Iran Air participates in Syrian airlift, but Obama does nothing

Iran Airlines

The Hill, Sept. 17, 2016 - Last week, the Obama administration admitted, during a congressional hearing, that it had authorized cash payments to Iran, timed with the release of U.S. hostages, in January. Cash was reportedly loaded onto an unmarked Iranian cargo plane before it was flown back to Tehran.
Congress was right to criticize the administration over this episode. So why should it now let the president approve the largest sale of U.S.-manufactured airplanes to Iran Air, an accomplice to mass murder in Syria?
Iran Air is negotiating an agreement for the purchase of 100 aircraft from the aviation industry giant Boeing. It is also taking part in the weapons and military personnel airlift to Syria that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, is coordinating on Tehran's behalf.
The morning of the hearing, while administration officials were reassuring Congress that the money was being used to address 'critical economic needs,' an Iran Air Airbus A300 took off from Tehran, bound for Damascus. But instead of heading to its stated destination, Flight IR697 headed south, to the Iranian port city of Abadan, where it landed for a quick stopover before continuing to the Syrian capital.
For over a year now, Abadan's airport has served as the principal logistics hub for the IRGC airlift in support of Syria's loyalist armed forces and the Shiite militias, which Iran dispatched to Syria, alongside its own Quds Force, to save the Syrian regime from collapsing.
Usually, Iran's Mahan Air and Pouya Air run the airlift alongside Damascus's state-owned airline, Syria Air. Between 2011 and 2013, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the three airlines under Executive Order 13224 as entities engaged in the support of terrorism over their material role in the IRGC's airlift to Syria.
That Mahan, Pouya and Syria Air would continue to carry their deadly cargoes is not surprising. They have nothing to lose. Based on available information on the commercial flight tracker Flight Radar 24, there were at least 195 Mahan Air flights to Syria over the last year.
Iran Air, on the other hand, has much to gain from sitting out the airlift. Last year's nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), left Mahan, Pouya and Syria Air under sanctions, but it delisted hundreds of Iranian entities previously involved in proliferation activities. One of them was Iran Air.
The JCPOA not only removed sanctions against the company, but it lifted aviation sanctions against Iran in general, making it possible for Iranian airlines not under sanctions to purchase new aircraft and spare parts, sign maintenance deals and obtain training for its technicians.
Iran Air has taken full advantage of this. In January, it signed a deal with European industry giant Airbus for 118 aircraft. The Boeing deal would add 100 more. Other deals are being negotiated that would dramatically increase Iran Air's current fleet of 36 aircraft to several hundred.
Participating in the Syria airlift could jeopardize all of this. Under the JCPOA, Washington cannot re-impose nuclear sanctions against entities that have been removed from the sanctions list. But it can slap terrorism sanctions against any of them if they were demonstrably involved in activities covered by Executive Order 13224.
Carrying weapons and personnel to Syria is one such case. Flight records show that Iran Air's flight 697 — the Tehran-Damascus route — was operated 66 times over the last year, including three times from Abadan, on Sept. 8, June 9 and May 10. There were at least an additional 20 Iran Air flights to Damascus between Dec. 14, 2015, and the end of August 2016. Not all originated in Tehran, however. On Feb. 14; June 5, 6 and 7; July 24 and 25; and Aug. 10, aircraft took off from Yazd. On June 25, it originated from Kermanshah. And on July 30 and Aug. 6, 8 and 28, it departed from Abadan.
Many of these flights switched off their transponders above the western Iraqi desert, and in some cases, for part of their journey in Iranian airspace. Moreover, in the abovementioned cases, the flight number's associated route did not match the actual plane's journey. These practices are illegal under international civil aviation rules, and also reveal the intention to conceal the aircraft itinerary and likely its cargo.
Iran has never hidden its resolve to keep Syrian President Bashar Assad in power at whatever cost. The ayatollahs also have a track record of suborning their country's economy to the pursuit of revolutionary goals. It is not surprising that they instructed Iran Air to contribute to the Syria war effort, but it is disconcerting that Washington has ignored this evidence and allowed Boeing to continue its negotiations. Disconcerting, but given how badly the administration wants the nuclear deal to succeed, not surprising.
Success, however, cannot come at the cost of compliance. The next president should take note of what is by now glaringly obvious: Iran Air should be sanctioned for its role in perpetuating and exacerbating the Syrian civil war.

