LONDON: Iran’s failure to prevent violence against its own people by security forces, or to hold senior officials to account, will not dissuade protesters, said the president of the International American Council following the release of a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

“Straightforward repression and the use of brute force is something that Iranian people have been enduring for a long time, and they can be expected to continue pushing back against it with extraordinary resilience,” Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, who is also a political scientist at Harvard University, told Arab News.

“This was made clear during the previous nationwide uprising, when dozens of peaceful protesters were killed, either by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) gunfire or by torturous interrogations following their arrest. Yet the uprising continued for some time,” he said.

“The US and Europe have the capabilities to provide large segments of the Iranian population with tools that would help them to go on organizing against the regime and countering the IRGC’s efforts to suppress the population.”

HRW said Iran had failed to hold its security forces accountable for violence, including unlawful lethal force against civilians, during mass demonstrations that broke out in November 2019.

Tehran, it said, had also yet to reveal the number of people killed, injured or arrested during the protests. HRW urged the UN Human Rights Council to take action against the regime.

Amnesty International said at least 304 people had been killed by security forces. HRW reported Iranian politician Hossein Naghavi Hosseini as saying as many as 7,000 people had been detained.

Families of victims, it added, had been warned and in some cases threatened by the authorities not to talk to the media or to try to hold public protests or commemorations on behalf of their relatives.

HRW said there had also been reports of mass abuse of prisoners in detention, and at least three demonstrators in custody had been sentenced to death.

“Iranian authorities have systematically repressed dissent for decades, and they are now confronting popular protests with an astonishing level of violence,” said Michael Page, HRW’s deputy Middle East director.

“Principled international voices should send an unequivocal message that Iran cannot get away with killing protesters.”

HRW said it had evidence of lethal force being used illegally against people, with members of the public, including children on their way to school, being shot at by security forces. Eyewitnesses said heavy machine guns had been deployed against unarmed protesters.

HRW said Iran was in breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ guarantee of the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, as well as multiple facets of the UN’s Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which it said justified lethal force “only when strictly necessary to protect life.”

In addition, HRW said Tehran had broken Article 4 of its own law on the use of firearms by law enforcement against demonstrators, which permits the use of lethal force only when all other avenues, including clear verbal warnings and nonlethal weaponry, have been exhausted.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has referred to protesters killed in clashes as “rioters,” a phrase that has been echoed by other members of the government and by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Rouhani told the Iranian Cabinet on Nov. 23 that the protesters “were organized, had plans, and were armed and were directed by backward forces in the region, Zionists and the US.”

TEHRAN: Iran “seems to be concealing information about the (coronavirus) epidemic,” Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday said.
It condemned what it termed “Iran’s persecution of media outlets and journalists publishing independent information.”
Reza Moini, head of RSF’s Iran desk, said: “Respect for the public’s right to full, independent, diverse and quality news reporting… is the best way to protect the population and combat rumors. Withholding information can kill.”
President Hassan Rouhani, for his part, accused Iran’s arch foe the US of trying to use propaganda about the virus to instil “fear” against his country.
The Americans “themselves are struggling with coronavirus,” Rouhani said in a weekly cabinet meeting.
He added that “16,000 people have died of influenza there but they don’t talk about their own (dead).”
Rouhani’s remarks came a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of concealing the full extent of the outbreak, saying “Tehran may have suppressed vital details.”
The virus has also infected Iranian officials.
Deputy health minister Harirchi had coughed and repeatedly wiped sweat from his brow at a joint news conference Monday with government spokesman Ali Rabiei, who is now himself awaiting the results of a coronavirus test.
Harirchi stirred controversy at the time by denying a lawmaker’s claim that 50 people had died from the virus in Qom, the epicenter of Iran’s outbreak.
The latest health ministry figures show the virus has spread across the country.
There were 15 new cases in Qom, nine in Gilan in the north, four in the capital Tehran and three in Fars in southern Iran, it said.
Meanwhile, Iranian cyber police on Wednesday announced the arrests of 24 people accused of online rumor-mongering about the spread of a coronavirus outbreak that has claimed 19 lives in the country.
The Islamic republic is scrambling to contain COVID-19 a week after announcing the first two deaths in Qom, a center for Islamic studies that draws pilgrims and scholars from abroad.
Schools, universities and cultural centers have been closed, sporting events canceled and teams of sanitary workers deployed to disinfect buses, trains and public spaces.
International health experts have expressed concern about Iran’s handling of the outbreak — the deadliest for any country other than China.
Such worries mounted on Tuesday when the head of the taskforce combatting the virus, Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi, admitted he himself had been infected.
But health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said the situation was “improving,” even as he announced four more deaths and 44 new infections, including in six previously unaffected provinces.
The head of a newly established cyber police unit announced the arrest of 24 people accused of online rumor-mongering about the spread of the virus.
They were handed over to the judiciary, while 118 other Internet users were briefly detained and received warnings, Vahid Majid said, cited by semi-official news agency ISNA.
The arrests were carried out after the establishment of a special unit to “combat rumor-mongers regarding the ‘spread of coronavirus in the country’,” he was quoted as saying.
“The police are monitoring all the news published in the country’s cyberspace.”
Majid said the unit would take action over news, pictures or videos that “contain rumors or fake news meant to disturb the public and increase concern in society.”
The ministry added that Markazi, Kermanshah, Ardebil, Mazandaran and Semnan provinces each had one new case.
Newly hit regions included southwestern Khuzestan, which reported three infections.
The others were Lorestan in the west, Semnan in northern central Iran and Kohgiluyeh and Boyerahmad, as well as in the southern provinces of Hormozgan and Sistan and Baluchistan, which all had two cases each.
The health ministry’s spokesman, Jahanpour, appeared optimistic about the situation in the worst-hit province of Qom, south of Tehran.
“Every 24 hours, at least 10 percent of those hospitalized or suspect cases are discharged with good general health,” the official said.
But in Gilan, “things are slightly concerning,” he added, as it has had the second highest number of new cases, including people who had made trips to other provinces.
The health minister has repeatedly called on Iranians to refrain from traveling to other provinces, especially those infected like Gilan.
Iran is yet to quarantine any of the infected cities, including Qom, with authorities dismissing the method as outdated and ineffective.

