Iranian police are using digital tools to identify and punish women who defy the Islamic state’s harsh dress code
Like many women in Iran, Darya is used to feeling under surveillance. Yet in recent months, the 25-year-old finance analyst from northern Tehran says that she never knows who could be watching her every move.
She says she has received messages from the police before warning her of suspected violations of the country’s strict hijab laws, but last November she was sent an SMS message containing her car registration plate that stated the exact time and place that she had been recorded driving without her head properly covered. Next time it happened, the SMS warned, her car would be impounded.
Washington has demanded that Iraq disarm and dismantle Shia resistance factions in the country, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on 21 March.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued the demand to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani during a phone call last Sunday,
The source stressed that “this issue is of special interest to the administration of [US] President Donald Trump.”
Sudani informed the US side that his government is working to address this issue through ongoing dialogue with the armed factions, known collectively as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), the source added.
Washington has demanded that Iraq disarm and dismantle Shia resistance factions in the country, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on 21 March.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued the demand to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani during a phone call last Sunday,
The source stressed that “this issue is of special interest to the administration of [US] President Donald Trump.”
Sudani informed the US side that his government is working to address this issue through ongoing dialogue with the armed factions, known collectively as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), the source added.
The return of Donald Trump to the White House intensifies concerns about whether the United States will further engage in yet another conflict, this time with Iran. On Monday, Trump announced that Iran will be held responsible for attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea, and will suffer “dire” consequences. While Trump has brought his characteristic bombast to the issue, he is far from the only…
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday, March 12 that the US offer to talk with Iran is not credible. He claimed since the Trump administration is neither ready to address Iranian concerns nor willing to lift its illegal unilateral sanctions to prove its seriousness, Iran believes the offer of talk is an attempt to deceive world public opinion and present Iran in a bad light.
He was responding to President Donald Trump’s claims during an interview with Fox Business on March 7 about writing a letter to Iran’s supreme leader offering talks over the nuclear issue.
China, Russia, and Iran released a joint statement on 14 March demanding an end to “unlawful” US sanctions against the Islamic Republic after meetings in Beijing between the three countries, which were aimed at jumpstarting stalled nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington.
The three countries “emphasized the necessity of terminating all unlawful unilateral sanctions” after talks hosted by Beijing on Friday morning, according to the joint statement read out by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaxou.
“The three countries reiterated that political and diplomatic engagement and dialogue based on the principle of mutual respect remains the only viable and practical option in this regard,” read the joint statement.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry revealed on 12 March that Beijing will host high-level talks with Russia and Iran this week for negotiations on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu will chair the tripartite summit scheduled for Friday. Joining him will be Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi to “exchange views on Iran’s nuclear activities and regional security issues,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning stated on Wednesday.
A spokesman from Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the talks in Beijing would focus on “developments related to the nuclear issue and the lifting of sanctions.”
Washington imposed sanctions on 24 February, targeting what it refers to as a “shadowy” fleet made up of companies, individuals, and vessels involved in transporting Iranian oil to circumvent unilateral US sanctions.
“Iran continues to rely on a shadowy network of vessels, shippers, and brokers to facilitate its oil sales and fund its destabilizing activities. The United States will use all our available tools to target all aspects of Iran’s oil supply chain, and anyone who deals in Iranian oil exposes themselves to significant sanctions risk,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement on Monday.
The Donald Trump administration is holding talks between the United States and Russia, and he says he wants to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has even proposed that the US could “partner with the Russians, geopolitically”.
What is happening here? The simple answer is that this is all about China.
Trump is trying to divide Russia from China, in an attempt to isolate Beijing.
The United States sees China as the number one threat to its global dominance. This has been stated clearly by top officials in both the Trump administration and the previous Joe Biden administration.
While a recent interview with the newly confirmed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio began with promising slogans, it quickly unraveled into threats of overt aggression, including outright calls to seize the Panama Canal and annex Greenland from Denmark under an implicit threat of military force.
While the change in presidential administration is purely superficial, the intense urgency it pursues continuity of agenda with is not. It reflects the rapid rise of China, Russian resilience in the face of US proxy war in Ukraine, and an expanding multipolar world overwriting the US-led unipolar world order at ever-increasing speeds.
An investigation has exposed the tech firm’s cooperation with autocratic regimes to remove unfavourable content
Google has cooperated with autocratic regimes around the world, including the Kremlin in Russia and the Chinese Communist party, to facilitate censorship requests, an Observer investigation can reveal.
The technology company has engaged with the administrations of about 150 countries since 2011 that want information scrubbed from their public domains.
A bombshell leak reviewed by The Cradle exposes the depths of Washington’s long-running campaign to destabilize the Islamic Republic.
For years, the US State Department’s Near East Regional Democracy fund (NERD) has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into covert operations aimed at toppling Tehran’s government – without success. Details on where this money goes and who benefits are typically concealed. However, this leak provides a rare glimpse into NERD’s latest regime-change blueprint.
Covert funding for Iran’s opposition
The document in question is a classified US State Department invitation for bids from private contractors and intelligence-linked entities such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID.
Donald Trump is back in the White House, and faux opposition is once again the order of the day for the Western media and the Democratic Party. Whether it comes to criminalizing migrants (FAIR.org, 1/25/25), maintaining US “soft power” via USAID, downplaying anti-democratic power grabs (FAIR.org, 2/4/25) or whitewashing Nazi salutes (FAIR.org, 1/23/25), the centrist establishment seems quite content to normalize Trump or even outflank him from the right.
There is, of course, no area of greater consensus than US imperial grand strategy, from waging genocidal war in Palestine (FAIR.org, 1/30/25) to recolonizing Washington’s “backyard” south of the Rio Grande. Accumulation by laying waste to the societies of the global South via carpet bombing and/or economic siege warfare is, according to anti-imperialist political economist Ali Kadri, the name of the game.
Venezuela is no exception to this multi-pronged onslaught. And the US empire’s “paper of record,” the New York Times, proudly leads the charge, most recently advocating the overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “through coercive diplomacy if possible or force if necessary.”
High on his own (imperial) supply
Bret Stephens (New York Times, 1/14/25): “Ending Maduro’s long reign of terror is a good way to start [the Trump] administration—and send a signal to tyrants elsewhere that American patience with disorder and danger eventually runs out.”
