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In 2007, U.S. intelligence said Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program. Analyst policy bias and disinformation from Iranian double agents may explain the mistake.

By Edward Jay Epstein

Source: The Wall Street Journal

July 29, 2010

In a stunning departure from a decade of assessments, the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran declared: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” including “nuclear weapon design and weaponization work” and covert uranium enrichment. Even more astonishingly, it attributed this change to “increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.” In other words, the threat of sanctions had ended that country’s surreptitious effort to obtain nuclear weapons.

This assessment suggested that further action against Iran was unnecessary. Unfortunately, as the Obama administration has now acknowledged, the NIE’s conclusion was dead wrong, costing us precious time in dealing with a serious threat.

The question remains, what caused such a disastrous mistake?

David Gothard

In 2007, there was still much the same mountain of evidence that led U.S. intelligence to conclude in the 2006 NIE with equally “high confidence” that Iran was secretly engaged in a nuclear weapons program. This evidence included verified reports that Iran had experimented with Polonium 210, a key ingredient in the trigger of early-generation nuclear bombs. And documents recovered from a stolen Iranian laptop described its efforts to fit a warhead in the nose cone of its Shahab 3 missile that would detonate at an altitude of 600 meters, which is too high for anything but a nuclear warhead to be effective.

The CIA had learned that Iran had most likely acquired a digital copy of a Chinese nuclear warhead design from the A.Q. Khan network. It also had monitored Iran’s crash program at Natanz to build a nuclear enrichment plant that could house up to 50,000 centrifuges.

Taken individually, these secret activities might have a nonnuclear explanation. For example, Iran claimed the purpose of its Polonium 210 experiments was merely to find a power source for an Iranian spacecraft (though Iran had no known space program at the time). Taken together, however, these efforts added up an inescapable conclusion: Iran was going nuclear.

What helped change this conclusion, in addition to the reorganization of U.S. intelligence following the report of the 9/11 Commission, was the receipt of new secret intelligence from Iran. This intelligence included convincing evidence that the facilities of the weapons-design program (code named “Project 111″) revealed on the stolen laptop had been closed down in 2003. Satellite photographs showed that buildings involved in the program had been bulldozed, communications intercepts indicated that scientists were no longer at the location, and a high-level defector from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Ali-Reza Asgari, reported that Project 111 had stopped functioning.

Since the Iranians knew that we knew about Project 111 in 2004—the CIA had released technical drawings from it to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—it was not surprising that the Revolutionary Guard, which runs Iran’s nuclear activities, shut it down. The issue was how to interpret the closure. Had the weapons-design work been quietly moved to avoid further scrutiny? Had it been closed because the warhead design had been solved with the acquisition of the digital blueprints of the Chinese nuclear weapon? Or had Iran abandoned its quest for a nuclear weapon?

Deciphering a government’s intentions is no easy task. It is especially difficult in a closed and terrorized society in which the U.S. has no diplomatic relations and little direct access. So it came down to espionage to illuminate the intentions behind the shut-down of Project 111.

Over the years, the CIA had recruited a network of Iranian agents who had, or claimed to have, access to the thinking of Iran’s governing elite. These agents were in a position to cast light on Iranian nuclear intentions, and presumably they provided reports that supported the thesis that Tehran decided to end its nuclear weapons program. In any event, the authors of the 2007 NIE cited secret evidence to support the conclusion in its publicly released summary document that “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been [previously] judging.”

As we now know, the Revolutionary Guard was secretly completing the construction of new facilities in 2007. For example, at Fordo, 20 miles north of the holy city of Qom, it was reinforcing tunnels leading inside a mountain cavern designed to house a new uranium enrichment plant. This underground facility was only disclosed by Iran to the IAEA in late 2009. Clearly, Tehran was not abandoning its nuclear-weapons program.

What may have misled the CIA was a flaw in its espionage system. James Risen, the New York Times’s national security reporter, explains in his book “State of War” that since the CIA had no embassy base in Iran, it communicated with its agents through state-of-the-art satellite transmissions, which it assumed were invisible to the Iranian security services.

Then, in 2004, a CIA communications officer accidently included data in a satellite transmission to an agent that could be used to identify “virtually every spy the CIA had in Iran.” This disastrous error was compounded, according to Mr. Risen, because the recipient of the transmission turned out to be a double-agent controlled by the Iranian security service.