WASHINGTON: The US on Wednesday blacklisted a senior member of Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia, punishing it for its attacks targeting US forces, most recently for killing an American contractor in an Iraqi military base near the northern city of Kirkuk.

The US State Department said it has designated Ahmad Al-Hamidawi as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), Secretary General of Kataib Hezbollah (KH), an Iran-backed terrorist group active in Iraq and Syria, which Washington designated as terrorist organization in 2009.

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RELATED: US targets individuals, entities linked to Lebanon’s Martyrs Foundation

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“The Kataib Hezbollah group continues to present a threat to U.S. forces in Iraq,” Nathan Sales, the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, said at a news briefing. “We’re adding to the pressure that has existed on this group for a decade.”

Washington has blamed Iran-backed paramilitary groups for increasingly regular rocketing and shelling of bases hosting US forces in Iraq and of the area around the US Embassy in Baghdad.

An attack last month hit the US Embassy compound itself, and a rocket attack on a military base in the north in December killed a US civilian contractor. This triggered a string of events resulting in with the US killing the top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a drone strike in Baghdad last month.

DUBAI: Two more people infected with the new coronavirus have died, taking the toll in Iran to 16, a Health Ministry official told state TV on Tuesday.

Iran has the highest number of deaths from coronavirus outside China, where the virus emerged late last year.
“Among those who had been suspected of the virus, 35 have been confirmed and two died of the coronavirus infection,” said Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour. He said 95 people had been infected across Iran.
The Health Ministry urged Iranians to stay at home.
Iran said on Monday 900 cases were suspected, dismissing claims by a lawmaker from Qom who said 50 people had died in the city, the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak.
Iran, which confirmed its first two deaths last week in Qom, has yet to say how many people it has quarantined, but the semi-official Mehr news agency said 320 people had been hospitalized.
Iraj Harirchi, Iran’s deputy health minister, has tested positive for the coronavirus and is now under quarantine.
Six Arab countries have reported their first cases of coronavirus, with those infected all having links to Iran. Kuwait said the number of infected people there had risen to eight.
Bahrain’s Health Ministry said 15 more people, including six Saudi women, had tested positive for the virus after returning from Iran via Dubai and Sharjah. The new cases were carried by Bahraini and Saudi nationals who arrived at Bahrain International Airport from Iran via Dubai or Sharjah.
The Saudi Ministry of Health said that it was coordinating with Bahraini health officials for the treatment of the Saudi women who had visited Iran. They will remain in Bahrain until they are fully recovered. The Kingdom has advised citizens and residents to avoid traveling to Italy and Japan.
Iranian authorities have ordered the nationwide cancellation of concerts and soccer matches and the closure of schools and universities in many provinces.
The head of Qom’s Medical Science University, Mohammad Reza Ghadir, expressed concern over “the spread of those people infected by the virus across the city,” adding the Health Ministry had banned releasing figures linked to the coronavirus.
Many Iranians took to social media to accuse authorities of concealing the facts.
Rouhani called for calm, saying the outbreak was no worse than other epidemics that Iran has weathered.
The sight of Iranians wearing masks and gloves is now common in much of the country.
Sales of masks, disinfectant gels and disposable gloves have soared in Tehran and other cities, with officials vowing to prevent hoarding and shortages by boosting production.
Iran has shut schools, universities and cultural centers until the end of the week in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus.
The UAE has banned all flights to and from Iran. The UAE, home to long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad, remains a key international transit route for Iran’s 80 million people.
Emirates, the government-owned carrier based in Dubai, flies daily to Tehran. Its low-cost sister airline, FlyDubai, flies to multiple Iranian cities, as does the Sharjah-based low-cost carrier Air Arabia.
The announcement came after Bahrain said it would suspend all flights from Dubai and Sharjah.
Kuwait raised the number of its infected cases to eight, after earlier raising the number to five. It said the three latest cases involved Kuwaiti citizens just back from Iran, without giving more details. The five previously reported cases were passengers returning on a flight from the Iranian city of Mashhad, where Iran’s government has not yet announced a single case of the virus.