In a column belligerently titled “Depose Maduro,” New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (1/14/25) made an overt case for US military intervention to topple Venezuela’s government. He hailed this textbook crime of aggression as “overdue, morally right and in our national security interest.”
For the Times’ self-described “warmongering neocon,” that last point is characteristically paramount. Specifically, he asserted that US “national security” requires “putting an end to a criminal regime that is a source of drugs, mass migration and Iranian influence in the Americas.”
The irony that during the 1980s, the Central Intelligence Agency actually facilitated the trafficking of cocaine to working-class Black communities in the context of the Iran/Contra scandal (FAIR.org, 12/29/24) was evidently lost on the Times columnist.
Then as today, the principal drug routes to the United States cut across the Pacific rather than the Gulf of Mexico (FAIR.org, 9/24/19). A 2017 DEA report found that less than 10% of US-bound cocaine flowed through Venezuela’s eastern Caribbean corridor, with WOLA reaching a similar conclusion in a 2020 study.
Not only does the bulk of drug trafficking flow through US-allied countries, but the US government itself is broadly complicit in the perpetuation of the multi-billion dollar contraband, as evidenced in its support for narco puppet regimes in Afghanistan (New York Times, 7/27/08) and Honduras (FAIR.org, 3/20/24; Covert Action, 3/14/24).
In marked contrast, the US has levied “narco-terrorism” charges against top Caracas officials, going as far as to place a bounty on Maduro’s head, without providing a shred of evidence, since Western outlets are happy to take US officials’ word, no questions asked (BBC, 1/10/25; New York Times, 1/10/25; Washington Post, 1/10/25; AP, 1/10/25).
Stephens lamented that Washington’s murderous economic sanctions “didn’t work” and that its bounty “also won’t work.” The columnist conveniently ignored that the unilateral coercive measures, described aptly by US officials as “maximum pressure,” were quite effective in deliberately gutting Venezuela’s economy, in the process killing at least tens of thousands, and spurring the migrant exodus he pointed to as justification for his proposed military adventure.
Such omission regarding US responsibility for Venezuelan migration is by now a staple of corporate media coverage (New York Times, 1/31/25; PBS, 1/31/25; CBS, 2/2/25). Indeed, support for Washington’s economic terrorism against Venezuela has been fairly uniform across the US political spectrum for years (FAIR.org, 6/4/20, 6/4/21, 5/2/22, 6/13/22).
Common tactics include describing sanctions as merely affecting Maduro and allies (New York Times, 1/6/25; NPR, 1/10/25; Al Jazeera, 1/6/25; Financial Times, 1/31/25) or portraying their consequences as merely the demonized leader’s opinion (New York Times, 1/31/25; BBC, 1/10/25; Reuters, 1/27/25).
The Iranian bogeyman
Stephens cites a story (Infobae, 1/10/25) about an Iranian “drone development base” in Venezuela that offers as its only source for the claim that “there is information” about such a base.
It is no surprise, either, that in Stephens’ casus belli, Iran appears alongside the familiar conservative tropes of Latin American migrant hordes and narcotics threatening the US (white settler) body politic.
Stephens’ Orientalist fixation with the Iranian bogeyman is notable, if hardly novel. Western media have in recent years circulated baseless rumors of Iran covertly shipping military equipment to Venezuela (FAIR.org, 6/10/20), and the Times in particular has promoted equally evidence-free claims of drug trafficking by Iranian ally Hezbollah (FAIR.org, 5/24/19, 2/4/21).
In the latest whopper, Stephens cited Iran having “reportedly established a ‘drone development base’” at a Venezuelan air base. However, this story comes from rabidly anti-Venezuelan government outlet Infobae (1/10/25), which did not even bother describing its anonymous source. The report only vaguely stated that “there is information” about this purported base.
Regardless of whether there is any truth to the alleged defense cooperation between the two sovereign nations, the perceived threat is, following the late Edward Said, symptomatic of Western imperialism’s enduring obsession with the “loss of Iran” in the wake of the 1979 overthrow of the Shah. Like the Chinese Revolution before it, Iran’s Islamic Revolution is still decades later portrayed as a global civilizational menace.
But the effort to update the “axis of evil” with a revised cast of rogue states from Venezuela to Iran also crucially serves to manufacture consent for military aggression against Tehran, which has long been the ultimate dream of significant segments of the US political class and intelligentsia, including Stephens (FAIR.org, 10/25/24).
On elections and ‘tropical despotisms’
In Stephens’ tropical gunboat diplomacy redux, there was something for everyone, even bleeding-heart “liberals” horrified that Venezuelan President Maduro supposedly “stole the election, terrorizes his opponents and brutalizes his people.”
As always, US imperialist intervention ideologically hinges on denying the Bolivarian government’s democratic credentials, most recently regarding the outcome of the July 28, 2024, presidential vote (Venezuelanalysis, 8/22/24, 7/29/24). However, Washington’s blockade ensured that the elections would never be free and fair. As the main factor driving economic hardship and migration, US sanctions meant Venezuelans headed to the polls with a gun to their heads, not unlike Nicaraguans in 1990.
It is the height of hypocrisy for US officials and their corporate media stenographers to claim the right to arbitrate other sovereign nations’ democratic legitimacy, even as they advance fascism at home and genocidal war across the globe. That sectors of the Western “compatible left” echo Stephens and his ilk, caricaturing the Maduro government as a “corrupt” and “repressive” regime, is unfortunate but not surprising (Ebb, 10/3/24).
The core racial assumption, going back to the 19th century, is that Global South states that refuse to bow to Western imperialist diktat constitute “tropical despotisms” to be toppled in a never-ending “civilizing mission,” with its anti-Communist, “war on terror” and neo-Orientalist mutations.
Demolishing the Death Star
Extra! (1–2/90): “In covering the invasion of Panama, many TV journalists abandoned even the pretense of operating in a neutral, independent mode.”
It is noteworthy that the script for Stephens’ Rambo sequel is over 35 years old: Stephens argued for “US military intervention of the sort that in 1990 swiftly ended the regime of the Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega.” Formerly US-backed narco dictator Noriega was, not incidentally, an ex-CIA agent involved in Iran/Contra (Extra!, 1–2/90; FAIR.org, 12/29/24).