So the Iranians knew the identity of all the agents that the CIA had arduously maneuvered into positions of access, and the technical methods by which the CIA communicated with them. The agents (or their replacements) in Iran would have little choice but to allow the Iranian Security service to control the information they provided the CIA. If so, the CIA may have been vulnerable to receiving misleading secret intelligence that Tehran had abandoned it nuclear ambitions in 2004

One Iranian agent who supplied information to the CIA is Shahram Amiri, who defected to the U.S. last year and re-defected back to Iran this month. He reportedly provided details about the termination of Project 111 that presumably dovetailed with other information we got from the CIA’s compromised network. Iran now claims Mr. Amiri was a double agent all along.

Whether Iran controlled his secret reports to the CIA will be hotly debated for years to come. But willful blindness on our part should not be ignored. There were high-level people in the newly reorganized U.S. intelligence community who wanted to believe Iran was ending its quest for the bomb, and messages to the CIA from agents inside the country that diplomatic pressure was accomplishing this task fell on receptive ears.

Whether the erroneous conclusions in the 2007 NIE proceeded from Iranian deception or American self-deception, they undercut the case for taking more drastic action against Tehran. To the degree that other countries believed Iran had ended its nuclear program, they had little incentive to join us in imposing further sanctions.

To be sure, Iran could not conceal forever the evidence of its massive increase in uranium enrichment capabilities at Natanz, its missile testing, and its preparation of other underground facilities. In the interim, however, Iran managed to upgrade a large portion of its centrifuges and stockpile enough low-enriched uranium gas to manufacture, if it chose to further process it, the fuel for a nuclear bomb.

The moral of this sad spy story is that espionage is by its very nature a two-way game. Spies that are viewed as “assets” in a closed country can turn out to be very risky liabilities.

Mr. Epstein, an investigative reporter, is currently completing a book on the 9/11 Commission.

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Source: Persian2English

July 25, 2010

Iran Negah conducts an emotional interview with a young girl in the south of Tehran who describes her family’s life in Iran.

Translation by SIAVOSH JALILI

Interviewer: Hello Madam. Is your mother home?

Girl: No.

I: Where is she?

G: She’s at work.

I: Where does she work?

G: On Vali-Asr Street.

I: In Tehran?

G: Yes.

I: What does she do?

G: She works in a manufacturing company. She sews overcoats.

I: What does your father do?

G: [inaudible]

I: Why?

G: Because I don’t feel like talking about it.

I: Come on, tell me.

G: My father is an addict. He injected drugs into another addict who died [of overdose]. My dad is now in prison.

I: For murder or addiciton?

G: For both

I: Did the vicitim’s family ask for Dieh (blood money in return for giving consent and sparing the life of the defendant)?

G: No, we asked them not to give consent [and insisted on Qesas, the death penalty].

I: You, yourselves, asked them not to give consent?

G: Yes.

I: Why?

G: Well, we didn’t like our father.

I: He wasn’t working?

G: No.

[They enter inside]

I: The home is quite cold inside.

G: We only have this one furnace to warm ourselves.

I: It looks very worn out and old. Do you have oil to fuel the furnace?

G: My mom works in the factory from Saturday to Thursday. On Fridays, she works at someone’s home. Whenever she doesn’t work there she goes and brings pits of oil. This last Friday, she went and got two of them.

I: What does she do on Fridays at their place?

G: She cleans their house. There are nights when we don’t have dinner and we go to bed hungry. But we never bring it up with my mother. We don’t want to belittle her. My dad was shooting up for two years. When they came from the police station, they said, “Do you know that your husband has contracted AIDS?”

We are three sisters and one brother. The eldest got married eight months ago. Her husband had an accident and now he sits at home [as the result of the injuries]. I have a younger sister who is ten. She was adopted by a family in Kashan. They were supposed to take me instead. I prepared myself, but then I thought it was more important for Azita to go. I stayed to take care of the household chores. The lady who adopted Azita harasses her. She does not let her talk to us. The way our sister talks to us has changed. In a phone conversation she said, “You guys placed me here. My dad is a very good man. You threw him in jail.” My mom always cries after talking to her. I’m not very hopeful.

I: You’re not very hopeful that the officials and authorities will do something for you?

G: No.

I: Why not?

G: We have gone for help so many times. They don’t do anything, because that is how it is. God only gives to the rich. He gives more and more to the rich, but he doesn’t give anything to the poor people.

