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AFP: "Iran's economy has benefited
notably from the removal of nuclear sanctions, US Treasury Secretary
Jacob Lew said Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the landmark deal
between Tehran and major powers. But he stressed that the US will
continue to apply sanctions pressure on the country over its alleged
support for terror and its ballistic missile program, despite Tehran's
criticisms that Washington has not fully followed through with its side
of the nuclear deal. 'The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
reached one year ago today was a landmark international achievement,
removing the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran while illustrating the
power of economic sanctions, coupled with tough diplomacy, to bring
about a safer world,' Lew said in a statement. In the year since then,
he said, Iran has been able to sharply increase crude oil exports, and
has opened more than 300 accounts with foreign banks to establish lines
of credit worth billions of dollars. He also said the country has seen
a more than $3 billion increase in planned foreign direct investment.
'We are meeting our commitments' under the JCPOA, he said." http://t.uani.com/29BGuDW
AFP: "Iran's Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif has called on the United States to choose
diplomacy over intimidation and to fulfill its obligations under a
year-old nuclear deal with world powers. 'The Iran Deal was a triumph
of diplomacy over coercion,' Zarif wrote on Twitter late Thursday, the
first anniversary of the July 14, 2015 accord with Washington and five
other major powers. 'Same stark choice for US today, and reminder: old
methods produce same old failures. 'Progress will remain elusive as
long as short-sighted bragging, lackluster implementation of
obligations and tired slogans are preferred. 'Mutual respect and
fulfillment of JCPOA obligations to ensure promised dividends will open
new horizons,' he added, referring to the deal by its official name,
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action." http://t.uani.com/29DiIqq
Politico: "The pressure group United
Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) has placed ads in major European newspapers,
including a full-page spread in London's Financial Times in March. UANI
is another privately funded advocacy group, this one founded by leading
Republican and Democrat national security officials, including former
CIA chief James Woolsey, who is also FDD's chairman, and Dennis Ross,
who later advised Obama on Iran. Since the deal was approved, it has
expanded resources warning of reputational and legal risks to doing
business with a leading state sponsor of terrorism, and it's naming and
shaming companies that do... By and large, observers say, the campaign
to discourage business with Iran is working-though some current and
former officials say Iran's regime has done more damage to its own
reputation with investors and financial institutions through corruption
and illicit conduct over the years than its critics have by
highlighting those failings... Indeed, aside from recouping lost oil
sales, the post-sanctions gold rush that many in Iran expected to flow
from the nuclear deal hasn't materialized. Despite a parade of European
and Asian trade and investment delegations and dozens of prospective
deals written up in the press, it's hard to find a major non-oil deal
that has yet come to fruition. That's in part because although Iran has
reestablished relationships with second- and third-tier banks, the
global financial giants needed to bankroll multi-billion dollar deals
are reluctant to re-engage with Iran, fearful of the overhang of
remaining non-nuclear U.S. sanctions, including an embargo on almost any
commerce between Americans and Iranians." http://t.uani.com/29I5xdD
UANI
in the News
Nuclear
& Ballistic Missile Program
Fars
(Iran):
"Spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz
Kamalvandi announced that the country's experts are now testing
newly-designed centrifuges. 'At present, works on IR2 and IR2M
centrifuges has almost ended but they need to go through a number of
more tests,' Kamalvandi said on Wednesday. He underlined Iran's
capability to resume the frozen part of its nuclear activities if the
powers defy their undertakings under the nuclear deal, and warned that
if such a thing happens, the speed at which Iran can bring its frozen
operations back into action would suprise the opposite party. 'They
have seen how smart our scientists are and we are not therefore
concerned about returning to the past conditions and capacities and we
are able to develop even more than the past,' Kamalvandi said... Iran
in January unveiled the latest generation of its centrifuges that are
15 times more powerful than its currently operating IR1. While the
first generation of its centrifuges had the enrichment capacity of 1 to