The New York Times warmonger-in-chief’s rendering of the intervention is fantastically selective, forgetting that the Central American nation was already “pre-invaded” by US military bases, and that the savage bombing of the Afro-Panamanian neighborhood of El Chorrillo transformed it into “Little Hiroshima.”
But the sober reality is that Venezuela is not Panama. Venezuela’s Bolivarian Armed Forces, alongside other corps, like the Bolivarian Militia, have spent a quarter of a century preparing for a “prolonged people’s war of resistance” against the US empire at the level of doctrine, organization, equipment and training.
If the US and its Zionist colonial outpost failed to defeat the heroic Palestinian resistance in Gaza after nearly 500 days of genocidal war, an asymmetric conflict with a significantly larger and stronger force, across a territory more than 2,000 times as large, is not likely a serious proposition.
Nonetheless, it is the duty of all those residing in the imperialist core to grind Washington’s industrial-scale death machine to a definitive halt. This paramount strategic objective demands systematically deposing the New York Times’ Goebbelsian propaganda.
This post was originally published on CounterSpin.
“Negotiations with the US are not reasonable, honorable, and intelligent and have no effect on solving the country’s problems, and the reason is what we have experienced in the past,” Khamenei said during a meeting with Air Force personnel in Tehran.
“In the past years, we negotiated with the United States and several countries for about two years, and the Iranian side smiled at it, shook hands with it, was honest with it, and made generous concessions, and a treaty was reached, but the Americans did not act according to the treaty, and the person in power tore it up and did not abide by it,” the Iranian leader added.
President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including more than $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and journalists doing vital work into chaotic uncertainty — including in the Pacific.
In a statement published on its website, RSF has called for international public and private support to commit to the “sustainability of independent media”.
Since the new American president announced the freeze of US foreign aid on January 20, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has been in turmoil — its website is inaccessible, its X account has been suspended, the agency’s headquarters was closed and employees told to stay home.
South African-born American billionaire Elon Musk, an unelected official, whom Trump chose to lead the quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has called USAID a “criminal organisation” and declared: “We’re shutting [it] down.”
Later that day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was named acting director of the agency, suggesting its operations were being moved to the State Department.
Almost immediately after the freeze went into effect, journalistic organisations around the world — including media groups in the Pacific — that receive American aid funding started reaching out to RSF expressing confusion, chaos, and uncertainty.
Large and smaller media NGOs affected
The affected organisations include large international NGOs that support independent media like the International Fund for Public Interest Media and smaller, individual media outlets serving audiences living under repressive conditions in countries like Iran and Russia.
“The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism. The programmes that have been frozen provide vital support to projects that strengthen media, transparency, and democracy,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF USA.
President Donald Trump . . . “The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism,” says RSF. Image: RSF
“President Trump justified this order by charging — without evidence — that a so-called ‘foreign aid industry’ is not aligned with US interests.
“The tragic irony is that this measure will create a vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appealing to the international public and private funders to commit to the sustainability of independent media.”
USAID programmes support independent media in more than 30 countries, but it is difficult to assess the full extent of the harm done to the global media.
Many organisations are hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks.
According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023 the agency funded training and support for 6200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organisations dedicated to strengthening independent media.
The USAID website today . . . All USAID “direct hire” staff were reportedly put “on leave” on 7 February 2025. Image: USAID website screenshot APR
Activities halted overnight
The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support “independent media and the free flow of information”.
All over the world, media outlets and organisations have had to halt some of their activities overnight.
“We have articles scheduled until the end of January, but after that, if we haven’t found solutions, we won’t be able to publish anymore,” explains a journalist from a Belarusian exiled media outlet who wished to remain anonymous.
In Cameroon, the funding freeze forced DataCameroon, a public interest media outlet based in the economic capital Douala, to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election.
An exiled Iranian media outlet that preferred to remain anonymous was forced to suspend collaboration with its staff for three months and slash salaries to a bare minimum to survive.
An exiled Iranian journalist interviewed by RSF warns that the impact of the funding freeze could silence some of the last remaining free voices, creating a vacuum that Iranian state propaganda would inevitably fill.
“Shutting us off will mean that they’ll have more power,” she says.
USAID: the main donor for Ukrainian media In Ukraine, where 9 out of 10 outlets rely on subsidies and USAID is the primary donor, several local media have already announced the suspension of their activities and are searching for alternative solutions.
“At Slidstvo.Info, 80 percent of our budget is affected,” said Anna Babinets, CEO and co-founder of this independent investigative media outlet based in Kyiv.
The risk of this suspension is that it could open the door to other sources of funding that may seek to alter the editorial line and independence of these media.
“Some media might be shut down or bought by businessmen or oligarchs. I think Russian money will enter the market. And government propaganda will, of course, intensify,” Babinets said.
RSF has already witnessed the direct effects of such propaganda — a fabricated video, falsely branded with the organisation’s logo, claimed that RSF welcomed the suspension of USAID funding for Ukrainian media — a stance RSF has never endorsed.
This is not the first instance of such disinformation.
Finding alternatives quickly This situation highlights the financial fragility of the sector.
According to Oleh Dereniuha, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian local media outlet NikVesti, based in Mykolaiv, a city in southeast Ukraine, “The suspension of US funding is just the tip of the iceberg — a key case that illustrates the severity of the situation.”
Since 2024, independent Ukrainian media outlets have found securing financial sustainability nearly impossible due to the decline in donors.
As a result, even minor budget cuts could put these media outlets in a precarious position.
A recent RSF report stressed the need to focus on the economic recovery of the independent Ukrainian media landscape, weakened by the large-scale Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, which RSF’s study estimated to be at least $96 million over three years.
Moreover, beyond the decline in donor support in Ukraine, media outlets are also facing growing threats to their funding and economic models in other countries.
Georgia’s Transparency of Foreign Influence Law — modelled after Russia’s legislation — has put numerous media organisations at risk. The Georgian Prime Minister welcomed the US president’s decision with approval.
This suspension is officially expected to last only 90 days, according to the US government.
However, some, like Katerina Abramova, communications director for leading exiled Russian media outlet Meduza, fear that the reviews of funding contracts could take much longer.
Abramova is anticipating the risk that these funds may be permanently cut off.
