Iran has released five US-Iranian dual nationals into house arrest, US officials say.

Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz, who also has a British passport, were released alongside a fourth unidentified man, a lawyer for one of the men said.

A fifth American had already been released, a US national security official said.

Talks had taken place between Iran and the US to secure their release.

“While this is an encouraging step, these US citizens… should have never been detained in the first place,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.

“Of course, we will not rest until they are all back home in the United States,” she added.

Iran’s mission to the UN confirmed the release of dual nationals from Tehran’s Evin prison, according to state media.

US-Iranian Siamak Namazi is among those freed from prison under the deal

It said the deal had been “mediated by a third country” and that as part of it, frozen funds in South Korea would be “unblocked and transferred to Qatar,” according to Reuters, citing state news agency IRNA.

US media report that the Iranian funds frozen in South Korea are worth around $6bn (£4.7bn).

Mr Namazi’s brother Babak said: “While this is a positive change, we will not rest until Siamak and others are back home; we continue to count the days until this can happen.”

The 51-year-old was first arrested in 2015 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison on security charges.

The sister of Mr Shargi, 58, said she “has faith in the work of President Biden and government officials” to secure his release following his detention in April 2018.

Mr Tahbaz, a 67-year-old businessman and wildlife conservationist, was first arrested during a crackdown on environmental activists in January 2018.

Iran has detained and imprisoned a number of dual nationals in recent years, usually on national security charges.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said two of the five individuals released “wish to remain private”.

He continued: “We are in touch with the families of US citizens involved, and we continue to monitor these individuals’ health and welfare closely.”

Negotiations have been taking place for years to try to secure their release as part of a prisoner swap with Iranians now incarcerated in American and other western prisons, as well as the easing of US sanctions on Iran.

Citing sources close to the talks, Reuters said it could still take several weeks for the US citizens to leave Iran.

The New York Times reported that Iranian prisoners in US jails could also be freed as part of the deal, but the White House has not confirmed any details of what it offered to Tehran in order to secure the prisoners’ release.

World Opinions + BBC News

L’article Analysis. Iran releases US dual nationals into house arrest, lawyer says est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

British-Iranian dual national Alireza Akbari, who was sentenced to death in Iran, has been executed.

Mr Akbari’s family had been asked to go to his prison for a “final visit” on Wednesday and his wife said he had been moved to solitary confinement.

The ex-deputy Iranian defence minister was arrested in 2019 and convicted of spying for the UK, which he denied.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the execution was a “callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime”.

Iran’s rulers had “no respect for the human rights of their own people” Mr Sunak said, adding that his thoughts were “with Alireza’s friends and family”.

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the execution would “not stand unchallenged”.

The Iranian judiciary’s official news outlet Mizan reported on Saturday that Alireza Akbari had been hanged, without specifying the date when the execution took place.

The news came after Iran posted a video of Mr Akbari earlier this week showing what appeared to be forced confessions, and after the country’s intelligence ministry had described the British-Iranian as “one of the most important agents of the British intelligence service in Iran”.

However BBC Persian broadcast an audio message on Wednesday from Mr Akbari in which he said he had been tortured and forced to confess on camera to crimes he did not commit.

The United States had also joined calls for Iran not to execute Mr Akbari. US diplomat Vedant Patel said “his execution would be unconscionable” and condemned the charges against him as “politically motivated”.

Dr Sanam Vakil, Iran expert at the Chatham House think tank, said Mr Akbari’s death would be used by the Iranian regime to suggest a “heavy outside hand” was stoking the anti-government unrest – linking the protests with the accusation that Western nations were trying to “destabilise the Islamic republic”.

“Keeping the narrative of the West being involved is a way to maintain unity among the political establishment”, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The UK Foreign Office has been supporting Mr Akbari’s family and had repeatedly raised his case with Iranian authorities. It had requested urgent consular access, but Iran’s government does not recognise dual nationality for Iranians.

‘Tortured for 3,500 hours’

In Mr Akbari’s audio message he said that he was living abroad a few years ago when he was invited to visit Iran at the request of a top Iranian diplomat who was involved in nuclear talks with world powers.

