA reported on July 28." http://t.uani.com/1sEOuZp

Reuters: "India took about 46 percent more oil from Iran in January-July compared with a year ago as its refiners continued to lift higher volumes while world powers and Tehran work to resolve a decade-old dispute over the OPEC nation's nuclear programme... India, Tehran's top client after China, received about 210,300 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil last month, nearly six times the volume as in July a year ago, data on tanker arrivals from trade sources shows. Last year, though, Indian refiners drastically cut their imports from Tehran starting from April due to a lack of insurance for units processing Iranian oil. The intake from Iran in July 2013 at 35,500 bpd was the lowest since at least 2010. Over the first seven months of the year, India's intake from Iran has averaged about 270,600 bpd, up from 185,700 bpd in the same period last year. In July, imports from Iran rose by about 26 percent from the previous month." http://t.uani.com/1srYTG3

Sanctions Enforcement & Impact

Bloomberg: "David Cohen, the Obama administration's top official for terrorism and financial intelligence, warned that any Russian companies engaging in deals with Iran would be subject to U.S. penalties. Russia and Iran signed a five-year memorandum of understanding to expand trade cooperation, the Russian Energy Ministry said on Aug. 5. Russia will help organize Iranian oil sales under the agreement including in Russia, as suggested by the Persian Gulf state, the ministry said in a later statement, without elaborating. 'It is almost certain that any entity involved in any such deal would be exposing itself to U.S. sanctions, possibly to sanctions from others as well,' Cohen, a Treasury undersecretary, said during a conference call with reporters today. 'We have been very clear in communications with the Russians at the highest level that they ought not move forward with any such deal.'" http://t.uani.com/1oLvRl5

Human Rights

Al-Monitor: "Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke in anticipation of Journalists Day, to be held Aug. 8 in Iran, saying that steps have been taken to create an alternative journalists guild, a proposal that falls short of satisfying the demand of most Iranian journalists: the reopening of the original journalists guild, defunct due to legal troubles. "The administration will produce a bill to consider for an association related to journalists so that this association can be active for the work of journalists. If there is an infringement, this guild and professional association can state its position on that infringement,' Rouhani said at an Aug. 7 press conference. He added that the bill would be made public so that experts can weigh in before it is presented to parliament. Iranian journalists have long hoped for the Association of Iranian Journalists (AIJ) to be reopened. It was created when former President Mohammad Khatami took office in 1997, but suffered numerous legal troubles. In August 2009, two months after the contested presidential elections, its doors were shut on the order of Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi. The association was later reopened but closed once again. Rouhani avoided the issue in his latest statement by introducing another guild to address the needs of working journalists... 'God willing, Journalists Day is a happy day for all of the journalists, and the journalists can do completely professional and national work,' Rouhani said. 'If we want to battle rumors in a professional way, the path is for active journalists to spread accurate awareness for the people.'" http://t.uani.com/1yd6gCT

Opinion & Analysis

Karim Sadjadpour in the Carnegie Endowment: "During Iran's 2013 presidential campaign, Hassan Rouhani marketed himself to a wary Iranian public and hardline political establishment as the man who could reconcile the ideological prerogatives of the Islamic Republic with the economic interests of the Iranian nation. Iran needn't decide whether to wage Death to America or détente, whether to resist the global order or reintegrate with it, or whether to be theocratic or democratic. Under his leadership, Rouhani implied, the Islamic Republic of Iran could do it all. From the outset of his presidency, Rouhani understood that Iran's economic malaise could not be reversed without lifting sanctions, and lifting sanctions requires a nuclear deal. He accordingly invested all of his political capital in foreign policy rather than domestic affairs, and refrained from unsettling Iran's conservatives-whose support he needs to secure a nuclear compromise-with talk of democracy and human rights. Iranian civil society nonetheless patiently accommodated him, hoping that a more relaxed external environment could usher in a less repressive domestic environment. One of Rouhani's greatest advantages as president has been that his bombastic predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, set an incredibly low bar for competent management and public diplomacy. Indeed some of Rouhani's most tangible achievements have been simply undoing the damage wrought by Ahmadinejad, such as restoring relations with the United Kingdom that were severed after a government-sanctioned mob ransacked the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011. Most importantly, Rouhani deserves credit for helping to normalize direct dialogue between Tehran and Washington. For three decades the nearly sole method of communication between the two countries had been public threats and invectives. While mutual antipathy remains, today U.S. and Iranian officials communicate regularly via email and telephone, when they aren't negotiating in European hotels. Rouhani himself broke a 35-year Islamic Republic taboo by talking via phone with President Obama. But Rouhani has had less success moderating the revolutionary principles that most animate the U.S. Congress, namely Iran's active rejection of Israel's existence and support for militant groups such as Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas (a once-fraught relationship that rekindled after Israel's recent onslaught in Gaza). Nor has Tehran's support for the Syrian government wavered, despite Bashar al-Assad's brutality-including an August 2013 chemical weapons attack just weeks into Rouhani's tenure that killed, by some estimates, nearly 1500 people, including over 400 children. This record, together with worsening human rights and a still-elusive nuclear deal, has led to public disillusionment with Rouhani. Such criticism is misdirected. Rouhani is at best second lieutenant to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a rigid 75-year-old ideologue whose goal is to conserve Iran's revolutionary principles, not alter or dilute them. After eight years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an exasperated Iranian public and international community had unrealistic hopes that Rouhani, a pragmatic regime insider, had both the will and ability to bring fundamental change." http://t.uani.com/1sENuDD