“Exiled media are even in a more fragile position than others, as we can’t monetise our audience and the crowdfunding has its limits — especially when donating to Meduza is a crime in Russia,” Abramova stressed.
By abruptly suspending American aid, the United States has made many media outlets and journalists vulnerable, dealing a significant blow to press freedom.
For all the media outlets interviewed by RSF, the priority is to recover and urgently find alternative funding.
How Fijivillage News reported the USAID crackdown by the Trump administration. Image: Fijivillage News screenshot APR
Fiji, Pacific media, aid groups reel shocked by cuts
In Suva, Fiji, as Pacific media groups have been reeling from the shock of the aid cuts, Fijivillage News reports that hundreds of local jobs and assistance to marginalised communities are being impacted because Fiji is an AUSAID hub.
According to an USAID staff member speaking on the condition of anonymity, Trump’s decision has affected hundreds of Fijian jobs due to USAID believing in building local capacity.
The staff member said millions of dollars in grants for strengthening climate resilience, the healthcare system, economic growth, and digital connectivity in rural communities were now on hold.
The staff member also said civil society organisations, especially grantees in rural areas that rely on their aid, were at risk.
Pacific Media Watch and Asia Pacific Report collaborate with Reporters Without Borders.
One of the most stunning events of the past few months has been the fall of Damascus. This fall had initially been expected over a decade ago, when rebel armies funded by Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United States crowded around the edges of Syria and threatened then President Bashar al-Assad’s government. These armies, backed by rich and powerful countries, were comprised of a range of actors, including:
swaths of people who were angered by the economic distress caused by the opening up of the economy and the subsequent devastation of small manufacturing businesses, which were suffering in the face of the emerging might of Turkish manufacturing;
the peasantry in the north, frustrated by the government’s lack of a proper response to the long drought that forced them into the northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib;
sectors of the secular petty bourgeoisie discontent with the failure of the Damascus Spring of 2000–01, which had initially promised political reforms stemming from the muntadayāt (forum discussions) held across the country;
a deeply aggrieved Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, formed out of the pious petty bourgeoisie, which had been crushed in 1982 and re-emerged after being inspired by the role the Brotherhood played in the 2010–11 protests in Tunisia and Egypt;
eager Islamist forces that had been trained by al-Qaeda in Iraq and wanted to fly the black flag of jihadism from the highest parapets in Damascus.
Despite the failure of these factions of the Syrian opposition in 2011, it was many of these same forces that succeeded in overthrowing Assad’s government on 7 December 2024.
Just over a decade ago, Assad’s government remained in power largely because of support from Iran and Russia, but also because of the involvement – to a lesser extent – of neighbouring Iraq and Hezbollah (Lebanon). Assad did not have the stomach for the contest. He became president in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who took office through a military coup in 1971. Bashar al-Assad had a privileged upbringing and studied to be an ophthalmologist in the United Kingdom. When the rebel armies neared Damascus in December of this year, Assad fled to Moscow with his family, claiming that he wanted to retire from politics and resume his career as an ophthalmologist. He did not make a statement to his people telling them to be brave or that his forces would fight another day. There were no comforting words. He left quietly in the same way he appeared, his country abandoned. A few days later, on Telegram, al-Assad released a text but was timid.
Hakim al-Akel (Yemen), The Symbolic History of Arab Joy (Arabia Felix), 1994.
After being defeated by Syrian, Iranian, and Russian forces in 2014, the Syrian rebels regrouped in the city of Idlib, not far from Turkey’s border with Syria. That is where the main opposition force broke with al-Qaeda in 2016, took over the local councils, and shaped itself as the only leader of the anti-Assad campaign. This group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Organisation for the Liberation of the Levant, or HTS), is now in charge in Damascus.
Originating directly from al-Qaeda in Iraq, HTS has not been able to shed those roots and remains a deeply sectarian body with ambitions to eventually turn Syria into a caliphate. Since his time in Iraq and northern Syria, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani developed a reputation of great brutality toward the large number of minority groups in Syria (specifically Alawites, Armenians, Kurds, Shi’ites), who he regarded as apostates. Al-Jolani is well-aware of his reputation, but he has remarkably altered the way he presents himself. He has shed the trappings of his al-Qaeda days; he trimmed his beard, dresses in a nondescript khaki uniform, and learned to talk to the media in measured tones. In an exclusive interview with CNN released just as his forces took Damascus, al-Jolani recalled past murderous acts committed in his name merely as youthful indiscretions. It was as if he had been trained by a public relations company. No longer the al-Qaeda madman, al-Jolani is now being presented as a Syrian democrat.
On 12 December, I spoke to two friends from minority communities in different parts of Syria. Both said that they fear for their lives. They understand that though there will be a period of jubilation and calm, they will eventually face severe attacks and have already begun hearing reports of small-scale attacks against Alawites and Shia families in their network. Another friend reminded me that there was calm in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003; several weeks later, the insurgency began. Could such an insurgency of former government forces take place in Syria after they have recomposed from their state’s hasty fall? It is impossible to know what the social fabric of the new Syria will be like given the character of the people who have taken power. This will be especially true if even a fraction of those seven million Syrians who were displaced during the war return home and seek revenge for what they will surely see as the mistreatment that forced them overseas. No war of this kind ends with peace. There are many scores yet to settle.
Safwan Dahoul (Syria), Dream 92, 2014.
Without detracting attention from the Syrian people and their well-being, we must also understand what this change of government means for the region and the world. Let us take the implications sequentially, starting with Israel and ending with the Sahel region in Africa.
Israel. Taking advantage of the decade-long civil war in Syria, Israel has bombed Syrian military bases on a regular basis to degrade both the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies (notably, Iran and Hezbollah). Over the past year, during its escalation of the genocide against Palestinians, Israel has also increased its bombing of any military facility it believes is being used to resupply Iran and Hezbollah. Israel then invaded Lebanon to weaken Hezbollah, which it achieved by assassinating Hezbollah’s long-time leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and by invading southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah was rooted. As if coordinated, Israel provided air support to HTS as it moved out of Idlib, bombing Syrian military facilities and army posts to demoralise the SAA. When HTS took Damascus, Israel strengthened its Division 210 in the Occupied Golan Heights (seized in 1973) and then invaded the United Nations buffer zone (set up in 1974). Israeli tanks proceeded outside the buffer zone and came very close to Damascus. HTS did not contest this occupation of Syria at any point.