Suppression and Poverty in Iran has Resulted in the Doubling of the Rate of Drug Addictions among Women

Increase in Drug addiction in Iran

Iran’s chief justice for drug enforcement agency in an interview with Mehr News agency on September 7, 2016 has pointed out the increasing rate of drug addiction among women.
Ali Moyedi said, “Overall from one million three hundred and fifty thousand drug addicts, 10 percent of them are women. This number has been doubled in comparison to our previous estimation”.
This official without pointing out to the real causes of this societal disaster also said “What we are facing today in area of drug use is the change in rate in which women are gravitating toward addiction. The change of this rate is the reason that we are facing this problem today.”
It is necessary to point out that on August 27, 2016 statement by the national council of resistance of Iran which was issued regarding: “The hanging of 12 prisoners in Karaj central prison in early August” that “The origin of drug distribution goes back to Khamenei and Revolutionary Guards. The income from such illegal activities are directed to Terrorism and it is used for spreading their fundamentalist ideological agenda.”
In a United Nations confidential report leaked by wiki leaks, it has been pointed out that the Iranian regime could be the biggest drug cartel in the world. (U.S. Embassy cables in Baku June 12, 2009)
Furthermore, some officials of the Iranian regime and Revolutionary Guard are directly responsible for the distribution and selling of drugs among Iranian youth specially students. Finally, a parliament member Rasoul Khezri has pointed out that the estimated number of people who are struggling with drug addiction is around 10 million. He also stated: “Although the inflation has caused an increase in price of all goods, the price of a lethal drug called “Crystal Meth” has significantly decreased.”

Maryam Rajavi’s statement on Montazeri’s tape recording about Iran’s 1988 massacre

Maryam Rajavi; Mr. Montazeri’s Tape a Testament to Mojahedin’s steadfastness and to Regime Leaders’ Responsibility for Crimes Against Humanity

