US Blacklists Iranian Entity Behind Bounty For Salman Rushdie

The Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Ministry and the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guard issued the statement on Friday, alleging that a mission called “Iran’s Destruction Project” that was earlier implemented in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya has ended in a “humiliating defeat” in Iran.

The joint statement has introduced Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, twp women journalists arrested days after protests began in September, as “foreign agents.”

They say that Niloufar Hamedi, who published the photo of the deceased Mahsa Amini on a hospital bed, was “among the people trained in special courses abroad.” Amini’s death from severe head trauma in police custody triggered the current popular protests across the country. The unrest has been the longest sustained movement against the Islamic Republic.

“Using the cover of a journalist, she was one of the first people who arrived at the hospital and provoked the relatives of the deceased and published targeted news,” adds the statement.

The statement has offered no evidence about the two journalists having travelled abroad, received training or having any ties with foreign organizations.

The ominous statement came as several Iranian hardliners Friday signaled that the government will resort to more force to crush the popular protests.

The IRGC and the Intelligence Ministry have also accused Elahe Mohammadi, another journalist of working for foreign services saying that “she instantly attended the funeral ceremony of Mahsa Amini in her birthplace Saqqez to provoke her relatives by circulating the news and images of the funeral ceremony, and burial.”

The two intelligence bodies also claimed that Mohammadi is “trained by the American mafia regime in foreign countries,” adding that together with Niloufar Hamedi, Mohammadi has “played the role of primary sources of news for foreign media.”

In this statement the Iranian intelligence organizations accused Washington of allocating billions of dollars every year to find elements in Iran and connect them to “Western networks under the cover of human rights activities and promotion of democracy.”

The statement claims that after the downing of a Ukrainian plane over Tehran in January 2020 and the collapse of Abadan’s Metropol building “incidents”, US agents “urged their media to use every challenge and problem to provoke an inefficiency crisis [in Iran] and focus on the illegitimacy of the Iranian establishment.”

The IRGC and Intelligence Ministry say the United States tried “to attribute the effect of sanctions on people’s lives to the inefficiency of the Islamic Republic through making false demands in cultural and social fields.”

The statement further claims that in the past years, US and Israeli intelligence services have made extensive efforts to “transfer money and arm criminals with weapons to enable them to carry out sabotage operations against important centers and facilities, and use violence against the civilians, police forces and the Basij [militia].”

It also adds that “enemy’s” intelligence services try to influence teachers, workers, and students through “creation of fake syndicates and leaders” to “cause chaos” in the country.

The intelligence bodies further stated that “enemies” organized and implemented a “global media war” against Iran, through TV networks and social media.

It accuses Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram of “ignoring their own regulations” to pave the ground for the spread of “fake news.”

Referring to the measures taken by the US government to provide free satellite internet for the Iranian people, they said “The Starlink project is to expand America’s internet dictatorship!”

In the end, the statement has once again threatened the “enemies” saying that their “crimes in recent events will not be forgotten or forgiven.”

Expressing concerns about the clerical regime's ongoing violent crackdown on antigovernment protests, EU’s lead spokesperson for foreign affairs Peter Stano told journalists Thursday that contrary to Tehran’s sanctions, “when you take the EU sanctions (on Iran), they are adopted on clear legal grounds, based on the evidence of human rights violations in Iran." 

In reaction to the EU’s October 17 sanctions targeting Iranian individuals and entities over their role in the brutal suppression of peaceful protests,Tehran announced Wednesday sanctions against eight institutions and 12 individuals based in the EU.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry claimed that the Islamic Republic’s sanctions were imposed due to “deliberate actions in support of terrorism and terrorist groups, encouraging and inciting terrorism, violence, and hatred, which has caused riots, violence, terrorist acts, and human rights violations against the people of Iran.”

Iranian authorities, including the Supreme leader and the president, accuse Western countries and Israel of being behind the current wave of antigovernment protests, ignited by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

The new list of sanctions includes the Persian-language services of Germany’s Deutsche Welle and France’s RFI, extending Iran’s animosity against foreign-based channels that it says are promoting an uprising such as BBC Persian and Iran International. Two directors of the German newspaper Bild were also blacklisted.

In a statement on Wednesday, Javaid Rehman said current investigations and domestic accountability channels had failed to meet the minimum standards of transparency, objectivity and impartiality, urgingan independent mechanism into all human rights violations leading up to and since the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, who died in hospital after being arrested by the morality police. 

He said that the Islamic Republic is monitoring, harassing, and sometimes beating women on a daily basis in the pretext of its mandatory dress code -- implemented through the morality police.“This is meant to instill an atmosphere of fear,” he noted.

“Chronic impunity and lack of redress for previous violations have culminated in today’s events as we see protests throughout the country calling for justice and accountability for Amini’s death but also demanding respect for fundamental socio-economic and political rights and particularly freedom of expression,” he added.

Also on Wednesday, a group of UN human rights experts condemned the killings and the crackdown by security forces in Iran on protesters, including alleged arbitrary arrests and detentions, gender-based and sexual violence, excessive use of force, torture, and enforced disappearances.

They also urged that the reports be thoroughly and independently investigated and those responsible held to account, adding, “An alarming number of protesters have already been detained and killed, many of whom are children, women and older persons. The Government must instruct police to immediately cease any use of excessive and lethal force and exercise restraint.”

Miguel de Serpa Soares, head of UN legal affairs, told the UN Security Council Wednesday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would “continue to prepare” reports on UNSC Resolution 2231.

