NOTABLE & QUOTABLE
To Iran,
“You can’t act with impunity. Be careful!”
President Biden told reporters while traveling to survey the damage from a severe winter storm on February 26, 2021
OIAC CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING- Monday March 3 @ 11:00 AM EST
Deadly Unrest Roils Iranian City
Clashes between protesters and security forces in impoverished minority region follow killing of fuel traders
The Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2021
Protesters in Iran’s impoverished southeast clashed with security forces for a third consecutive day, in the latest challenge for a government facing public resentment over widespread economic hardship in the country.
A crowd attacked a police station in the city of Saravan with grenades and light arms on Thursday, killing one policeman before security forces repelled the rioters, the government said.
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Statement: Growing Protests in Sistan-Baluchistan Echoes Iran’s Cry for Freedom
Washington DC, February 27, 2021
Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC) stands with the people of Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran’s second largest province, and their call for social justice, freedom, and democracy.
In the last several days, the notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) has killed at least 40 people including many in the cities of Saravan, Zahedan, Suran, Chabahar, Iranshahr, Khash, Shirabad, Sarjangal, and Bampur. United Nations Human Rights Chief Mrs. Michelle Bachelet called Iranian regime suppression of the Saravan uprising part of, “an apparently coordinated campaign,” “targeting minority groups since December, including in Sistan and Baluchestan, Khuzestan, and in the Kurdish provinces.” She added, “Mass arrests and enforced disappearances have been reported, as well as increasing numbers of executions, following deeply flawed processes.”
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With Strikes in Syria, Biden Confronts Iran’s Militant Network
The New York Times, February 26, 2021
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Since President Biden entered the White House, Iranian-backed militants across the Middle East have struck an airport in Saudi Arabia with an exploding drone, and are accused of assassinating a critic in Lebanon and of targeting American military personnel at an airport in northern Iraq, killing a Filipino contractor and wounding six others.
On Thursday, the world got its first glimpse of how Mr. Biden is likely to approach one of the greatest security concerns of American partners in the region: the network of militias that are backed by Iran and committed to subverting the interests of the United States and its allies.
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Iran Faces U.S. Censure in First Diplomatic Showdown With Biden
U.S. diplomats seeking support ahead of IAEA meeting next week
Resolution would express rising concern over nuclear activity
Bloomberg, February 25, 2021
The U.S. is asking other countries to support a formal censure of Iran over its accelerating nuclear activities, a signal that the Biden administration wants to turn up the diplomatic heat on Tehran as it looks to restore a crumbling 2015 accord.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors convenes next week in Vienna to discuss the latest reports that Iran has stepped up production of nuclear fuel while stalling inquiries into the presence of uranium particles at undeclared sites.
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Experts accuse Iran of rights violations in shooting down Ukraine airlines flight
Iran committed multiple human rights violations in shooting downing Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) Flight PS752 last year and in the aftermath of the deadly attack, two independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council said on Tuesday.
UN News, February 23, 2021
Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Javaid Rehman, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the country, have consistently expressed concern over the 8 January 2020 incident.
Flight PS752 was heading from Tehran to Kiev when it was struck down by two missiles fired by the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), killing all 176 people on board.Iran said the military personnel mistook the civilian aircraft for a US missile.
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Iran Protests & more
Internet disruption reported in southeast Iran amid unrest
AP, February 28, 2021
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s impoverished southeast has been experiencing wide disruptions of internet services, experts said, as unrest gripped the remote province after fatal border shootings.
Several rights groups reported in a joint statement that authorities shut down the mobile data network in the restive province of Sistan and Baluchestan, calling the disruptions an apparent “tool to conceal” the government’s harsh crackdown on protests convulsing the area.
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Terrorism Ruling Presents Opportunity to Hold Tehran Accountable
Town Hall, February 27, 2021, by Ted Poe
While working on terrorism-related issues during my congressional career, I soon understood not only that Iran had earned its reputation as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, but also that the country’s leadership considered terrorism a viable replacement for standard political and diplomatic statecraft. A recent criminal court ruling in Belgium reinforces this fact.
Since the time of the 1979 revolution, the use of proxies in terror operations abroad afforded the regime some measure of plausible deniability and made it more difficult for the U.S. or its allies to hold Iranian officials directly accountable. Still, it was shocking when all such officials, including the regime’s representatives to foreign nations, evaded that accountability for nearly four entire decades. That streak was mainly attributable to the conciliatory Western policies.
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Iranian woman ‘hanged after dying of a heart attack’
Zahra Ismaili, convicted of killing her husband, was reportedly still hanged so her victim’s mother could watch
Independent, February 24, 2021
An Iranian woman who died of a heart attack while waiting to be executed was allegedly still hanged.
The woman, named in reports as Zahra Ismaili, was reportedly made to watch as 16 men were hanged in front of her while waiting her turn at Rajai Shahr Prison, west of the capital Tehran.
The mother-of-two had been convicted of killing her husband, who was a senior official in the Ministry of Intelligence, according to The Times.
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