1.5 SUWs, the IR8 enjoys the capacity of 15 to 20 SUWs." http://t.uani.com/29W2SfO
Trend: "The European Union intends
to open an EU Delegation in Iran, High Representative of EU for Foreign
Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini announced. 'The European
Union supports a strategy of gradual engagement that is comprehensive
in scope, cooperative where there is mutual interest, critical when
there are differences and constructive in practice. As part of that,
the European Union intends to open an EU Delegation in Iran,' Mogherini
said in a declaration on behalf of the EU on the one year anniversary
of the nuclear deal (JCPOA) clinched between Tehran and the world
powers." http://t.uani.com/29Yg5BL
TASS
(Russia): "A
meeting of the Joint commission of Iran and a group of six world powers
(five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) on the
implementation of the nuclear deal will be held in Vienna on July 19,
Russian Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in
Vienna Vladimir Voronkov told TASS on Thursday. According to Voronkov,
the meeting will focus on the problems with surplus enriched uranium
and compliance with the limits of heavy water stocks. 'There are two
issues that need to be addressed,' he said. 'These are the difficulties
with enriched uranium accumulated during the enrichment in the pipes
and other devices. What has been discovered exceeds the allowed limit
of 300 kilograms. And the second issue is heavy water.'" http://t.uani.com/29IwZUg
U.S.-Iran
Relations
Al-Monitor: "Iran's nuclear negotiator
Hamid Baeidinejad said that if American lawmakers prevent the sale of
passenger airplanes to Iran, it would be a violation of the nuclear
agreement between his country and the six world powers... Baeidinejad
said that if the US Congress successfully blocks the sale of airplanes
to Iran and prevents other companies from also selling to Iran, 'it is
certainly a violation of BARJAM and we will confront it.' ... During
the press conference, Baeidinejad also tried to temper expectations
about the economic benefits of the nuclear deal and urged patience for
Iranians growing restless waiting to see the economic benefits of the
deal. 'Only a few months have passed since the [January] implementation
of BARJAM, and we are at the beginning of the road,' he said. 'We never
envisioned an easy path for the implementation of BARJAM.' ... 'BARJAM
is not an economic or trade agreement. Our view of BARJAM must not be
that of a trade agreement.' He stressed, 'Expectations of BARJAM must
be realistic.'" http://t.uani.com/29H7i6y
Congressional
Action
Reuters: "The U.S. House of
Representatives passed two pieces of legislation linked to the
international nuclear agreement with Iran on Thursday, one year after
the landmark pact was announced, defying President Barack Obama's veto
threat. Voting largely along party lines, the Republican-controlled
House voted 246 to 179 to pass a new set of sanctions on Iran, and 246
to 181 for a measure to block Iran's access to the U.S. financial
system, including use of the dollar. The House on Wednesday passed a
bill to bar the U.S. purchase of 'heavy water,' also with little
backing from Democrats... The measures were among the last the House
passed before Congress left Washington for a seven-week summer recess.
There was no word on when, or whether, the measures would be taken up
in the Senate." http://t.uani.com/29JydA2
AP: "President Barack Obama
marked the anniversary of the landmark nuclear deal with Iran on
Thursday by vowing that the United States and its partners will uphold
their commitments as long as Iran abides by the pact. Congressional
Republicans again tried to undermine the international accord, which
outlines what Iran must do to pull back its nuclear program from the
brink of weapons-making capacity... Obama said in a statement Thursday
that the deal has succeeded in rolling back Iran's nuclear program,
'avoiding further conflict and making us safer.' The
Republican-controlled House, meanwhile, approved a bill to impose new
sanctions on Iran for its continuing development and testing of its
ballistic missile program. The 246-179 vote was largely along party
lines. Lawmakers also were considering a measure that would restate
U.S. policy to deny the Iranian government and banks access to U.S.
dollars. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, said the Obama
administration has shown it does not intend to hold Iran accountable
for its ballistic missile program, human rights violations and support
of terrorism. 'We want to penalize the Iranian government for their
continued illegal activity,' McCarthy, R-Calif., said of congressional
Republicans." http://t.uani.com/29BGxjk
Politico: "Fifteen Senate Democrats are
urging President Barack Obama to secure more transparency from the
inspectors tasked with verifying Iran's compliance with last year's
controversial nuclear deal, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO.