France, the United Kingdom and the United States last week submitted a letter at the UN arguing any supply of drones by Iran to Russia would violate the resolution, which endorsed the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Wednesday the letter broke the UN Charter by seeking to influence the general secretary.

Antonio Guterres has reported twice a year, in June and December, on the implementation of Resolution 2231, including inspections of military parts found in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Ukraine, France, the UK and US argue that the resolution contains a provision banning Iran from exporting without prior UN approval certain military goods, including drones.

‘National security interests’

The alleged drone supply has also been highlighted this week in the US by Herzog, with Israel’s relations with Russia under the spotlight as Israel’s November 1 elections approach. Herzog pushed back Tuesday against Ukrainian demands from Ukraine for defense assistance, telling an event at the Atlantic Council “there are things we cannot supply due to national security interests.”

But while the Israeli government refuses to give military aid to Ukraine for fear of upsetting its relationship with Russia, the issue has lingered in Israeli politics since Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai tweeted October 16 in favor of sending support as there was “no longer any doubt where Israel should be in this bloody conflict.”

The Jerusalem Post Thursday hit back at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over his latest broadside, pointing out in an editorial that Iran “developed drones because it can’t build advanced warplanes…[had] exported drones all around the Middle East and targeted Israel for years, and that Ukraine… [had] not backed Israel in the past…” The Post added that rockets used by Hamas and Hezbollah “sometimes…have origins in Russian technology.”

The newspaper argued it took years to deploy and integrate air defense systems and that “it’s not clear even” that Israeli defenses were “appropriate for Kyiv.” Zelenskyy had told Haaretz newspaper that an Iran-Russia “alliance…would not have happened if your politicians had made one decision at a time.” The Ukrainian leader said appeals to Israel went back to 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.

‘Co-existence and weakening extremists’

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu – who in 2019 adorned his Likud Party HQ with a huge picture of himself and Putin – told USA Today in an interview published October 21 that he hoped the Russian president would rethink “his vision of reconstituting a great Russian kingdom.”

Herzog’s meeting with President Joe Biden saw the US leader call for a ‘two-state solution’ in Israel-Palestine and welcome the maritime agreement due to be signed Thursday between Israel and Lebanon. The Times of Israel reported that US officials had raised concern over escalating violence in the West Bank, which has so far barely surfaced as an issue in the Israeli election.

A White House statement said the two leaders had “discussed the importance of promoting co-existence and weakening extremists who promote hatred and violence.” This year’s growing death toll in the West Bank has reportedly increased support there for Islamic Jihad, which has close links to Tehran.

Biden called the agreement with Lebanon “a historic breakthrough” that took “some real guts…and persistent diplomacy.” Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Tehran-allied Hezbollah, said in early October his party would respect the agreement, which could allow both countries to benefit from offshore gas deposits but which does not cover the land border.

In a video message released on social media, the deceased journalist, Reza Haqiqatnejad’s elderly mother, Beigomjan Raisi, who said she had not seen her son for more than six years, pleaded with authorities to let her see and bury his son. Haqighatnejad, 45, passed away at Berlin ten days ago after six months of battling with cancer.

“I had not seen him for six years, and I wasn’t aware of his illness in the past six months. They finally let me bring his body to the country, but now the Revolutionary Guards [IRGC] or police have abducted his body from the airport,” she said.

Haqiqatnejad who worked for Radio Farda, a US-sponsored Persian news network based in Prague, died on October 17 and his body was repatriated to Iran for burial on October 25.

IRGC forces reportedly took the body to an unknown location after his coffin arrived at Shiraz airport. The family had made arrangements for burial at a cemetery in Shiraz and acquired all the relevant permits but according to Haqiqatnejad’s relatives and friends, security forces have been pressuring the family of the deceased journalist to agree to his burial in a cemetery outside the city.

Haqiqatnejad, a seasoned journalist had to leave Iran following escalation of pressure on journalists during the 2009 protests against disputed presidential elections. He focused on corruption in Iran during his three years at Radio Farda and produced many reports on financial corruption and the IRGC as well as the clampdown on journalists and protesters in the current wave of protests ignited by the death in custody of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

Haqiqatnejad’s last tweet was about the confrontation of schoolgirls in the city of Karaj with a government official who was visiting their school, booing the official out of their school.

The abduction of Haqiqatnejad’s body has drawn numerous reactions by social media users, who say the Islamic Republic’s authorities are even afraid of his dead body.

Popular Iranian former football (soccer) player Ali Karimi -- who is currently abroad and has been charged in absentia for supporting the ongoing antigovernment protests – addressed the Iranian government's spokesman, saying that the Islamic Republic are telling him it is safe to return to Iran, yet they are refusing even to handover Haqiqatnejad’s dead body to his family.

Describing him as a "brilliant journalist," RFE/RL President and CEO Jamie Fly said the Iranian regime’s manipulation of Haqiqatnejad’s family was "disgraceful and disgusting" and that the family deserves to be allowed to bury him without regime harassment. He was "passionate about freedom and justice for his fellow Iranians, and a champion of the voiceless until the end," Fly added.

A twitter user shared one of Haqiqatnejad’s tweet about Iran’s Supreme Leader, calling on people to repost it when Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei passes away. In the post, Haqiqatnejad had highlighted the track record of Khamenei’s decisions during the Covid-19 pandemic. This record, he had said, was enough to see how he led the country to a catastrophe.