Once there, he adds, he was accused of obtaining top secret intelligence from the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, “in exchange for a bottle of perfume and a shirt”.

Mr Akbari alleged that he was “interrogated and tortured” by intelligence agents “for more than 3,500 hours”.

“By using physiological and psychological methods, they broke my will, drove me to madness and forced me to do whatever they wanted,” he said. “By the force of gun and death threats they made me confess to false and corrupt claims.”

He also accused Iran of seeking “to take revenge on the UK by executing me”.

Hours after the audio message was broadcast, the Mizan news agency confirmed for the first time that Mr Akbari had been found guilty of espionage, and that the Supreme Court had rejected his appeal.

Ties between the UK and Iran have deteriorated in recent months since the UK imposed sanctions on Iran’s morality police and other top security figures, in response to the country’s violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Iran has arrested dozens of Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency in recent years, mostly on spying and national security charges.

British-Iranian citizens Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were released and allowed to leave Iran last year after the UK settled a longstanding debt owed to Iran.

However, at least two other British-Iranians remain in detention, including Morad Tahbaz, who also holds US citizenship.

By Emily McGarvey and Aoife Walsh – BBC News

L’article Alireza Akbari: Iran executes British-Iranian dual national est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

Film stars, playwrights, novelists and directors from across the world have rallied to the defence of the Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti, calling for her immediate release from the infamous Evin prison in Tehran.

The Oscar-winning actor was arrested at her home on Saturday and has since told her family she is being detained in Evin. She has been asked to explain Instagram posts in which she denounced the Iranian government for imposing the death penalty on protesters. She had posted a picture of herself in which she was not wearing the hijab and holding a piece of paper reading “women, life, freedom” – the slogan that has come to encapsulate a nationwide protest movement.

Iran’s government has been trying to extend its crackdown to cultural and sports celebrities that had been considered too popular for the regime to arrest.

The open letter has been signed by celebrities including Emma Thompson, Mark Rylance, Mark Ruffalo, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Steve McQueen, Ian McKellen, David Hare, Juliet Stevenson, and the American-Iranian actor Sepideh Moafi.

“The Iranian authorities have strategically chosen to arrest Taraneh before Christmas to ensure her international peers would be distracted,” the signatories write.

“But we are not distracted. We are outraged. Taraneh Alidoosti, like all citizens of Iran, has a right to freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention. We hereby stand in solidarity with her and demand her immediate release and safe return to her family.”

Open letter signed by Emma Thompson, Mark Rylance and Steve McQueen expresses outrage at Oscar winner’s arrest

They add: “Taraneh was arrested for her condemnation on Instagram of the execution of Mohsen Shekari, the first protester receiving a death sentence since nationwide protests following the brutal police murder of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini began in September.”

Within Iran, protesters, including fellow artists, have rallied outside Evin jail calling for her release or news of her condition.

Asghar Farhadi, who directed Alidoosti in his Oscar-winning film The Salesman, said he stood by her. “I have worked with Taraneh on four films and now she is in prison for her rightful support of her fellow countrymen and her opposition to the unjust sentences being issued,” he wrote on Instagram. “If showing such support is a crime, then tens of millions of people of this land are criminals.”

In a sign of the resistance being mounted by celebrities, Hamid Farrokhnezhad, a renowned Iranian actor, sent a message to the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, via his 2.6 million followers on Instagram.

“You are the cause and the culprit of all the recent events, you are the culprit of all the blood that is being spilled on the ground from both sides, the people and the security forces,” he wrote. “You are to blame for closing your ears to every peaceful protest and hearing nothing but your own voice … You are cruel and cruelty is doomed”

But Iran’s minister for culture, Mohammad Mehdi Esmaili, has urged artists to go back to work.

In Geneva, the UN human rights council president, Federico Villegas, has appointed the members of a recently established fact-finding mission, disclosing that he has asked Sara Hossain, a Bangladeshi lawyer, to chair the inquiry. Hossain has experience conducting a similar inquiry in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The committee is unlikely to receive any cooperation from Iranian authorities, but is seen as prestigious enough to carry global weight.

World Opinions – The Guardian

L’article Celebrities demand release of Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.