Maryam Rajavi : Tape recording of Mr. Montazeri’s Meeting with Those Responsible for Mass Executions of Political Prisoners is a Testament to Mojahedin’s Refusal to Surrender and to Regime Leaders’ Responsibility for Crimes Against Humanity
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, described the audio recording of a meeting between Mr. Montazeri, then successor to Khomeini, and those responsible for the mass executions of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988 as a historical document.
She said the recording attested in the strongest possible manner both to the Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK) political prisoners’ rejection of surrender and to their admirable allegiance to, and perseverance in, their commitment to the Iranian people. The recording is also irrefutable evidence that leaders of the mullahs’ regime are responsible for crimes against humanity and the unprecedented genocide, Mrs. Rajavi said.
Khamenei, whose name is mentioned in the remarks made by the members of the “death commission” in this very meeting, openly declared his support for the mass executions that same year, and in the 28 years since has maintained close ties with the murderous officials who carried them out. He is a mastermind of these atrocities, and must be made to answer to the Iranian people and put on trial, she said.
She said: Mr. Montazeri, himself a founder and ideologue of the principle of velayat-e-faqih (absolute rule of the clergy), emphasizes in the recording, “The Iranian people are repulsed by the velayat-e-faqih” and “later will say that Agha (referring to Khomeini) was bloodthirsty and brutal figure.” His statements attest to the illegitimacy of the ruling regime from the 1980s, to the people’s repugnance towards the velayat-e-faqih, and to the righteousness of the resistance to overthrow that regime.
Mrs. Rajavi said: Montazeri’s remarks addressed to the four members of the ‘death commission’ that this massacre was “the greatest crime committed during the Islamic Republic,” and the four officials’ acknowledgement that they were in the process of massacring the Mojahedin political prisoners and planning how to continue this atrocity, leave no room for doubt that the actions of these four men and many other leaders of the regime involved in these atrocities are, by any measure or definition, a crime against humanity.
She added: The international community, therefore, is obligated to bring them to justice. In particular because these four individuals and the others who carried out the massacre of political prisoners referred to in this meeting have, from the beginning of this regime to the present day, held posts at the highest levels of the judicial, political and intelligence apparatuses. At present, Mostafa Pourmohammadi is Hassan Rouhani ’s Minister of Justice. Hossein-Ali Nayyeri is the current head of the Supreme Disciplinary Court for Judges. And Ebrahim Raeesi is among the regime’s most senior clerics and the head of the Astan Qods-e Razavi foundation (a multi-billion dollar religious, political and economic conglomerate and one of the most important political and economic powerhouses in the clerical regime).
Mrs. Rajavi said: Montazeri’s affirmation that the Intelligence Ministry had for some time been investing in the mass executions and that Ahmad Khomeini (Khomeini’s son) had “been saying for three or four years, ‘The Mojahedin, even the ones who read their newspaper, to the ones who read their magazine, to the ones who read their statements – all of them must be executed’” are further evidence of the reality that the mass executions of 1988 were a premeditated crime against humanity. This rules out absurd assertions by the ruling regime and its toadies, who have tried to relate the executions to the Mojahedin’s Eternal Light military operation and thus blame the organization for this odious crime, she stressed.
The discussion with the members of the death commission took place on August 15, 1988, less than three weeks after the executions had begun. It reaffirms the horrifically high number of execution victims and refutes all of the regime’s deceptive ploys to downplay the extent of this crime. Montazeri in one instance says, “In the (cities’) prisons, they have done everything imaginable… and in Ahwaz it was really horrendous.”
Mrs. Rajavi emphasized: Montazeri’s statements, such as his description of the execution of a 15-year-old girl and of a pregnant woman in Isfahan, as well as the statements by the executioners in the meeting reveal the extent of the ruling regime’s ruthlessness and vengeance against the Mojahedin women and their glorious resistance. Addressing these murderers, Montazeri says, “I reminded Khomeini that according to the decrees of most religious scholars, a woman, even if she is a mohareb (enemy of God) must not be executed. But he did not agree, and said that women, too, must be executed.”
In the audio recording, one of the members of the death commission reveals: “As for the girls, God is my witness as far as we could, we tried to bargain with them. I have very strong nerves, but day before yesterday when I saw only one of them ……. I was really devastated. I started pleading with her to just write a couple of lines and we would send her back to the prison.”
Mrs. Rajavi saluted all the victims of the 1988 massacre, particularly the women and girls who frustrated the regime with their heroic resistance. She said: They paid the price of standing loyal to the cause of freedom and equality. And there is no doubt that tomorrow's free Iran will indeed blossom from their glorious sacrifice. This is a future which will be unquestionably realized.
She also hailed members and supporters of the Iranian Resistance and all freedom-loving Iranians who have participated for several weeks in worldwide campaigns to honor the 28th anniversary of the massacre of political prisoners in Iran and to spread the message of those gallant freedom fighters both in Iran and abroad.
Mrs. Rajavi called on all Iranians, especially Iranian youths, to demand justice for the victims of the 1988 massacre. This, she said, is a nationalist and patriotic duty and part of the Iranian people's struggle for regime change in Iran and to restore the Iranian people's right to political determination, a right that the clerical regime attempted to fiercely destroy with the 1988 massacre.
She added: Khamenei and his regime have concealed all the information and details of this crime. They must be compelled to publicly announce the complete list of names of those massacred and the locations of their graves and mass graves, one by one.
Mrs. Rajavi emphasized: As far as the Iranian people are concerned, they will never give up on their demand for the prosecution of each and every one of the regime's leaders involved in this massacre, no matter how many years it takes. The United Nations and the UN Security Council must make the necessary political and legal arrangements for the international prosecution of the regime's leaders for this crime against humanity.

Audio file revives calls for inquiry into massacre of Iran political prisoners

  The biggest crimes in Iran has been committed by the government

The Guardian, 11 August 2016 - The publication for the first time in Iran of an audio recording from nearly three decades ago has reopened old wounds from the darkest period in the Islamic Republic.
In the summer of 1988, thousands of supporters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) organization were executed in a massacre of political prisoners. In the pre-internet age, the incident was subject to a media blackout in Iran and received scant attention abroad, unlike other acts of carnage that rank alongside it, such as Srebrenica.
Only one senior Iranian official dared to speak out at the time: Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who was in line to lead the country after Khomeini, then supreme leader and the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Montazeri wrote a number of letters to Khomeini condemning the executions, and the grand ayatollah soon fell out of favour. He was later placed under house arrest and faced huge restrictions until his death in December 2009.
This week, on the 28th anniversary of that bleak summer, Montazeri’s official website, run by his family and followers, published an audio file from a meeting he held in 1988 with senior judges and judiciary officials involved in the mass executions.
In an extraordinarily blunt manner, Montazeri is heard telling his audience, among them the sharia judge and public prosecutors, “In my view, the biggest crime in the Islamic Republic, for which the history will condemn us, has been committed at your hands, and they’ll write your names as criminals in the history.”
The 1988 mass execution is believed to have started after the MEK forces launched a military incursion against Iranian forces