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Source: Persian2English

July 25, 2010

Translation of audio file by SIAVOSH JALILI

BBC Persian talks to Abdolreza Tajik’s sister on her recent visit with her brother in prison. According to Tajik, he was “violated in prison.” Tajik is currently detained in Evin prison.

Listen to the audio of interview in Persian

Abdolreza Tajik’s sister: After following up with the Prosecutor’s Office, I was able to get an appointment with [Tehran's] Attorney General. After talking to him, the Prosecutor gave me visitation time [with my brother Abdolreza Tajik].

Two days before the visit, Abdolreza called home. On Thursday I went to visit him in prison. Abdolreza stated in the visit that [the agents who arrested him] had no arrest warrant. He was very upset and angry and said, “When they brought me in, on the first night of detention, in the presence of the Lieutenant Attorney General and the magistrate of branch 1, I was violated (my self respect and dignity were violated).”

I asked him to explain what he meant. I really didn’t know what he meant [by violation]. He offered no explanation and just said, “Tell the Attorney General or Mr. Sharif (Mr. Tajik’s lawyer). They will know.”  He asked to immediately meet with the Prosecutor and his lawyer so he can inform them of the issue.

SIGN THE PETITION | FREE ABOLDREZA TAJIK!

BBC: After the visit, what actions did you take? Apparently, you wrote a letter to the Judiciary Chief?

Tajik’s sister: In the past ten days, I have written three letters to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO). You may not believe it, but I was at the AGO every other day asking for my questions [about Mr. Tajik's ordeal] to be answered. Even if they don’t want to explain to me, I ask that he [I.e. the Prosecutor] and Mr. Sharif go and visit Abolreza. I have not received any reply. They say that no order about acting on my letter was given. Then, I went to the Judiciary Office and wrote a letter to Mr. Larijani (Head of the Judiciary). I explained to him the issue in question. I wrote that since AGO is not responding to my requests, I am writing to the higher authority. There, they told me that Mr. Larijani does not respond to these letters and they returned my letter. It wasn’t just me, my brother was there too, and he had signed the letter too. I took back the letter that now bore a stamp and mailed it to the Office of the Judiciary. I had not choice but to write the letter.

I am very distressed now. I feel the Attorney General and the Head of the Judiciary did not address my concern. I raised my voice so that they hear the voice of my brother, the voice of his innocence.

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Source: Human Rights House of Iran (RAHANA)

July 29, 2010

Bahman Ahmadi-Amouei and Keyvan Samimi were the first prisoners transferred to solitary cells on Monday July 26 after their objection to the inappropriate behavior of ward 350 officials and its chief Mostafa Bozorgnia. Other political prisoners were transferred from their cells in ward 350 to solitary confinement in ward 240 at 3:00 am on Tuesday July 27.

On Monday July 26, during the weekly prison visits of ward 350 inmates, the political prisoners of this ward and their families were faced with the offensive behavior of officers and ward officials. Therefore, prisoners protested the incident on the same day and even chanted slogans inside Evin visiting hall, after which prison officials send more officers to control the situation and return prisoners to their cells.

According to Kaleme portal, in response to prisoners’ protests and instead of investigating their objections, the officials of ward 350 cut off all telephone lines of this ward and transferred a number of political prisoners including Abdollah Momeni, Bahman Ahmadi-Amouei and Ahmad Karimi to solitary cells.

The names of these prisoners transferred to solitary cells are:

Ali Malihi (student activist and member of Tahkim-e Vahdar student organization), Bahman Ahmadi-Amouei (journalist), Hossein Nouraninejad (journalist and member of Islamic Iran Participation Front), Abdollah Momeni (student activist and spokesman of Advare Tahkim, reformist Iran Alumni Organization), Ali Parviz (student activist), Hamid Reza Mohammadi (political activist), Jafar Eghdami (civil activist), Babak Bordbar (photojournalist), Zia (Zieddin) Nabavi (student activist deprived of continuing his studies), Ebrahim (Nader) Babaei (civil activist and an Iran-Iraq injured war veteran), Koohyar Goudarzi (human rights activist and blogger), Majid Dorri (student activist), Majid Tavakoli (student activist), Keyvan Samimi (journalist), Gholam-Hossein Arshi and Peyman Karimi-Azad (arrested during Ashura incidents on 27 December 2009).