Turkey. The Turkish government provided military and political support to the 2011 rebellion from its inception and hosted the exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood government in Istanbul. In 2020, when the SAA moved against the rebels in Idlib, Turkey invaded Syria to force an agreement that the city would not be harmed. Turkey also enabled the military training of most of the fighters who proceeded down highway M5 to Damascus and provided military equipment to the armies to battle the Kurds in the north and the SAA in the south. It was through Turkey that various Central Asian Islamists joined the HTS fight, including Uyghurs from China. When Turkey invaded Syria twice over the past decade, it held Syrian territory that it claimed was its historical land. This territory will not return to Syria under the HTS government.
Fateh al-Moudarres (Syria), Child of Palestine, 1981.
Lebanon and Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003, Iran built a land bridge to supply its allies in both Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Syria. With the change of government in Syria, resupplying Hezbollah will become difficult. Both Lebanon and Iraq will now border a country ruled by a former al-Qaeda affiliate. While it is not immediately clear what this means for the region, it is likely that there will be an emboldened al-Qaeda presence that wants to undermine the role of the Shia in these countries.
Palestine. The implications for the genocide in Palestine and for the struggle for Palestinian liberation are extraordinary. Given Israel’s role in undermining Assad’s military on behalf of HTS, it is unlikely that al-Jolani will contest Israel’s occupation of Palestine or allow Iran to resupply Hezbollah or Hamas. Despite his name, which comes from the Golan, it is inconceivable that al-Jolani will fight to regain the Golan Heights for Syria. Israel’s ‘buffers’ in Lebanon and Syria add to the regional complacency with its actions achieved by events such as its peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994). No neighbour of Israel will pose a threat to it at this time. The Palestinian struggle is already experiencing great isolation from these developments. Resistance will continue, but there will be no neighbour to provide access to the means for resistance.
The Sahel. Since the United States and Israel are basically one country when it comes to geopolitics, Israel’s victory is a victory for the United States. The change of government in Syria has not only weakened Iran in the short term but has also weakened Russia (a long-term strategic goal of the United States), which previously used Syrian airports to refuel its supply planes en route to various African countries. It is no longer possible for Russia to use these bases, and it remains unclear where Russian military aircraft will be able to refuel for journeys into the region, notably to countries in the Sahel. This will provide the United States with an opportunity to push the countries that border the Sahel, such as Nigeria and Benin, to launch operations against the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. This will require a close watch.
Djamila Bent Mohamed (Algeria), Palestine, 1974.
In July 1958, several poets organised a festival in Akka (occupied Palestine ’48). One of the participating poets, David Semah, wrote ‘Akhi Tawfiq’ (My Brother Tawfiq), dedicated to the Palestinian communist poet Tawfiq Zayyad who was in an Israeli prison at the time of the festival. Semah’s poem grounds us in the sensibility that is so sorely needed in our times:
If they sow skulls in its dirt
Our harvest will be hope and light.
President Donald Trump issued a threat for Iran to be “obliterated” this week as his administration imposed sanctions on Iranian oil-affiliated groups and individuals as part of his supposed campaign of “maximum pressure” on the country. Trump told reporters on Tuesday that, if he were assassinated by Iran, he has instructed his administration to attack the country.
A new report into the state of disabled people’s rights in Iran has recently been released. It paints a torrid picture of the lives of millions of people in the country. However, while Iran has got a long way to go before its disabled citizens even begin to have any form of equal rights – is life in the UK for disabled people any better?
Despite the government’s legislative commitments, such as the 2004 Law for Persons with Disabilities and its accession to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the reality for many disabled Iranians remains fraught with barriers and systemic neglect.
The report highlights the continued rise in disability rights protests, driven by rampant inflation and inadequate support services.
Drawing from firsthand accounts, media reports, and social media analysis, VA’s research uncovers the severe social isolation, economic hardship, and abuse experienced by disabled individuals in Iran. The report also shows how the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement has inspired disabled activists to persist in their demonstrations despite government crackdowns.
The report found:
Prevalence of Disability: Official data places disability prevalence in Iran at 115 per 1,000 people (approximately 11.5%), though other sources argue this figure underrepresents the reality, particularly since the state welfare database lists just 1.6 million disabled individuals out of a population of 85 million.
Economic Challenges: An estimated 60% of disabled Iranians are unemployed, with many living well below the poverty line. The government stipend, ostensibly tied to the minimum wage, remains grossly insufficient at around 1 million tomans ($15) per month.
Education Barriers: Out of 1.5 million school-aged children with disabilities, only 150,000 were enrolled in school during the 2018-2019 year. Most were in segregated settings.
Healthcare Access: Iranians with disabilities face severe healthcare shortages. For example, only two mammogram machines are available for visually impaired women in Tehran, and medication shortages for conditions like thalassemia and hemophilia have led to thousands of deaths.
The lived reality
More broadly:
Due to a lack of adaptations in public infrastructure and insufficient aid at home, many disabled Iranians experience social isolation.
The lack of government support often leaves family members of disabled individuals overstretched.
There have been various instances of (deadly) abuse in government homes for disabled people, and disabled Iranians sometimes also face verbal or physical abuse from family members.
Due to their often difficult life circumstances, many disabled Iranians experience trauma and psychological stress. However, specialised help is rarely available or is only accessible to the wealthy.
Families of children with rare conditions, like epidermolysis bullosa, have been forced to seek asylum abroad due to the unavailability of critical treatments.
The report integrates personal stories that highlight the daily struggles of disabled Iranians.
Kamran Doplurei, a wheelchair user, undertook a 115-kilometer journey to protest inadequate government support. He lamented that “we face not only physical pain but also anxiety over meeting our basic needs, especially with soaring inflation”:
No one chooses to be disabled… Although the law provides for various rights and services, in practice, less than five percent of these commitments are fulfilled.
Meanwhile, Samaneh Shabani, a blind activist, described the heightened challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic, noting how deserted streets disrupted her navigation and left her feeling isolated. The report noted:
This combination of factors not only complicated safe navigation but also increased anxiety during an already challenging time. In addition to highlighting barriers faced by blind individuals, Shabani raised awareness of obstacles affecting all disabled people, as well as domestic violence against disabled women.