Led by Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the Democrats are asking Obama to use
the federal government to push the International Atomic Energy Agency
to publish details about Iran's nuclear program to ensure independent
verification that they are following the terms of the deal, which
relaxed sanctions on Iran in return for a drawdown of its nuclear arms
program. The IAEA has found that Iran is in compliance with the deal,
but is not fully disclosing the amount of centrifuges Iran is using to
enrich Uranium nor the amount of enriched Uranium that Iran currently
has, the Democrats said. 'In addition to lacking vital information on
the status of Iran's uranium stock and enrichment capabilities, the
report leaves out vital details on Iranian facilities. The report does
not comment on the progress made in transitioning Fordow to a research
facility or provide updates on the redesign of the Arak heavy water
research reactor. This data is critical for ensuring the ability to
independently verify Iran's compliance,' reads the letter... In
addition to Peters, the letter is signed by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.),
Michael Bennet (Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Cory Booker (N.J.),
Bob Casey (Pa.), Chris Coons (Del.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Tim Kaine
(Va.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Jon Tester
(Mont.), Mark Warner (Va.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Ron Wyden
(Ore.). All of them supported the deal, which is now a year old and is
facing renewed attacks from Republicans." http://t.uani.com/29ObF1C
Iran
Primer: "Senators
Susan Collins (R-ME) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) organized 33 of their
colleagues to sign a bipartisan letter urging the Obama administration
to rigorously enforce sanctions on Iran's illicit, non-nuclear
activities - namely its support for terrorism, development of ballistic
missiles, and human rights abuses. The lawmakers emphasized the need to
maintain the restriction on Iran's ability to conduct transactions with
U.S. dollars." http://t.uani.com/29VYA8n
Free
Beacon:
"Congress is pursuing new legislation that would force the Obama
administration to disclose details about a $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded
payment to Iran that multiple sources have described as a 'ransom
payment' to the Islamic Republic, the Washington Free Beacon has
learned. The legislation, which comes on the one-year anniversary of
the nuclear agreement with Iran, would force the administration to
provide additional details about the payment and prohibit future
taxpayer-funded payouts to Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism,
according to the legislation... Sens. James Lankford (R., Okla.) and
Deb Fischer (R., Neb.), who are spearheading the new bill, said U.S.
taxpayers should be told why their money is being sent to the globe's
top sponsor of terrorist activities." http://t.uani.com/29YghAX
Business
Risk
WSJ: "Companies remain wary of entering
Iran in the year since global powers struck an agreement to freeze
Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, according to
sanctions experts. While officials trotted out statements commemorating
the July 14, 2015, signature of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,
or JCPOA, the consensus was the nuclear deal with Iran is holding but
is fragile. Companies, though, don't consider Thursday to be the
one-year anniversary of the agreement; they point to the Jan. 16, 2016,
implementation as the important day to commemorate, said Douglas
Jacobson, a partner at international trade-focused firm Jacobson Burton
Kelley PLLC. He called any real assessment of the deal's effectiveness
'premature' and noting it's still in its early stages. 'We're only in
the first chapter and the rest of the book hasn't even been written,'
said Mr. Jacobson. Companies have spent the last six months 'putting
their big toe in the swimming pool' to evaluate their prospects in
Iran, said Mr. Jacobson, and they are working through the various
compliance hurdles that remain despite the lifting of nuclear-related
U.S. and international sanctions. 'We're still in the very early phases
of even understanding the overall impact on commercial business of the
implementation of the JCPOA,' he said." http://t.uani.com/2afyp8C
Sanctions
Relief
Al-Monitor: "Deputy Foreign Minister
Abbas Aragchi, a top nuclear negotiator who now heads the staff
overseeing implementation of the nuclear deal, sat down with Iranian
television July 11 to update the public on the status of the deal.
Ongoing US sanctions on Iran that prohibit international investors from
using the dollar for transactions with it are one of the main obstacles
keeping Iran from taking advantage of the nuclear deal and
international sanctions relief. These banking sanctions have created
reservations among many foreign companies eager to do business with
Iran. Aragchi explained that they are primary sanctions - that is, ones
unrelated to the nuclear deal. Aragchi said that although the central
bank of Iran had told Iranian nuclear negotiators that this was an
important issue that needed to be addressed, the Americans did not
agree to lift the banking sanctions. Aragchi also remarked that if Iran
were to negotiate on these sanctions, it would have to offer additional
concessions. Citing US court rulings confiscating billions of dollars
belonging to Iran, Aragchi said Iran would prefer to remain outside the
US dollar system... According to Aragchi, Iran is currently selling 2
million barrels of oil a day, 500,000 barrels below previous levels.