Among these prisoners, Bahman Ahmadi-Amouei has been on hunger strike since Tuesday July 27, while Majid Tavakoli, Abdollah Momeni, Koohyar Goudarzi and two other prisoners started their hunger strike on Wednesday. Other prisoners went on hunger strike today (Thursday) to support their friends’ strike, and said they would not break it until they reach their goals. Prisoners demand that ward officers and officials apologize to prisoners for their inappropriate behavior and return these 16 individuals to the public ward.

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By David E. Miller

Source: The Middle East News Source

July 29, 2010

Iran sent a harsh message to its Shi’ite Iraqi partners in a blatant attempt to decide the bid for Iraq’s next Prime Minister.

Iran has sent a message to Shi’ite allies in Iraq, demanding they support the candidacy of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, the Arab daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat has reported.

According to the report, based on an anonymous source in the Islamist Iraqi National Alliance (INA) led by Sayyed Ammar Al-Hakim, the Iranian message directed their Shi’ite partners in Iraq to accept Al-Maliki’s candidacy “even if he hit you over the head.”

The report added that Iranian authorities have prevented Muqtada Al-Sadr, a member of the INA currently residing in Iran, from traveling to the city of Irbil in northern Iraq for political meetings. This is presumed to be a punitive measure for his rejection of Al-Maliki and apparent support for his rival Iyad ‘Alawi.

“Iran is worried that ‘Alawi represents mainly Sunni interests in Iraq, whereas Al-Maliki is better for Shi’ites,” Ali Al-Saffar, a Middle East analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit told The Media Line. “Iran believes that the premiership of ‘Alawi would mean the weakening of the Shi’ite stronghold of Iraq over time.”

“‘Alawi has done little to alleviate the Iranian fears,” he added. “Although he himself is Shi’ite, most of the people surrounding him are Sunni.”

“As far as Iran is concerned, a partnership between ‘Alawi and Al-Maliki is the worst case scenario, because it would mean that the ruling coalition was independent of Iran’s Islamist supporters in the Iraqi National Alliance.”

However, an alliance between ‘Alawi and Al-Maliki would make sense, said Al-Saffar, since they are both centrists and widely agree on internal Iraqi affairs. Al-Hakim, on the other hand, is a federalist and his policies significantly diverge from those of his contenders.

Dr. Reider Visser, editor of the Iraq-focused website historiae.org doubted Iran was backing Al-Maliki. He said that for a long time Iran’s priority in Iraq has been a unified Shi’ite coalition, and therefore ‘Alawi is not an option for them. However, there is no real indication that Iran has changed its policy of supporting a weak compromise candidate from the INA.

“The Iranians are sticking to their policy of keeping Shi’ites united in a sectarian front,” Visser told The Media Line.

Dr. Matthias Küntzel, a political scientist and expert on Iran, said that Iran’s intervention in Iraqi politics was not surprising. “Homeisim (Iran’s revolutionary ideology) is an expansionist ideology. Iran has no interest in stabilizing the region; on the contrary – it seeks to destabilize it and humiliate the Americans in the process.”

Iraq has come to a political standstill ever since parliamentary elections in early March and the three main factions have not been able reach an agreement on a candidate for prime minister.

Iyad ‘Alawi’s Iraqiya bloc emerged first from the election with 91 seats, followed closely by Nouri Al-Maliki’s State of Law alliance with 89. The religious Shi’ite Iraqi National Alliance came in third with 70 seats.

In early June Al-Maliki’s coalition merged with the Iraqi National Alliance; however, Muqtada Al-Sadr, a member of the INA, is reluctant to support Al-Maliki’s reappointment as prime minister.

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Source: Los Angeles Times Babylon & Beyond

July 29, 2010

Amid reports that water in parts of Tehran may be tainted with high levels of toxic nitrate, the Ministry of Power has handed out free bottles of water to an underprivileged suburb south of the city.

Parliamentarian Hasan Ta’mini, a member of the Health and Medicare Commission, reported that authorities had hoped to address the water crisis within a week, though no solution has yet been announced.

Water consumption soars as the summer heat rises in densely populated Tehran. For neighborhoods and families struggling with overpopulation, endemic poverty and air pollution in the south, the heat, and dehydration, can be oppressive.

The Water and Sewage Waste Organization, an agency of the Ministry of Power, recently dug new wells to expand the water supply. Though most of the drinking water for Tehran typically flowed from the reservoirs of Karaj Amirkabir Dam, one hour west of Tehran, 30% of the water is now coming from these wells.

