Iran Arrests Population Expert Accused of Spy Links

An Iranian fertility expert accused of working with foreign "espionage networks" to downplay the country's population crisis has been arrested, state news agency IRNA confirmed on Sunday. 

It did not give details of the charges, but quoted a lawyer who named the expert as Meimanat Hosseini Chavoshi. 

She is listed by the University of Melbourne as working at its School of Population and Global Health, published widely on Iran's once-lauded fertility and family-planning policies.

On Saturday, hardline newspaper Kayhan reported the arrest of several population "activists... who, under the cover of scientific activities, had infiltrated state bodies.”

It said they manipulated statistics and handed sensitive information to Iran's enemies as part of efforts at "cultural and social invasion".

Iran was once considered an international success story in population control, bringing birth rates down from seven per woman in the 1980s to 1.66 in 2016, according to World Bank figures. 

Then-health minister Alireza Marandi received the United Nations Population Award in 2000 for his family planning initiatives, which had to overcome entrenched taboos in an Islamic society. 

Chavoshi has written extensively about these efforts, which she described as the "fastest fall in fertility ever recorded" in a 2009 book.

But lately there has been concern that Iran overshot its target, with the number of births falling well below the level needed to keep the population growing. 

In 2012, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said it was a mistake to have continued the family planning policies of the 1990s, and called for new measures to double the population to 150 million.

The Kayhan report said Iran's enemies were using population experts to counter these efforts by downplaying the gravity of the situation. 

"There is evidence these individuals are connected to Western espionage networks," Nasrollah Pejmanfar, a member of parliament's cultural commission, told the newspaper. 

Photo Credit: UoM

Iran Arrests 67 in Corruption Crackdown Approved by Khamenei

Iran's judiciary said Sunday that 67 people have been arrested in recent weeks as part of a corruption crackdown approved by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

More than 100 government employees have also been barred from leaving the country, spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeie said, according to the judiciary-linked Mizan news agency.

"Our enemy America has decided to put pressure on people and it intends to put our economy under pressure, but to no avail," Ejeie said.

"There are individuals who try to use this opportunity and hoard basic goods and increase pressure on people by hoarding and smuggling," he added.

On Saturday, Khamenei approved a request from the head of the judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, to set up special revolutionary courts to try people for economic crimes.

"The goal is that the punishment of convicts of economic corruption be carried out urgently and justly," Khamenei wrote in a response published on his website.

Increased pressure from the United States, including its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions, have exacerbated long-standing public anger over mismanagement and corruption in the economy.

A disastrous attempt to fix the falling value of the rial in April added to the anger after the government revealed that politically-connected importers were hoarding the cheap dollars or selling them on the black market.

Earlier this month, the head of the central bank was sacked and his deputy in charge of foreign exchange arrested.

Corruption is deeply entrenched in Iran, where an opaque business environment provides huge opportunities for embezzlement and market manipulation.

With protests and strikes taking on a political edge in many places, pressure has mounted from all sides to take more concerted action against corruption.

Photo Credit: IRNA

Belgium Charges Two for Attack Plot on Iran Opposition in France

Belgium, France and Germany have detained six people, including an Iranian diplomat, over an alleged plot to bomb a weekend rally by an exiled Iranian opposition group in Paris, authorities and sources said Monday.

The apparent foiled attack was to have targeted a meeting of thousands of Iranian opposition supporters in a northern suburb of the French capital that was also attended by leading US figures, including close allies of President Donald Trump.

The developments came on the day Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Switzerland on a visit that Tehran said was of "crucial importance" for cooperation between the Islamic Republic and Europe after the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement.

Rouhani is also due to visit Austria, which currently holds the six-month presidency of the European Union, and hosts the detained Iranian diplomat.

Iran's foreign minister dismissed the attack plot as a "false flag ploy" designed to overshadow Rouhani's tour. 

"How convenient: Just as we embark on a presidential visit to Europe, an alleged Iranian operation and its 'plotters' arrested," Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted .

"Iran unequivocally condemns all violence and terror anywhere, and is ready to work with all concerned to uncover what is a sinister false flag ploy," he said.

Federal authorities in Brussels first revealed the arrests, charging a husband and wife described by prosecutors as Belgian nationals "of Iranian origin".

Amir S., 38, and Nasimeh N., 33, "are suspected of having attempted to carry out a bomb attack" on Saturday in the Paris suburb of Villepinte, during the conference organized by the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a statement from the Belgian federal prosecutor said.

The couple were carrying 500 grams (about one pound) of the volatile explosive TATP along with a detonator  when an elite police squad stopped them in a residential district of Brussels.

The statement said that an Iranian diplomat at the embassy in Vienna, a contact of the couple, was also detained in Germany.

In France, three people were taken into custody Saturday, a security source said on Monday—two of them later released.

In Belgium, police carried out five nationwide raids on Saturday, authorities said, though they refused to detail the results.
   
'Around the Corner' 

The Belgian statement said about 25,000 people attended the rally in France where people waved the red, green and white flag of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and cheered its leader Maryam Rajavi.

The NCRI groups some exiled opposition organizations including the former rebel People's Mujahedin, which is banned in Iran.

At the rally, former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani urged regime change in Iran, saying the prospect was closer than ever after the Islamic Republic was hit by a wave of strikes and protests.

Giuliani called for a boycott of companies "that continually do business with this regime".

"Freedom is right around the corner," he said of the recent protests in Iran.

Giuliani and other US politicians have been hugely paid to speak at the annual Paris rally in recent years. Republican firebrand and former House speaker Newt Gingrich also addressed the rally.

The People's Mujahedin, formed in the 1960s to overthrow the shah of Iran, fought the rise of the mullahs in Tehran following the 1979 Islamic revolution. 

It was listed as a "terrorist organization" by the US State Department in 1997 and was only removed from terror watchlists by the European Union in 2008 and Washington in 2012.

Belgium has been on high alert since the smashing of a terror cell in the town of Verviers in January 2015 that was planning an attack on police.

Photp Credit: EPA

Three More Iranian Environmentalists Arrested: Website

Three environmentalists have been detained in Iran, a conservative-linked news website reported late Friday, the latest in a series of arrests of wildlife campaigners in the Islamic republic.

"Members of the Association for the Protection of Nature in Lavardin were arrested by a security agency. The allegations against them are unknown," Tabnak reported.

It said they were arrested in Bandar Lengheh in the southern Hormuzgan province on the Gulf coast.

It follows the arrest of eight members of the Persian Heritage Wildlife Association, Iran's most prominent nature NGO, in January on espionage charges.

Its founder Kavous Seyed Emami, 63, died in prison around two weeks later. Officials say he committed suicide in his cell, but the family have questioned the verdict and say they were threatened by officials.

The deputy head of the government's Environment Protection Organisation,
renowned water campaigner Kaveh Madani, was also detained briefly this month.

Photo Credit: Wikicommons