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Iran defies US over executions, putting three democracy protesters to death

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Iran defies US over executions, putting three democracy protesters to death

JERUSALEM—The Islamic Republic of Iran continued its killing spree of protesters seeking to create a democracy despite a plea on Friday from the Biden administration to “not carry out these executions.” 

The Iranian-regime controlled Mizan News Agency, which is affiliated with the country’s opaque judiciary, reported that Saleh Mirehashemi, Majid Kazemi and Saeed Yaqoubi were executed on May 19 in a prison the city of Isfahan.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights group said that there had been at least 90 executions in the last 18 days, marking May as the “bloodiest month” in the nation over the last five years.

“What we’re witnessing in Iran are not executions, but extrajudicial mass killings to create societal fear to maintain power,” Iran Human Rights Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.

Vedant Patel, the principal deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said ahead of the executions, “We join the people of Iran and the international community in calling on Iran to not carry out these executions. The execution of these men – after what have been widely regarded as sham trials – would be an affront to human rights and basic dignity in Iran and everywhere.”

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Demonstrators in Iran cry out in the streets.  (Credit: NCRI)

DESPITE IRANIAN ATTACK KILLING AMERICAN ABROAD, BIDEN PURSUES NUCLEAR DEAL WITH AYATOLLAH’S REGIME

He added, “It is clear from this episode that the Iranian regime has learned nothing from the protests that began with another death, the death of Mahsa Amini in September of last year. We once again urge Iran’s leadership to stop the killing, stop the sham trials, and respect people’s human rights. We are continuing to work in close coordination with our allies and partners around the world to condemn and confront these appalling human rights abuses.”

The clerical regime reportedly tortured and murdered Amini in Tehran because she did not comply with the country’s Islamic dress code requiring that she cover her hair with a hijab. Amini’s murder sparked waves of revolts across the country against the regime, with calls for the abolition of the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s regime charged the three men with “waging war against God,” a crime that is frequently applied against political activists and dissidents.

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During the alleged forced confessions of the men on Iran state television, the men rejected the charge of murder. 

The theocratic state implicated the men in a November 2022 incident, in which two Basij paramilitary force members and a law enforcement officer were fatally shot in Isfahan. The Basij is a subsidiary force of the U.S.-sanctioned terrorist entity Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and the paramilitary movement is also proscribed as a terrorist entity by the U.S.

According to Radio Farda, which reports on Iran, family members and supporters of the trio engaged in protests in front of Isfahan’s prison. Iranian security forces imposed violence on the demonstrators.

The three men issued a handwritten letter on May 18 that was covertly released and published on social media, declaring, “Don’t let them kill us. We need your help.”

Protestors light fire in middle of the street during Mahsa Amini protests

Iranians protest a 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini’s death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Middle East Images, File)

KIM KARDASHIAN, JUSTIN BIEBER AND MORE STARS SPEAK OUT ON THE HORRIFIC DEATH OF MAHSA AMINI IN IRAN

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A total of seven protesters, including the three men, have been executed by the regime since the outbreak of nationwide protests in September. According to the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International, executions in the highly repressive state ballooned from 314 in 2021 to 576 in 2022.

When asked at Thursday’s State Department briefing whether the U.S. expects its allies and partners to condemn the executions in Isfahan, Patel said, “I’m not going to speak for our allies and partners. . . . But when it comes to confronting the challenge of the Iranian regime and its egregious human rights abuses, its continued support for Russia in the war in Ukraine, its provision of arms to proxies in the Middle East, there is convergence between the United States and our allies and partners in confronting the challenge faced by the Iranian regime.”

However, German MP Norbert Rottgen, from the conservative Christian Democratic Union Party, tweeted, “No one knows if they could have been saved, but Germany & the EU don’t even try. [German Foreign Minister Anna] Baerbock must finally look and find words for the horror that is taking place in Iran. Silence is not politics!” 

Fox News Digital reached out to a diverse group of Iranian experts in the United Kingdom, the U.S. and Germany for comments on the executions.

Iran protests

In this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran, protesters chant slogans during a protest over the death of a woman who was detained by the morality police, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sept. 21, 2022.   ((AP Photo, File))

Kazem Moussavi, a German-Iranian dissident and spokesman for the Green Party of Iran in exile, told Fox News Digital that the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and its President, Ebrahim Raisi, should be included on the European Union terror list. The U.S. sanctioned Raisi for his role in two massacres of Iranians in 1988 and 2019. 

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Moussavi took Martin Horn, the mayor of the German southwestern city of Freiburg, to task for his adherence to a twin city partnership with Isfahan and refusal to permanently end the relations with Iran’s regime in Isfahan. Moussavi said, “I urged Mr. Martin Horn on social media on January 1, 2023, for the release of the three people arrested during the protests for ‘Women, Life, Freedom’  in the Khane-Isfahan district by the mullahs’ judiciary and the Isfahan city administration to demand. He refused to help, including trying to sponsor jailed protesters, and now three innocent people were hanged in Isfahan prison on Friday.” 