'This will take time,' he cautioned, comparing it to reconstruction
after the Iran-Iraq War, which required months and years." http://t.uani.com/29I0yXB
Reuters: "Iran signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with Russia's Zarubezhneft on Tuesday for a feasibility
study on two joint fields in the west of the country, according to oil
ministry news agency SHANA. It is the latest of several MoUs the
ministry has signed since the lifting of international sanctions on
Tehran in January. Countries seeking long-term oil cooperation include
China, India, South Korea and some European states. Iran needs foreign
investment for repairs and upgrading of its oil and gas fields. It also
seeks the transfer of technology to its oil industry after a decade of
isolation. Many Western and Asian oil companies are still waiting for
Tehran to unveil its new oil and gas contracts (IPCs) with new terms.
In the absence of that, many MoUs are still being signed, especially in
last two months." http://t.uani.com/29S8KW7
Reuters: "The Iranian government has
signed a deal with Italy's highway agency ANAS for the construction and
management of a 1,200 km (745 miles) road project that will cost 3.6
billion euros ($4 billion), ANAS said on Thursday. The first stretch of
highway covering 350 km will be completed by 2022 at a cost of 600
million euros, ANAS said. The project is to build a road linking the
Gulf port of Bandar Imam Khomeini to Bazargah on Iran's border with
Turkey.Italy has worked hard to secure lucrative deals in Iran
following a deal last year to lift crippling sanctions on Tehran in
exchange for limiting its nuclear activities... ANAS said the deal
signed on Thursday with the Iranian Ministry of Roads was a follow-up
to a memorandum of understanding initialed in February." http://t.uani.com/29Jw5bF
Reuters: "South Korea's crude imports
from Iran jumped nearly 115 percent in June from a year earlier as
cheaper prices for Iranian condensate prompted Asia's major ultra-light
oil buyer to boost purchases of the oil products last month. Seoul
brought in 1.04 million tonnes of Iranian crude oil last month, or
254,653 barrels per day (bpd), more than two times higher than 485,182
tonnes imported a year earlier when sanctions were imposed on Tehran,
its customs office data showed on Friday. The world's fifth-largest
crude oil importer brought in 6.12 million tonnes, or 246,522 bpd, of
crude from the Middle Eastern country in the first half of this year.
That was almost 108 percent higher than 2.95 million tonnes in the same
period in 2015, according to the data... June's volume was expected to soar
as two South Korean buyers, refiners SK Energy and Hanwha Total
Petrochemical Co were set to lift at least 6 million barrels of Iranian
South Pars condensate (SPC) in June.'" http://t.uani.com/29VVfWT
TASS
(Russia):
"The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has signed a basic
non-disclosure agreement with Russia's state-owned energy giant
Zarubezhneft over two oil fields in the western Iran, NIOC said in a
statement. Under the agreement, the Russian company will study West
Paydar and Aban oil fields and will present its proposals to increase
the recovery rate of both fields to the NIOC." http://t.uani.com/29yxfrO
TASS
(Russia): "Gazprombank
is starting activity in Iran among other Russian banks, Akbar Komijani,
deputy governor of Iran's Central Bank is quoted as saying by the
Bloomberg agency. Komijani said he has held talks in St. Petersburg
with 'big Russian banks.'" http://t.uani.com/29MmMb0
Extremism
BBC: "A recent trend among
Iranians to wear clothing emblazoned with English-language writing has
prompted alarm in the official media. A report on state-run Channel Two
highlighted what it called a fashion to put 'obscene', 'Satanist' and
'anti-religious' messages on men's T-shirts and women's tops. Set to
ominous music of the sort usually reserved for exposes of serious
wrongdoing, the report features people sporting phrases such as 'love',
'not normal' and 'no rules' on their outfits. One shot shows a person
with their face blurred wearing a top with the words 'Friday Night'. Of
particular concern seems to be a women's range with the humorous slogan
'Keep calm I'm Queen'. It's apparently inspired by the popular British
'Keep calm and carry on' image, but the TV channel has a different
take, telling viewers that 'queen' is a US slang term to describe 'men
who look like women.'" http://t.uani.com/29FxufO
Human
Rights
RFE/RL: "The mother of jailed Iranian
human rights defender Narges Mohammadi has called on President Hassan
Rohani to intervene in the case of her daughter, who has been on hunger
strike for two weeks. Mohammadi, one of Iran's top rights activists,
has reportedly refused to eat since June 27 to protest a refusal by
prison officials to allow her to speak to her Paris-based children on
the phone. 'In this country, being a mother is a crime,' writes
Mohammadi's mother, Ozra Bazargan, in an open letter addressed to Rohani.