Earlier this month, Health Minister Dr. Marziyeh Vahid Dasjerdi announced that the amount of nitrate found in the drinking water pipes in parts of Tehran exceeded the appropriate level, posing a serious threat to city-dwellers’ health.

The director-general of the Water and Sewage Waste Organization, Mohammad Parvaresh, denied the claim of a nitrate threat, claiming that all water was uncontaminated and safe to drink.

However, both the ministries of Power and Health decided last week that free bottles of water would be distributed to residents of Yafabad, an economically underprivileged suburb in south Tehran. Both ministries, it is reported, concurred behind closed doors that nitrate levels exceeded the accepted standard in the disadvantaged southern part of the capital.

The origin of the nitrate contamination is unknown. However, the issue was raised back in January 2009, reported the Mehr News Agency, by the director of Tehran’s office in the Environment Ministry, Mohammad-Baqer Saduq. He publicly stated that Iran’s nitrate levels were highest in Tehran and had become toxic.

Large amounts of nitrate in drinking water are dangerous for infants, as nitrate poisoning targets those 6 months old and younger. When too much nitrate enters the infant’s digestive system, it is absorbed by bacteria and transforms into nitrite. Nitrite combines with hemoglobin, meant to circulate oxygen through the blood, to create methemoglobin, which can no longer transfer oxygen effectively.

Nitrate can seep into drinking water from a variety of sources, including septic systems, animal waste, commercial fertilizer and decaying organic matter. Improperly dug wells may lead to nitrate contamination as a limited amount of soil and rock cannot filter the water between the soil surface and the groundwater.

The exact amount of nitrate in Tehran’s drinking water has not been reported.

– Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Becky Lee Katz in Beirut

Upper photo: Residents in south Tehran suffer from desperate living conditions, forced to erect shanty towns. Credit: Iranian Students News Agency

Lower photo: Karaj Amirkabir Dam, outside Tehran, cannot accommodate the drinking water needs of the population. Credit: Payvand News

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The damaged M Star oil tanker at sea near the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday. Reuters

By Jack Healy and David E. Sanger

Source: The New York Times

July 29, 2010

Shipping officials said Thursday that they were examining the hull of a Japanese oil tanker that was mysteriously damaged this week as it traversed a strategically vital waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. The ship’s owner has said that it may have been attacked.

With the tanker docked in the United Arab Emirates, the owner, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, and port officials puzzled over precisely what had shattered windows on the vessel, knocked off a lifeboat and punched a dent into its hull. The damage was apparently inflicted early Wednesday morning in the Strait of Hormuz, a passageway for shipping much of the world’s oil from the Middle East.

Mitsui officials said that crew members on the ship, the M. Star, had seen a flash and heard an explosion. They also dismissed earlier speculation by officials in Iran and Oman that the damage had been caused by a “freak wave.”

“We have not reached a conclusion, but we still suspect the tanker was hit by a blast,” Masahiko Hibino, a safety official with the shipping line, said at a news conference in Tokyo, according to Agence France-Presse.

The shipping company told reporters it was continuing to investigate, with help from Britain’s Maritime Trade Operations and the United States Navy. This spring, the United States and other countries aided South Korea’s investigation into an explosion that sank one of its warships, with the inquiry ultimately placing blame on a North Korean torpedo.

American military officials were dubious of Mitsui’s contention that the tanker had been attacked, saying that the photographs showed that damage more consistent with a collision of some kind, perhaps with a dock or another ship. But the Mitsui officials reported no collisions.

Most officials dismissed the idea of a collision with a submarine, because no damaged sub is known to have surfaced. American officials reported no collision with United States submarines in the region.

One crew member aboard the Japanese tanker was slightly injured when the ship was damaged, but the ship’s owner said no oil had leaked from the damaged hull. The company said the tanker had loaded up with about two million barrels of crude oil in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday and had been heading for Japan.

The company released photographs on Thursday showing a large, square dent in the black-and-red hull of the tanker and broken railings along its deck, damage that appears unlikely to have been caused by a wave. Photos of the interior show broken ceiling panels and exposed insulation and wiring in one of the dining rooms.

Ted Karasik, a Dubai-based security analyst, said that the leading theory there was that an old mine was adrift and bumped the ship; if it had degraded, it could have simply produced a pressure blast. There are still mines in the region from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Another possibility, he said, was a collision with another ship.