In the audio recording, Montazeri tells his audience that he believes the authorities had a plan to execute political prisoners for a few years and found a good excuse in the wake of the incursion.
The ayatollah says he felt compelled to speak out because otherwise he would not have an answer on the “judgment day”. “I haven’t been able to sleep and every night it occupies my mind for two to three hours … what do you have to tell to the families?”

International Community Should Halt Iranian Terrorism

Arab Human Rights Forum dedicates Arab Gulf parliamentary initiative to face Iranian threats

Manama-Human Rights activists stressed in the first edition of the pan-Arab Forum on Iranian threats to Arab human security, which was held in Manama, Bahrain, on Saturday, that Arabs have become prone to sectarian threats that target their right to live a secure and stable life.
They blamed the current situation on the Iranian acts, which include imposing its sectarian ideology on Arab states, compromising the military and security state of affairs of countries and exposing Arabs’ lives to several risks.
The forum titled “No Rights without Security,” was organized by the Arab Federation for Human Rights under the auspices of the Speaker of the Council of Representatives Ahmed bin Ibrahim al-Mulla.
The forum said that Arabs cannot enjoy their rights and fundamental freedom unless there is peace, stability and security.
They also noted that Iranian interference in regional affairs is discordant with the principles of international relations of good neighborliness and peaceful coexistence.
The forum condemned acts of Iranian agents and members, who spread sectarianism in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, saying it is a terrorist state that is denounced regionally and internationally.
Moreover, in a bid to counter the Iranian threats, a joint Arab initiative was launched on the sidelines of the forum.
The initiative aims at supporting efforts of Arab and the Gulf governments as well as organizations to confront Iranian threats and stave off their impact on the future of the Arab national security.
“Today we announce the inauguration of this initiative to support Arab and GCC efforts to face the Iranian threats. It promotes non-governmental efforts to curb the
threats posed by the Iranian regime,” Defense and National Security Parliamentary Committee Member MP Jamal Buhassan remarked during the announcement.
Commenting on the forum, Speaker al-Mulla said that “No life or development are possible without providing and ensuring security and stability,” affirming that combating terrorism is the duty of everyone, especially with Iran’s clear role in supporting terrorist groups that jeopardize the security of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and that of the Arabs as a whole.
He underscored the importance of the forum in countering Iran’s negative conduct in the region, strengthening security, stability and human rights across the Arab world and confirming the Arab identity and Arab efforts to denounce and put an end to sectarian conflicts.
He said that the acts of Iran and its affiliate parties can no longer be tolerated, noting that Iran has failed to respond positively to all Arab efforts aiming to contain its meddlesome conduct and build up relations, sticking to its destructive terrorist plots which led to many conflicts across the Arab Nation.
The Speaker called for the need to step up joint Arab cooperation in confronting the wave of multipolar ideological and sectarian extremism resulting from Iran’s limitless interference in the Arab internal affairs in a bid to subjugate and weaken the Arab region and keep it from carrying out its development plans.

Ransom by another name

A rose is rose, and a ransom, a ransom

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist. His latest book is “What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America” (Zondervan, 2014).