Bazargan called on Rohani to work to allow Mohammadi to speak to her
9-year-old twins. She added that, as an Iranian citizen and a mother,
she expects Rohani to intervene to so that 'the life of my daughter is
not endangered further.' Amnesty International says Mohammadi suffers
from several medical conditions and the hunger strike 'critically
endangers her health and life.'" http://t.uani.com/29TLRDc
Opinion
& Analysis
UANI
Advisory Board Member Giulio Terzi in The Hill: "On July 14, it will be
exactly one year since the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1
group of nations was concluded in Vienna. It will be an opportunity for
the proponents of those controversial negotiations with Iran to face
some harsh realities about the nature of the regime. Anyone who
understood Iran's clear patterns of past behavior should have realized
how dim were the chances of a 'Nuclear Deal' - the JCPOA - in getting from
the regime political moderation and compliance with international
norms. Yet that didn't stop a wide segment of political and economic
establishments in both the US and Europe from embracing Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani as a moderate and holding onto that embrace
right up to the present day. A one-sided and untruthful narrative has
been willingly spread, to support Iran policies based on plain
ignorance of recent history. Many aspects have been either neglected or
twisted. The negative experience of Western Governments, when they have
tried to reach out to 'moderates' inside the Iranian regime, was
completely overlooked, since every attempt has been burned by those
same 'moderates' - each more predictably than the last. In the year
since Rouhani's charm offensive led to his securing relief from
economic sanctions, he has shown himself to be just as duplicitous and
deceptive as former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Rafsanjani.
With them, American and European Governments made huge efforts in promoting
dialogue and understanding about the most important regional and
bilateral issues. But that outreach ultimately led to intensification
of anti-Western rhetoric and crackdowns on actual reformist trends
within Iranian society. President Rouhani himself is now part of the
escalating rhetoric that is emerging out of the nuclear agreement. In
October 2015 Iran did test a ballistic missile with nuclear capacity -
a violation of UN Security Council resolutions that could imply
sanctions broader than those the Obama administration has already
established. Carelessly, in the midst of international outcry the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps carried out other missile tests:
four more, as we know. It did so with the explicit blessing of
President Rouhani. When faced with light enforcement measures by the
US, Rouhani ordered his Defense Ministry to ramp up production of these
weapons. The Iranian President apparently believed that his American
counterpart would not respond to further Iranian provocations. He was
right. None of the latest missile tests drew countermeasures or
reactions." http://t.uani.com/29MXg6p
UANI
Advisory Board Member Ray Takeyh & Reuel Marc Gerecht in Foreign
Affairs: "As
the U.S. campaign season wears on, both Republicans and Democrats are
pledging to stay tough on Iran. Such promises aren't new. Last summer,
as the Barack Obama administration unveiled its nuclear agreement, U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry assured skeptics that the United States
would sustain essential sanctions that punish Tehran for its aid to
terrorists, regional aggression, and human rights abuses. For her part,
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has echoed Kerry's
determination to hold Iran accountable for its malevolent non-nuclear
behavior. But Clinton and Kerry's position contains a crippling
contradiction. Washington can either accommodate or confront the
clerical regime. It can't do both. And confrontation is made difficult,
if not impossible, by the nuclear agreement and a war-weary public that
is eager to be free of the Middle East. In the year since the nuclear
agreement was concluded, Tehran has continued its development of
long-range ballistic missiles, a historic signpost of a state with
atomic weapons ambitions. The regime hasn't cut its leash on the Iraqi
government; Iranian Revolutionary Guards dictate Baghdad's strategies
against the Islamic State (ISIS) and encourage a hardline approach
toward Iraqi Sunnis. And Tehran has ensured the survival and success of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's war machine, to the point that even
Washington has become eager to dispense with the mantra 'Assad must
go.' Syria, after all, is where the United States' redlines go to
die." http://t.uani.com/29BJvEz
Sen.