Kuwait had halted transport links with Iran over the weekend and said it was evacuating its citizens from Iran.
An Iraqi family of four who returned from a visit to Iran tested positive for the coronavirus, the first Iraqis known to have caught the disease.
The four cases in Kirkuk province brought Iraq’s total to five after it reported its first case on Monday, an Iranian theology student in Najaf. Iraq is deeply concerned about its exposure to the Iranian outbreak, as it has deep cultural and religious ties with its neighbor and typically receives millions of Iranians each year.
The Iraqi government, which has already banned all travel from China and Iran, added Italy, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore and Japan to its travel ban list on Tuesday. Returning Iraqi citizens are exempt, as are diplomats.
Populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr suspended a call for his followers to hold a “million-man” protest, saying he had decide to forbid the events “for your health and life, for they are more important to me than anything else.”
“I had called for million-man protests and sit-ins against sectarian power-sharing and today I forbid you from them for your health and life, for they are more important to me than anything else,” he said in a statement. It was not immediately clear how the government’s call on citizens to avoid public gatherings would affect the strength of anti-government protests, and the response of security forces.
A Turkish Airlines plane flying from Iran was diverted to Ankara on Tuesday at the Turkish Health Ministry’s request and an aviation news website said one passenger was suspected of being infected by coronavirus.
Turkey’s Demiroren news agency broadcast video showing ambulances lined up beside the plane, with several personnel wearing white protective suits on the tarmac.
The plane was flying from Tehran and had been scheduled to land in Istanbul. Turkey shut its borders to Iran on Sunday and cut flights due to the spread of the virus in that country.
Oman’s Khasab port has suspended the import and export of goods to and from Iran from Feb. 26.

GENEVA: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday rejected calls for a halt to a Russia-backed Syrian offensive in Idlib in northwest Syria.

“This is capitulating before terrorists and even a reward for their activities in violation of international treaties and numerous UN Security Council resolutions,” Lavrov told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Lavrov accused some governments of “a desire to justify outrageous acts committed by radical and terrorist groupings.
“Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain admonishments about the possibility of concluding peace agreements with bandits,” he said, referring to the situation in Idlib.
Syrian rebels backed by the Turkish military have seized the town of Nairab in northwest Syria’s Idlib province, the first area to be taken back from advancing Syrian regime forces.
“With the help of our Turkish friends, we have regained control of the strategic town of Nairab, the gateway of Saraqeb, after expelling the terrorist Russian militias,” Yusef Hamoud, spokesman for the Turkish-backed National Army, said.
A Turkish security official said the Turkish military had supported the rebel offensive with shelling and that bomb disposal teams and the rebels were now clearing the town, located about 20 km southeast of rebel-held Idlib city.
Their next goal was to capture the strategic town of Saraqeb, where Syria’s main north-south highway linking Damascus and Aleppo meets the road west to the Mediterranean. “This will happen soon. The regime suffered heavy losses in the clashes last night. Also, a serious amount of weapons and ammunition was seized,” the Turkish official said.
In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on the warring sides to allow safe passage for civilians to escape attacks. It reminded them that hospitals, markets and schools are protected by law.

“We are urging parties to allow civilians to move to safety, either in areas they control or across the front lines,” ICRC spokeswoman Ruth Hetherington told a news briefing.
An airstrike struck a school, killing three people, Syrian opposition activists said, as regime forces moved forward in their offensive toward a town considered a symbol of the uprising against President Bashar Assad.
The violence came as Turkey’s president announced that a Russian delegation would arrive the following day to resume talks aimed at easing tensions in Idlib.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said no consensus was reached for a four-way meeting next month between the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Turkey meant to address the crisis. He added, however, that Russia’s Vladimir Putin may still come to Turkey next week for a bilateral meeting. Moscow has so far not confirmed a March 5 visit by the Russian president to Turkey.
“Russia supports Syria at the highest level,” Erdogan told reporters before departing for a visit to Azerbaijan. “Even if they deny it, we have evidence. We are forced to be in this fight.”