The Washington Times, Aug. 8, 2016 - You’ve probably heard the very old riddle: When is a door not a door? When it’s ajar.
An updated version might go like this: When is a ransom not a ransom? When the Obama administration says it isn’t.
President Obama and his State Department want us to believe that $400 million in foreign cash that was flown into Iran under cover of darkness on an unmarked cargo plane was merely money “owed” to the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terrorism from a failed arms deal negotiated with the Shah of Iran more than 35 years ago.
The president’s explanation is that the money was part of the nuclear deal reached with Iran and the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement resolving claims at an international tribunal at The Hague. The president says settling the claim now is actually saving money, the full amount of which might have had to be paid if the case were fully litigated before the court.
We are to ignore a statement by one of the four Americans held hostage by the Iranian regime (one of them since 2011) before being released in January. Christian pastor Saeed Abedini told Fox Business Channel last week: “I just remember the night at the airport sitting for hours and hours there, and I asked police, ‘Why are you not letting us go?’ ” Mr. Abedini said the policeman answered, ‘We are waiting for another plane so if that plane doesn’t come, we never let [you] go.’ “
What was the “other plane” carrying that was so important to the Iranian government that only its arrival would trigger the release of Mr. Abedini and the three other hostages, and its failure to land would keep them in captivity? Food? Toilet paper? Western movies? Or money?
It is a sad day when one must choose between believing the American president or the Iranian government that has vowed to wipe out Israel and then come after America and subject the world to fundamentalist Islam. The administration refuses to say how many Americans have died directly or indirectly from Iran’s support of terrorism.
The Washington Free Beacon reported last fall that the administration has stonewalled a request from Congress to release figures on the number of Americans and Israelis killed by Iran and its terror proxies since the 1979 Iranian revolution. Undoubtedly, this was to ease opposition to the deal with Iran not to proceed with the creation of nuclear weapons, which they most assuredly are creating in secret, or will create when the “restrictions” expire in a maximum of 15 years, depending on one’s interpretation of the deal. Iran is permitted to enrich uranium in the meantime.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal last week, former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey thought he knew the reason for the foreign cash and the secrecy behind the January transfer of funds: “There is principally one entity within the Iranian government that has need of untraceable funds. That entity is the Quds Force — the branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps focusing particularly on furthering the regime’s goals worldwide by supporting and conducting terrorism.”
The Iranian regime clearly sees the $400 million as ransom for the illegally held Americans. A video showing pallets of foreign cash has surfaced on the internet. The administration won’t confirm that is the money it sent, but does it matter? The money was sent.
Consider the definition of “ransom” and whether this fits what occurred in January: “The redemption of a prisoner, slave, or kidnapped person for a price.”
A rose is a rose is a rose. And so is ransom by whatever name one may disingenuously call it.



Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist. His latest book is “What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America” (Zondervan, 2014).

Saving Iran’s Children From Death Row

Shadows of an Iranian policeman and a noose are seen on the ground before an execution in Pakdasht, south of Tehran, March 2005.

The mass execution of more than 20 people in Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison was not the only grim news from that country this past week, the Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, August 9, 2016.
On August 1, Alireza Tajiki, who was sentenced to death at age 15 following a trial that fell short of international standards, was saved from execution thanks to the last-minute efforts of his family and his lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh. Unfortunately, the postponement is only temporary.
Alireza, now 19 is set to be executed on August 3.
Amin Tajiki, Alireza’s brother, told Human Rights Watch that their family had requested a retrial based on new evidence, but the court rejected their request.
Scores of children are believed to be on death row in Iran, despite denials by the head of Iran’s judiciary, Sadegh Amoli Larijani. Amnesty International has identified the names and locations of 49 such children, and the UN believes the number could be as high as 160. The majority of children on death row in Iran were convicted in trials that fell far short of international standards. In many cases, they reported torture and mistreatment in detention.
On July 18, Amnesty International reported that Iranian authorities hanged Hassan Afshar, who was arrested at 17. He had no access to a lawyer.
As a party to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on Rights of the Child, Iran is obliged to end child executions. The country has taken some small, positive steps. Since 2013, judges may use their discretion to not sentence a child offender to death if they do not understand the nature of the crime. Judges may now seek the opinion of the government’s Forensic Medical Department to assess the child’s mental state. Also, all children sentenced to death under Iran’s old penal code are eligible to be retried under the new one, passed in 2013, although they have to file for a retrial.
But, not only do these narrow reforms fail to meet Iran’s obligation to end all executions of children, but in practice, they are negated by ongoing abuses. Iranian authorities frequently deny children in pretrial detention access to a lawyer. Many children spend up to a decade on death row based primarily on confessions made under credible allegations of torture.
Now the Iranian judiciary should save all child offenders from the cruel fate of execution by granting them retrials in accordance with international human rights law standards. Child offenders like Alireza should never have been on death row in the first place.