Marco Rubio in NRO:
"One year ago today, President Obama announced the start of the
flawed nuclear deal that he claimed would prevent Iran from obtaining a
nuclear weapon. Unfortunately, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) has made America less safe. It at best only delays Iran's
nuclear-weapons program and does nothing to protect Israel and our allies
in the region from Tehran's continued nefarious activities. The Obama
administration has gone to great lengths to save this deal.
Administration officials have boasted of creating an 'echo chamber'
with reporters ensuring that journalists parroted the administration's
line and ignored worrisome details about the deal. Over the last year,
Iran has continued to endanger our troops and allies in the region and
further its quest for regional domination... Tehran has exploited the
JCPOA to destabilize the region and expand its nefarious activities,
including provocations against Americans and Israel. Those of us
opposed to this fundamentally flawed deal are not going to give up. We
will continue to fight to hold Tehran accountable for its actions even
if President Obama continues to fail to do so." http://t.uani.com/29JAs6q
Eric
Edelman, Mike Makovsky & Jonathan Ruhe in USA Today: "The year since the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran's nuclear program was
announced has been a strategic windfall for Iran and a disaster for the
United States. Many of the deal's shortcomings were glaring from the
beginning, yet they have been magnified by serial and gratuitous U.S.
concessions to unilateral Iranian demands. Both parties are about to
formally choose their presidential nominees, and whoever becomes
president must develop a coherent strategy to address the challenges
created by the JCPOA and its implementation. The first step is
admitting there's a problem: Current U.S. policy is guided by several
fallacies the Obama administration employed to sell the deal over
disapproving majorities in Congress and the American public. The
administration claimed this agreement would prevent a nuclear Iran, but
in reality it allows Iran to ramp up its nuclear infrastructure and
then expires. As the name suggests, the JCPOA is touted as
comprehensive, however, it only addresses one component of nuclear
weapons capability - enrichment - with no restrictions on the other
two: means of delivery and weaponization activities. Administration
officials emphasized the agreement would make Iran's nuclear program
transparent, yet we know dangerously lessnow than before the JCPOA.
This undercuts another claim, that there are no side deals, since the
reducing reporting by inspectors on Iran's enrichment under the
agreement had not been spelled out before it was announced. In
Congressional testimony administration officials repeatedly said the
United States would maintain pressure on Tehran during the JCPOA.
Instead, the administration repeatedly lowered the heat, thereby
diminishing American credibility regionally and globally. It is so
invested in the deal that it avoids any tension, even when Iran
threatens the United States." http://t.uani.com/29BIFaI
Hadi
Ghaemi in WPR:
"There is a crackdown underway in Iran. But it is no longer just a
crackdown on dissent. Rather it is an attempt to crush views or
expressions that depart from the insular and rigid worldview of an
increasingly small band of hard-liners. It is not opposition parties,
secularists or even reformists that are the latest targets of
repression, but longtime insiders and scions of the Islamic Republic; a
conservative and clerically vetted president and his administration;
and revered cultural figures whose music, art and writings have long
been the pride of Iranians. These are the new targets of repression,
and they are indicative of a shifting domestic political context in
Iran in which the base of the regime is shrinking, the range of
permitted views is narrowing, and the gulf between the state and
society is widening. As a result, this base is fearful and reactive. It
is made up of the Revolutionary Guards, intelligence and security agencies,
the judiciary, hard-line members of Iran's parliament,
ultraconservative clerics, and above all the country's supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Perhaps they have cause for concern. At every
opportunity, the Iranian electorate has used its limited powers of
political participation to elect centrist officials who eschew vitriol
against the world, welcome conflict resolution, and seek the country's
international economic integration and revitalization... Activists and
human rights defenders like Bahareh Hedayat, Narges Mohammadi and
Abdolfattah Soltani have been joined in prison by reformists-and then
by journalists and internet professionals, and later by anyone who
expressed independent views on social media. Writers, artists,
musicians and poets whose work didn't conform to ultraconservative
cultural views have been targeted next, followed by members of the
Rouhani administration's inner circle and professionals working within
it. Dual nationals who recently traveled to Iran-such as charity worker
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Homa Hoodfar, a professor of anthropology
at Concordia University in Montreal-have been detained too, as part of
the strategy to supposedly prevent so-called Western infiltration. And
the judiciary capped these growing arrests with harsher and longer
sentences." http://t.uani.com/2adFeYg
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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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