Azadeh Moaveni in the Carnegie Endowment: "When Hassan Rouhani was campaigning for president during the spring of 2013, he chose a key as the overarching symbol of his electoral platform and vision for a new Iran. That key, he vowed, would open up the country's tightly sealed political sphere and unlock the path to basic civil rights. One year into Rouhani's tenure, the key has emerged as rich fodder for caricaturists, who have shown it to be alternately lost, blunted, or mismatched to its lock. Today, the president finds himself presiding over a roughly unchanged Iran. The lawlessness and arbitrary detentions that overshadowed the era of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have continued unabated. The state regularly arrests civil society activists and journalists, and executes scores of prisoners without fair trial. The country's once-vibrant NGO and media climate remains intimidated and quiet, and the political bullying that pushed reformist politicians and other critics to the margins of public life remains firmly in place. The sameness has been so evident that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon chastised Rouhani's government in March for not having 'changed its approach' to the death penalty or the protection of free expression. Since the start of this year, the state has executed nearly 400 prisoners, many of whom human rights groups believe were activists for ethnic minority rights spuriously charged with criminal offenses. Authorities have also imprisoned at least 30 journalists and technology specialists, and in a particularly aggressive move in July, arrested the Washington Post's Tehran correspondent. Not only have Rouhani's most notable electoral pledges about bringing Iranians digital freedom, dignity as citizens, and respect in private life remained elusive, the state has revitalized its efforts to enforce Islamic dress codes and limit women's access to public spaces. Parliament recently held a session on the moral threat posed by leggings, and authorities forbade women from watching volleyball matches in Tehran's Azadi Stadium. The Rouhani government's scorecard on human rights and civil society is now widely discussed even within his administration as its most alarming and public failure. The president's allies argue that he must focus first on securing a nuclear deal, and then use the political capital such a victory would garner to push forward more contentious social and political reforms. That strategy, however, risks losing the Iranian public-who are seeing neither a spike in living standards nor greater freedom-along the way... A profound disillusionment is seeping into the youthful ranks of those who voted Rouhani into office. In their eyes, it is no great feat that Rouhani and his diplomats are on their way to securing a nuclear deal. The Supreme Leader has backed those endeavors, leaving the dirty work for the negotiating tables of Europe, not the political backrooms of Tehran. For those expecting the Rouhani key to open at least a few doors, the president's first year has been a disappointing one. Rouhani's Iran is as lawless and intellectually cowed as the one he inherited, a country where a muscular intelligence apparatus makes the political decisions, not the politicians Iranians voted into office." http://t.uani.com/1pGbTYl

Mohammad Jahan-Parvar in the Carnegie Endowment: "Rouhani, however, has publicly committed himself to improving the livelihood of ordinary Iranians. Yet one year into his tenure, Iran continues to suffer from a host of short and long-term issues. In the short run, the harsh and prolonged stagflation caused by tightening international sanctions remains the most pressing issue. Between 2012 and 2013, for instance, Iran faced 40 percent inflation and an almost 6 percent contraction in GDP. Today, inflation still hovers around 25 percent and GDP is set to contract by another 3 percent by the Persian new year (March 2015). Ironically, of all policy areas, economic growth offered the Rouhani administration its greatest chance of success. This prolonged recession is primarily an outcome of sanctions, particularly those imposed by the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union. These sanctions have been effective; Iran's economy is in a severe slump. An Iranian minister recently admitted that at least 50 percent of industrial plants are operating below capacity. Without a negotiated agreement with the West over Iran's nuclear program, the continued freeze of Iranian assets will likely cause the economy to remain in recession. Fears of stagnation and a lost generation are now talk of the town. Iran's economic recovery roadmap document, published last week by Rouhani's economic team, is written with the explicit assumption that international sanctions will be in place for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, double-digit inflation rates remain a curse for the Iranian economy. Perennially high inflation, coupled with persistent double-digit unemployment, low labor force participation, low productivity growth, rampant corruption, a hostile business environment that actively discourages entrepreneurship, weak financial institutions, and ineffective macroeconomic stewardship, has led to one of the world's worst peacetime economic performances in the last three decades. These underlying weaknesses are masked to some degree by sizable oil revenues, which buoy the per capita income level. The Rouhani administration so far has no plan to address these long-term problems. The published recovery plan yields little more than slight changes to pre-Ahmadinejad economic policies, which clearly failed to generate sustained growth and keep inflation at bay. The plan does not offer innovative solutions, and reads instead as a wish list, invoking unrealistic assumptions and expectations (i.e. harnessing 'hot money') as the basis for delivering the desired outcomes (raising capital for investments in infrastructure). What is new in this document is the administration's ill-advised intention to scrap the underwriting standards of the financial sector. Banks will as a result lend based on their own judgment rather than adhering to prudential lending practices. This policy will open the door for abuse and corruption and lead to financial suppression and credit rationing. In plain language, team Rouhani is setting the stage for a banking crisis in the not too distant future. The document also demonstrates the limits to Iran's macroeconomic policy toolbox. Since the mid-1980s, officials have removed interest rate targeting from policymaking. Monetary authorities have in response increased the money supply. But in the absence of a developed and active debt market, this process leads to an almost irreversible expansion of the monetary base and perennially high inflation. For example, the optimism that accompanied Rouhani's election last year, along with his team's success in engaging the P5+1, led to reduced inflation expectations and an initial drop in actual inflation from 40 percent to 25 percent. However, the administration freely admits that the monetary base expanded by 27 percent in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. Simply put, we can confidently predict another episode of high inflation for 2014-2015... A year into his tenure, Rouhani must reassess his economic policies and his economic team. He holds the future of 78 million people in his hands. Clinging to tried and failed policies will not unlock the gates to a brighter future." http://t.uani.com/V7LFmz

Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

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