Moosa Murad, general manager of the Port of Fujairah, where the tanker docked on Wednesday, told Reuters that he suspected that the ship had been involved in a collision, perhaps with a submarine or sea mine, but added, “We don’t know what it was.”

It would not be the first collision in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a link between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. In March 2009, a United States Navy nuclear-powered submarine and a Navy warship crashed, damaging both ships and injuring 15 crew members on the submarine. And in January 2007, another Navy submarine collided with a Japanese oil tanker, causing light damage to the Japanese ship.

But Lt. John Fage of the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, said questions were still swirling about what had damaged the M. Star.

“That’s been the question of the day,” he said. “Do we know what caused this? And the answer is no.”

Robert F. Worth and Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting.

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The monument was still under construction in this photo of a pro-government rally at Revolution Square in December 2009.

Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

July 29, 2010

The Iranian hard-line website “Seratnews” says that Tehran’s Revolution Square is nowadays covered with hundreds of Stars of David and that the central square has been “conquered by the Zionist regime.”

The website claims that the “stars” are part of a newly built monument at the square.

“Seratnews” has posted visual aids and photographs of the monument on which it has superimposed a blue outline of one of the “stars” to back its claim.

The website says that the “flashing” of the Star of David on the monument became clear to people as the monument was being completed.

“There is a flower with five petals in the middle of the [monument]. But the flower is surrounded by triangles that are laid next to each other and they’ve created hundreds of Stars of David that have covered the [monument] at Revolution Square!”

The website says it is unclear whether the transgression should be attributed to “ignorance” or “carelessness” on the part of the artist who designed the monument and of officials in charge — or whether it was done “intentionally.”

“Seratnews” adds that as a result a “sinister symbol” is standing in the “strategic heart” of the Iranian capital.

That would be a real embarrassment for a regime that doesn’t recognize Israel and whose leaders — particularly its president — use every opportunity to launch verbal attacks against the Jewish state.

Yet it’s clear that the hard-liners angered by the monument are taking their own artistic license.

We asked a woman in Tehran who had driven around the square recently about the monument. She said she had noticed simply “another ugly work” and hadn’t paid attention to the details. It would be “funny” to have a Star of David in the middle of Tehran, she added.

The “Seratnews” report bears striking resemblance to a report posted on July 25 on a hard-line blog called “Antimosalasizm” that also quoted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as saying: ” Wherever in the world the Zionists want to build a building, they try to somehow make sure the sinister symbol of the Star of David is on it. Their political work is also similar.”

“The Guardian” reported in 2008 that Tehran was “furious” after an advertisement for a peace plan featured the Iranian flag and the Star of David.

– Golnaz Esfandiari

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Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

July 29, 2010

Emadeddin Baghi (file photo)

Iranian journalist and human rights activist Emadeddin Baghi has been sentenced to one year in jail and banned from political activity for five years, RFE/RL’s Radio Farda reports.

The opposition website “Jaras” reports that Baghi was sentenced in Tehran on July 25.

The founder of the Tehran-based Society to Defend Prisoners’ Rights, Baghi had been charged with “acting against [Iran's] national security through the spreading of propaganda against the regime” and “disclosing classified documents about [Iran's] prisons.”

Other charges against him include “visiting political prisoners’ families and providing them with financial and legal help” as well as “having relations with human rights organizations abroad.”

Prosecutors had also accused Baghi of “publishing the names of prisoners,” who they refer to as “counterrevolutionaries and spies.”

Baghi was temporarily released after posting a heavy bail in June following six months in jail. He had spent five of those months in solitary confinement.

Baghi has spent 4 1/2 years in prison in recent years.

He was awarded the Geneva-based Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2009.

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Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

July 29, 2010

ETS, the U.S.-based organization that administers the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and other exams, has said on its website that it is resuming registrations in Iran for its TOEFL and GRE (Graduate Record Examination) tests.

“The brief suspension was the indirect result of tighter UN Security Council restrictions on financial transactions involving Iran, which resulted in ETS’s banking arrangements being discontinued,” the statement says.

“Students wishing to take the tests may register through Iran’s National Organization of Educational Testing, or with credit/debit cards issued by banks that are not prohibited under UN or U.S. sanctions. ETS has permission from the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury to conduct its testing business in Iran.”

The suspension of the testing had angered some Iranians.

Concern remains, however, that ordinary Iranians will be hurt as the result of the UN, U.S. and European Union sanctions imposed against Iran over its sensitive nuclear work.

– Golnaz Esfandiari