Moussavi noted that “after the executions, opponents of the regime chanted ‘Death to the dictator’ in many residential areas of Isfahan and ‘Death to Khamenei.”’

Isfahan is a major center of for the Islamic Republic’s reported construction of its nuclear weapons program and a hub for missile production.

IRANIAN ENFORCES OPEN FIRE ON ‘SCHOOLGIRLS’ AS REGIME PREPARES FOR CRACKDOWN ON KURDISH PROTESTERS: REPORT

Iran protests

A man gestures during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic’s “morality police”, in Tehran, Iran September 19, 2022. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS. (WANA – West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS )

Moussavi and the Iranian dissident, Sheina Vojoudi, an associate fellow for the Gold Institute for International Strategy, played a key role in securing the temporary suspension of the Freiburg-Isfahan partnership. Freiburg is located in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, whose commissioner, Michael Blume, who is tasked with fighting antisemitism, has lashed out at Vojoudi and other Iranian dissidents who seek to the end the widespread human rights abuses of the Islamic Republic.

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Vojoudi said, “Blume called people like me ‘corrupt exiled nationalists’ after I showed him the leaked footage of Evin prison and told him [that] only criticism won’t help us and as a ‘defender of the human rights he should do more.”

She continued, “But, in response, he insulted and discriminated against Iranians in exile. He called us corrupt, but the rulers of their twin city [partnership], the officials of the Islamic Republic, are the most corrupt people on earth.”

Fox News reported last year on calls for Blume to resign due to his alleged antisemitism.

Iran executions hangings

MADRID, SPAIN – 2023/02/11: People protesting, simulating being hanged during a demonstration against executions and human rights violations in Iran marching to the Iranian embassy in Madrid. The Iranian community has carried out a protest against the executions that are taking place in Iran as a consequence of the arrests during the protests after the death of Masha Amini, 22, who was arrested on 13 September in the capital, Tehran, for improperly dressing while wearing a misplaced headscarf, dying three days afterward at a police station where she was being held. The protest coincides with the 44th anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic regime in Iran. (Photo by Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images) (Photo by Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Potkin Azarmehr, a British-Iranian expert on the theocratic regime, told Fox News Digital, “They can execute and kill freedom fighters, but they will not be able to kill a nation who yearns for freedom.”

Marjan Keypour Greenblatt, an Iranian-American who is the director of the Alliance for Rights of All Minorities in the U.S., told Fox News Digital the “Iranian government does not play by any rules. It’s a rogue and defiant regime that takes the lives of its citizens to buy time for its own survival.”

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She continued, “The problem with executions is more complicated than the case of these three individuals. The Isfahan cases are three that are increasingly publicized and brought forth by the international community. But what’s beneath the surface of these hashtag campaigns are the cases that remain under the radar.”

Mahsa Amini

A protester shows a portrait of Mahsa Amini during a demonstration to support Iranian protesters standing up to their leadership over the death of a young woman in police custody, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022, in Paris.  (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

She added, “In the past few days, while activists were just becoming aware of the cases in Isfahan, at least 12 other prisoners were executed. Most of them remained unknown and undefended.”

Alireza Nader, the engagement director for the U.S.-based National Union for a Democratic Iran (NUFDI), told Fox News Digital, “The latest executions in Isfahan show that the regime in Iran continues to try to terrorize the rebellious population into submission. The entire world, especially the U.S. and Europe, should hold the regime accountable and pressure it by ending all economic and diplomatic engagement while offering maximum support to the people of Iran.”

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Good Morning America Meteorologist Rob Marciano Out at ABC News

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Good Morning America Meteorologist Rob Marciano Out at ABC News


Rob Marciano Out at ABC News: Meteorologist Leaves Network



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Arrest warrant issued for Central African Republic's former president over human rights abuses

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Arrest warrant issued for Central African Republic's former president over human rights abuses

An internationally backed court in the Central African Republic issued an international arrest warrant Tuesday for the country’s exiled former President François Bozizé for human rights abuses from 2009 to 2013, a spokesperson said.

The Special Criminal Court was set up in the capital, Bangui, to try war crimes and other human rights abuses committed during the coups and violence that the country has experienced since 2003.

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Court spokesperson Gervais Bodagy Laoulé said the warrant was for crimes committed under Bozizé’s leadership in a civilian prison and at a military training center in the city of Bossembélém where many people were tortured and killed.

A spokesperson for an internationally backed court in the Central African Republic says the panel has issued an international arrest warrant for exiled former President François Bozizé for human rights abuses. (SIMON MAINA/AFP via Getty Images)

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The warrant covers crimes from 2009 to 2013 by the presidential guard and other security forces, Laoulé said.

