Tehran arrests Iranians with British nationality and reiterates that there is a foreign conspiracy in the protests

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran has alluded again this Monday to the thesis of a foreign conspiracy as the origin of the protests that have lasted for more than three months in Iran, after this Sunday the Revolutionary Guard detained seven people, according to a statement released by the official propaganda media.

Among them, there is an unspecified number of citizens with dual Iranian and British nationality.

When questioned by a journalist about these arrests, the spokesman for the Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, has assured that London plays a "destructive role" in the current wave of popular discontent, whose wick was the death in police custody, on September 16, of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, arrested for revealing part of her hair under her veil.

“Some countries, especially the one you mentioned [UK], have played an unconstructive role in the recent events in Iran.

Their role has been totally destructive and incited the riots,” criticized Kanaani.

This spokesman then limited himself to announcing that Tehran has notified their situation and "communicated their crimes" to the respective governments of the detainees - he did not clarify if there are people of other nationalities in the group of seven.

In Sunday's statement from the Revolutionary Guard — the paramilitary organization whose goal is to protect the Iranian regime — it presented these seven people as "main leaders of the recent protests," claimed that some of them had dual nationality, and claimed that they had They have been detained by the intelligence services of the paramilitary force when they tried to leave the country. No other information has been disclosed about who these seven Iranians linked to the United Kingdom are.

The British Foreign Office has announced that it is trying to find more information about them.

Iran is imprisoning dozens of citizens of the European Union and other Western countries, including two Spaniards, Santiago Sánchez, 41, from Madrid, arrested on October 2, and 24-year-old Ana Baneira from Galicia, whose arrest was met on November 10.

Last October, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), based in New York, estimated at least 20 Westerners imprisoned in the country, of which 14 have dual nationality, for which reason Tehran does not recognize their status. of foreigners nor does it allow consular assistance to be provided to them.

On September 30, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and National Security reported the arrest of another nine Europeans.

The CHRI list also does not include the 40 foreigners whose arrest was revealed on November 22 by the Tehran judiciary spokesman, without specifying their nationalities.

Known cases of EU citizens affect France (7), Sweden (5), Germany (4), Austria (2), Spain (2), Belgium (1), the Netherlands (1) and Poland (1).

In addition, there are Americans, Canadians and Swiss.

Also British,

European diplomatic sources have no doubt that the accusations against the detained Europeans are almost always false and that they are "hostages with which Tehran presses to stop the imposition of sanctions";

for human rights violations or for the supply by Iran of the drones used by Russia to attack Ukraine.

Since the start of protests that analysts consider one of the greatest challenges, if not the greatest, in the history of the Islamic Republic established by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, Tehran has detained more Westerners and, above all, repressed with enormous harshness on its own population, while blaming the West, the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia for orchestrating protests in which women and young people are playing a leading role.

According to the Iranian human rights organization in exile, HRANA, as of Sunday, 507 protesters, including 69 minors, had been killed in the protests.

This organization estimates that more than 18,500 protesters have been detained.

To the gallows with 22 years

Following the executions in early December of Mohsen Shekari and Majid Reza Rahnavard, both 23, it was confirmed this weekend that another protester, Mohammad Qabadlo, 22, will be hanged, convicted of serious crimes of which he pleads not guilty.

Last week, the official Iranian media had reported that the country's Supreme Court had accepted the appeal of this young man and the rapper of Kurdish origin Saman Seydi Yasin, known for alluding to inequality, oppression and unemployment in his lyrics.

In a later statement, the propaganda news agency of the Iranian judiciary, Mizan News, specified that only Yasin's appeal had been accepted, whose trial will have to be repeated.

The Judiciary announced that the death sentence of Mohammad Qabadlo has been confirmed in the court.

Mohammad Qabadlou's life is in danger.

Be his voice of him! # محمد_قبادلو # مهسا_امینی pic.twitter.com/OErQy4Cjph

— Neelam (@NeelamAmbigai) December 24, 2022

Mohammad Qabadloo was accused of killing a police officer and wounding five others during the protests, something he denies.

His lawyer has denounced that he could not even enter the room where the hearings of his client's trial were held.

According to the Iranian NGO Iran Human Rights, this young man was tried in the first instance by a revolutionary court presided over by Judge Abolqasem Salavati, whom Iranian human rights organizations call "the hanging judge" for the number of capital sentences they have handed down. out of his handwriting.

Salavati even sentenced a 37-year-old man to death for heresy in September 2014 for defining the myth of Jonah and the whale, which is also found in the Koran, as "an allegory."

Amnesty International has warned that the Iranian authorities have already called for the death penalty for at least 26 other people during what the organization describes as "sham trials designed to intimidate those participating in the popular uprising."

According to Amnesty, all those sentenced to death have been denied the right to an adequate defense and access to lawyers of their choice.

Human rights groups claim that, instead, the defendants have to resort to public defenders who even support the prosecution's theses.

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