So, on the face of it seems that life for disabled people in Iran is in no way comparable with that for disabled people in the Global North.
However, is that really the case?
The UNCRPD
For example, the UNCRPD has criticised both Iran and the UK, though the nature of the violations differs.
Iran’s violations include, for example, non-Implementation of Laws. While Iran has enacted the Comprehensive Law on the Protection of Persons with Disabilities, only 5% of its provisions are realised in practice. Key policies like Article 27, which guarantees a stipend matching the minimum wage, are largely ignored. There is also systemic stigma towards disabled people in Iranian society. Conservative and religious beliefs perpetuate the notion that disabilities are a form of divine punishment, leading to widespread discrimination.
Iran’s government demonstrates a pattern of tokenism, as seen in its announcement of job quotas and housing programs that fail to account for logistical barriers faced by disabled citizens. Protests by the disabled community, like those demanding the implementation of Article 27, are often met with police suppression, with activists like Behrouz Morvati being detained.
Moreover, government responses such as the Seventh Development Plan have slashed social support provisions, further alienating disabled Iranians. The report’s evidence of abuse in state-run care homes underscores the lack of accountability and oversight.
The UK is not any better – relatively speaking
However, in the UK the UNCRPD made similar and damning criticisms of successive British governments.
Overall, in 2016 the UN accused the UK of “grave and systematic violations” following austerity measures that cut disability benefits and support services. Disabled people in the UK have reported increased poverty, social exclusion, and worsening mental health. Specifically, the UNCRPD lamented that UK social security was not enough for disabled people to live on. Crucially, the chair of the UNCRPD also highlighted that, as the Canary previously reported:
the UK government and the media “have some responsibility” for society seeing disabled people as “parasites, living on social benefits… and [living on] the taxes of other people”. And she said these “very, very dangerous” attitudes could “lead to violence… and if not, to killings and euthanasia”
The point being, while disabled people in Iran are systemically marginalised in a way that their peers in the UK may not experience, the situation is relative. Iran is in the Global South. The UK is supposed to be a world leader in disabled people’s rights – yet the UNCRPD shamed it.
Comparatively, therefore, for countries in the Global North to take the moral high ground over disabled people’s rights in Iran without addressing the persecution and discrimination on their doorsteps reeks of colonialism and white supremacy.
A way forward for disabled people in Iran?
To address the challenges for disabled people in Iran, the report suggests:
Domestic Reforms: Strengthening accountability mechanisms for law enforcement and enhancing disability rights in development plans.
International Support: Leveraging international alliances to pressure Iran into compliance with the UNCRPD.
Activist Collaboration: Encouraging grassroots advocacy and improving organisational structures.
VA calls on the international community to enhance their support for disability rights activists in Iran. By fostering stronger connections between foreign and Iranian disability rights organisations and prioritising socio-economic rights, global donors can help amplify the voices of disabled individuals and advance their rights.
While both Iran and the UK face criticism for their treatment of disabled citizens, the systemic issues in Iran – rooted in cultural stigma, economic neglect, and political repression – present more severe barriers to equality.
To ensure progress, the Iranian government must move beyond superficial measures and address the structural inequities that perpetuate marginalisation. The voices of activists and international advocacy remain critical in achieving this transformation.
Both Egypt and Jordan have stated that this is a non-starter and will not happen.
Israeli extremists have welcomed Trump’s comments with the hope that the forced expulsion of Palestinians would pave the way for Jewish settlements in Gaza.
But the truth is that Israeli leaders likely feel deceived by Trump more than anything else. Benjamin Netanyahu and most of Israeli society were once clamouring for Donald Trump.
Since then, Israeli leaders and Israeli society, are seemingly taken aback by Trump’s more restrained approach toward the Middle East and desire for a ceasefire.
While the current ceasefire in place is a precarious endeavour at best, Israeli reactions to the cessation of hostilities highlight a profound point: not only did Netanyahu misread Trump’s intentions, but the entire Israeli political system itself seemingly only thrives during conflict in which the US provides it with unfettered military and diplomatic support.
Geostrategic calculus
Firstly, Israel believed that Trump’s second term would likely be a continuation of his first — where the US based its geostrategic calculus in the Middle East around Israel’s interests. This gave Israeli leaders the impression that Trump would give them the green light to attack Iran, resettle and starve Gaza, and formally annex the West Bank.
Trump blessing an Israel-Iran showdown seems to be off the table. Trump himself stated this and is backing up his words by appointing Washington-based analyst Mike DiMino as a top Department of Defence advisor.
The Trump effect As it pertains to his vision for the Middle East, Trump has been adamant about expanding the Abraham Accords, deepening US military ties with Saudi Arabia, and possibly pioneering Saudi-Israeli “normalisation”.
While there is an explicit pro-Israel angle to all these components, none of Trump’s objectives for the Middle East would be feasible if the genocide in Gaza continued or if the US allowed Israel to formally annex the occupied West Bank, something Trump stopped during his first term.
Witkoff’s willingness to meet with PA, along with the quiet yet growing relationship between Trump and Abbas, was likely something Netanyahu did not anticipate and may have also factored into Netanyahu’s acquiescence in Gaza.
Of equal importance, the Gaza ceasefire deal proves that Israeli politics can only survive if it’s engaged in perpetual war.
Brutal occupation
This is evidenced by its brutal occupation of the Palestinians, destroying Gaza, and attacking its neighbours in Syria and Lebanon. Now that Israel is forced to stop its genocide in Gaza, at least for the time being, fissures within the Israeli government are already growing.
Such dynamics within the Israeli government and its necessity for conflict are only possible because the US allows it to happen.
In providing Israel with unfettered military and diplomatic support, the US allows Israel to torment the Palestinian people. Now that Israel cannot punish Gaza, it has shifted their focus to the West Bank.
Since the ceasefire’s implementation, the Israeli army has engaged in deadly raids in the Jenin refugee camp which had displaced over 2000 Palestinians. The Israeli army has also imposed a complete siege on the West Bank, shutting down checkpoints to severely restrict the movement of Palestinians.