Bozizé current lives in exile in Guinea-Bissau, where that country’s President Umaro Sissoco Embaló told the Associated Press that he had not received any request from Bangui about the arrest warrant, and that the country’s laws do not allow for extradition.

Ibrahim Nour, whose father was tortured and killed in the infamous Bossembélé prison, welcomed the arrest warrant.

“Justice may be slow, but it will eventually catch up with the executioners. That’s why I welcome the arrest warrant for the men who killed my father, and for whom we are waiting for explanations so that we can begin to mourn,” Nour said.

The court was created in 2015, but took several years to begin operating. Human Rights Watch has described its creation as a landmark to advance justice for victims of serious crimes.

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Patryk Labuda, an expert in international criminal law at the Polish Academy of Sciences, told the AP that the warrant issued Tuesday sends a message about the court’s intention to prosecute wrongdoing by the state.

“This arrest warrant is certainly one of the most high profile developments in the 5 years the court has operated,” Labuda said.

Bozizé seized power in a coup in 2003, and was ousted by predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels a decade later. That led to a civil war between the rebels and mostly Christian militias marked by sectarian violence atrocities and the forced use of child soliders.

Both the U.S. and the United Nations targeted Bozizé with sanctions for fueling the violence.

The U.N., which has a peacekeeping mission in the country, estimates the fighting has killed thousands and displaced over a million people, or one-fifth of the population. In 2019, a peace deal was reached between the government and 14 armed groups, but fighting continues.

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About 10,000 children are still fighting alongside armed groups in Central African Republic more than a decade after civil war broke out, the government said earlier this year.

“It’s a great day for us victims to learn that François Bozizé is the target of an international arrest warrant,” said Audrey Yamalé, a member of the Association of Victims of the 2013 Crisis. “But let’s not stop there. We would like Guinea Bissau to cooperate in his extradition.”

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New York City police enter Columbia campus as Gaza protest escalates

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New York City police enter Columbia campus as Gaza protest escalates

Protesters detained as police head for Hamilton Hall, which students began occupying on Tuesday morning, and the main campsite.

Large numbers of New York City police officers have entered the campus of Columbia University in the latest escalation in the Gaza protests that have swept dozens of universities, mostly in the United States.

The New York Police Department received a notice from Columbia authorising officers to take action shortly before they entered the campus late on Tuesday night, a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press news agency.

Live television images showed police entering the campus in upper Manhattan, which has been the focal point of student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, in which more than 34,535 Palestinians have been killed.

After entering the campus, some officers approached Hamilton Hall, the administration building that students began occupying early on Tuesday morning after the management said it had begun suspending students who had refused to meet a deadline to disperse on Monday.

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They renamed the building “Hind’s Hall”, in memory of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab who was killed in Gaza in February.

“We’re clearing it out,” police in a riot unit yelled as they marched up to the barricaded entrance to the building. Dozens more police marched to the protest encampment.

Police secured access to the building via a ladder extended from a truck [Kena Betancur/AFP] 

Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said in a post on X that the police officers were “wearing riot gear” and that “multiple blocks have been barricaded off”.

A long line of police officers were seen climbing into the building from the top of a truck into a second-storey window. Dozens of other officers targeted the nearby protest encampment.

Shortly afterwards, officers were seen leading protesters, their hands tied behind their backs with plastic zip ties, to police vehicles outside the campus gates.

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“Free, free, free Palestine,” chanted protesters outside the building. Others yelled “Let the students go”.

‘They’re students’

Dozens of protesters barricaded the entrances of Hamilton Hall after occupying Hamilton Hall on Tuesday.  A student organiser who spoke to Al Jazeera said that the occupation group was separate from the group that had established a camp on the campus lawn.

At an evening news briefing held a few hours before police entered the campus, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials alleged the Hamilton Hall takeover had been instigated by “outside agitators” who lacked any affiliation with Columbia and were known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness.

Adams suggested some of the student protesters were not fully aware of “external actors” in their midst.

“We cannot and will not allow what should be a peaceful gathering to turn into a violent spectacle that serves no purpose. We cannot wait until this situation becomes even more serious. This must end now,” the mayor said.

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One of the student leaders of the protest, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, disputed the claims.

“They’re students,” he told the Reuters news agency.

The protesters are calling for the university to sell off any investments linked to Israel, be transparent about its financial ties to the country, and provide amnesty from any disciplinary measures to all students participating in the rallies.

Universities across the US are grappling with growing protests at the same time as they prepare for end-of-year graduation ceremonies.

On Tuesday, police also fired tear gas at students who set up a Gaza solidarity camp at the University of Southern Florida in Tampa, according to videos from journalists and witnesses verified by Al Jazeera.

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The videos also show police forces arresting two people at the protest scene.

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