All of Israel’s genocidal practices are a direct result of the impunity granted to them by the Biden administration; who willingly refused to impose any consequences for Israel’s blatant violation of US law.
Joe Biden could have enforced either the Leahy Law or Section 620 I of the Foreign Assistance Act at any time, which would ban weapons from flowing to Israel due to their impediment of humanitarian aid into Gaza and use of US weapons to facilitate grave human rights abuses in Gaza.
Instead, he chose to undermine US laws to ensure that Israel had everything it facilitate their mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
The United States has always held all the cards when it comes to Israel’s hawkish political composition. Israel was simply the executioner of the US’s devastating policies towards Gaza and the broader Palestinian national movement.
Abdelhalim Abdelrahman is a freelance Palestinian journalist. His work has appeared in The New Arab, The Hill, MSN, and La Razon. Tis article was first published by The New Arab and is republished under Creative Commons.
Timing is everything in geopolitics. This past Friday in Moscow, only three days before the inauguration of US President Donald Trump in Washington, top BRICS member leaders Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement, detailed in 47 articles, twice as many as in the recent Russian–North Korean deal.
This strategic partnership is now set in stone just as the – unpayable – humongous debt of the US government reaches an unprecedented $36.1 trillion, equivalent to $106.4k per American, and just as the US share of the global economy falls below 15 percent for the first time, based on World Bank/IMF figures.
Historic examples in countries such as Portugal and Greece show how military defeats can catalyze democratic transitions by exposing the incompetence of authoritarian regimes. After the recent change in Syria, I thought that this piece with its focus on HRDs deserves wider attention:
The Stimson Center published this anonymously on January 9, 2025 as the author is a Tehran-based analyst who has requested anonymity out of legitimate concern. The writer is known to appropriate staff, has a track record of reliable analysis, and is in a position to provide an otherwise unavailable perspective.
While the world focuses on regional turmoil, Iran is undergoing significant transformation domestically, albeit at a slow pace.
At the heart of this evolution is a surprisingly robust society-based reform movement that is actively challenging the existing power structure, leading to a noticeable weakening of the regime. This emerging dynamic holds the potential to produce a system more representative of wishes of the Iranian population than the theocracy/flawed democracy in place for the past 46 years.
Fundamental reform of the existing constitution, along with empowering civil society, can lead to more democracy provided that Iranians do not get caught up in radical movements and wars. The implications of such changes could extend beyond Iran’s borders to neighboring Arab states. Historian Robert D. Kaplan has argued that Iran serves as the Middle East’s geopolitical pivot point, and that nothing could change the region as profoundly as the emergence of a more liberal regime in Iran.
Iranian people have paid a high price in pursuit of democracy. One metric is the number of political prisoners. While it is difficult to give an accurate estimate, human rights organizations have estimated that hundreds of Iranians are being held on vague national security charges and denied due process. Conditions in Iranian prisons are abysmal, with reports of poor healthcare, abuse, and medical neglect. High-profile cases have drawn international condemnation, but the government shows little willingness to address these systematic abuses. The continued detention and mistreatment of political prisoners remains a major concern, reflecting the Islamic Republic’s intolerance of dissent and disregard for fundamental civil liberties.
Yet despite the repression, protests continue and at an accelerated pace. They include the “Bloody November” 2019 protests sparked by fuel price increases, the popular reaction to the U.S. assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 and the accidental Iranian downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane that followed, and the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement of 2022 against enforced veiling These developments, coupled with recent military defeats of Iran and its non-state partners, have dampened the Islamic Republic’s regional power while undercutting its domestic legitimacy, which had rested on electoral and ideological pillars.
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the devastating Israel response, the region has witnessed repeated and dramatic setbacks for Iran and its partners in Gaza, Lebanon and most recently in Syria. Historic examples in countries such as Portugal and Greece show how military defeats can catalyze democratic transitions by exposing the incompetence of authoritarian regimes. In Iran, the ongoing erosion of both electoral and ideological legitimacy may compel the regime to seek a more democratic approach to governance.
The path toward society-based reform in Iran is centered on strengthening civil society. Other strategies – such as seeking change through foreign intervention as advocated by some in the diaspora – would not produce a better outcome.
The society-based reform movement in Iran encompasses various grassroots efforts aimed at addressing social, political, and economic issues. Reformists emphasize grassroots engagement and building connections with the public. Key aspects include empowering local communities, promoting decentralized decision-making, rebuilding trust between citizens and political entities, and encouraging participatory decision-making. The movement prioritizes social issues and adopts a long-term vision for sustainable development.
The challenges to change remain significant. The regime continues to arrest and otherwise repress activists and economic constraints limit participation. Many Iranians are disillusioned and society is fragmented by cultural barriers. Despite these obstacles, society-based reform aims to facilitate meaningful change by leveraging the strengths and voices of local communities.
The reform movement in Iran has deep historical roots, predating the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911, which created the first elected parliament in the Middle East. The oil nationalization movement in the early 1950s was another significant turning point, leading to widespread social mobilization and civil society involvement, including the emergence of political organizations, intellectual activism, popular protests, and women’s participation. While then Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh is often credited with initiating nationalization, his true achievement lay in strengthening civil society, establishing an independent Bar Association, labor unions, and implementing reforms that favored peasants and small businesses.
Mossadegh was deposed in 1953 in a CIA-led coup which restored the monarchy and led to severe repression of civil society. The Shah’s regime viewed civil society organizations as threats, leading to political repression, media censorship, and the targeting of student and labor movements. This suppression dismantled the civil society infrastructure, contributing to widespread discontent and ultimately the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
The theocracy ushered in a new era of repression but that eased following the election of reformist President Mohammad Khatami in 1997. Iran’s reform movement split at the time into two factions: society-centered intellectuals and a power-centered left within the regime. Differences in approach emerged during 2001 presidential elections as well as the 2009 Green Movement against the fraud-tainted re-election of then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Since the 2022 protests, however, reformists who once favored participating in elections and government have shifted toward embracing society-based efforts. Azar Mansouri of the Iran Reform Front noted this change, emphasizing the need for unity among reformists and the importance of community-centered reforms given government-imposed limits on reformist participation in officially sanctioned politics. Former president Khatami and theorist Mahmoud Mir-Lohi have also highlighted that the movement is transitioning from an “election-centered” to a “society-centered” focus, aiming to reconnect with citizens and address societal needs.
This movement is characterized by a range of actors who include those working on:
Human Rights. Numerous organizations and activists, some with external links,are dedicated to promoting freedom of speech, press freedom, and the rights of minorities and marginalized groups as well as opposing arbitrary detention, torture, and the death penalty. The groups include HRANA, the Center for Human Rights in Iran and Defenders of Human Rights in Iran.
Women’s Rights. Women’s rights activists are at the forefront of the reform movement, challenging discriminatory laws and advocating for gender equality. Activists such as Nasrin Sotoudeh, Narges Mohammadi, Parvin Ardalan and Sepideh Gholian promote the right of women to choose whether to wear the hijab and have garnered significant attention and support both domestically and internationally. These activists have paid a high price for their beliefs and many are in prison serving long terms although Mohammadi, a 2023 Nobel peace prize laureate, was recently allowed home for a brief period after undergoing medical treatment.
Student Activism. Iranian students have a long history of political activism, often taking a leading role in protests and reform movements. Student organizations suchas the Independent Student Union advocate for educational reform, political freedom, and social justice.
Labor Movements. Workers’ rights groups have organized to demand better working conditions, fair wages, and labor protections. During the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom movement, 14 unions formed a coalition to push for new labor laws as part of a broader reform agenda. The Haft-Tappeh Sugar Cane Company union succeeded in ousting the director of the company, returning laid-off workers and encouraging formation of more independent unions.
Environmental Activism. Civil society groups are increasingly focused on environmental issues, advocating for sustainable development and government accountability regarding natural resource management and combating water scarcity and pollution.
Social Media and Digital Activism. Social media has empowered activists to organize, share information, and mobilize more effectively despite government attempts to suppress or filter access to the internet.
Various other initiatives promote civic awareness and participation. One such entity, www.karzar.net has initiated hundreds of big and small campaigns on a wide range of issues, most recently opposing a new law meant to enforce veiling. In reaction to widespread public rejection of the law, the government of President Masoud Pezeshkian paused its implementation in December.
Despite facing significant challenges, the society-based reform movement remains a vital factor in Iran’s political landscape. The example set by the fall of the repressive Assad regime in Syria may embolden the Iranian public to demand reforms and increase international pressure on Iran to embrace democratic changes.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s coalition government has introduced a bill to criminalise “improper conduct for or on behalf of a foreign power” or foreign interference that echoes earlier Cold War times, and could capture critics of New Zealand’s foreign and defence policy, especially if they liaise with a “foreign country”.
It is a threat to our democracy and here is why.
Two new offences are:
Offence 78AAA — a person thus charged must include all three of the following key elements — they:
know, or ought to know, they are acting for a foreign state, and
act in a covert, deceptive, coercive, or corruptive manner, and
intend to, or are aware that they are likely to, harm New Zealand interests specified in the offence through their actions OR are reckless as to whether their conduct harms New Zealand’s interests.
Offence 78AAB – a person thus charged must commit:
any imprisonable offence intending to OR being reckless as to whether doing so is likely to provide a relevant benefit to a foreign power.
New Zealand’s “interests” include its democratic processes, its economy, rights provisions, as well as its defence and security. A “Foreign Power” ranges from a foreign government to an association supporting a political party; “relevant benefit to a foreign power” includes advancing “the coercive influence of a foreign power over persons in or outside New Zealand”.
New Zealand’s “interests” include its democratic processes, its economy, rights provisions, as well as its defence and security. A “Foreign Power” ranges from a foreign government to an association supporting a political party; “relevant benefit to a foreign power” includes advancing “the coercive influence of a foreign power over persons in or outside New Zealand”.
The bill also extends laws on publication of classified information, changes “official” information to “relevant” information, increases powers of unwarranted searches by authorities, and allows charging of people outside of New Zealand who “owe allegiance to the Sovereign in right of New Zealand” and aid and abet a non-New Zealander to carry out a “relevant act” of espionage, treason and inciting to mutiny even if the act is not in fact carried out.
Why this legislation is dangerous 1. Much of the language is vague and the terms subjective. How should we establish what an individual ‘ought to have known’ or whether he or she is being “reckless”? It is entirely possible to be a loyal New Zealand and hold a different view to that of the government of the day about “New Zealand’s interests” and “security”.
This proposed legislation is potentially highly undemocratic and a threat to free speech and freedom of association. Ironically the legislation is a close copy of similar legislation passed in Australia in 2018 and it reflects the messaging about “foreign interference” promoted by our Five Eyes partners.
How should we distinguish “foreign interference” from the multitude of ways in which other states seek to influence our trade, aid, foreign affairs and defence policies? It is not plausible that the motivation behind this legislation is to limit Western pressure on New Zealand to water down its nuclear free policy.
Or to ensure that its defence forces are interoperable with those of its allies and to be part of military exercises in the South China Sea. Or to host spyware tools on behalf of the United States. Or to sign trade agreements that favour US based corporates.
The government openly supports these activities, so it seems that the legislation is aimed at foreign interference from current geostrategic “enemies”. Which ones? China, Russia, Iran?
The introduction of a bill to criminalise foreign interference has echoes of earlier Cold War times as it has the potential to criminalise members of friendship organisations that seek to improve understanding and cooperation with people in countries such as China, Russia or North Korea.
It is entirely possible that their efforts could be seen as engaging in conduct “for or on behalf of” a foreign power.
There is also real concern is that this legislation could capture critics of New Zealand’s foreign and defence policy, especially if they liaise with a “foreign country”. There is a global movement of resistance to economic sanctions on Cuba and other countries including Venezuela, and North Korea.
Supporters are likely to liaise with representatives of those countries, and perhaps circulate their material. Could that be considered harming New Zealand’s interests? The inclusion of such vague wording (Clause 78AAB) as “enhancing the influence” of a foreign power is chilling in its potential to silence open debate, and especially dissent or protest.
The legislation is unnecessary Existing law already criminalises espionage which intentionally prejudices the security or defence of New Zealand. There are also laws to cover pressurising others by blackmail, corruption, and threats of violence or threats of harm to people and property.
It is true that diaspora critics of authoritarian regimes come under pressure from their home governments. Such governments seek to silence their critics who are outside their jurisdiction by threatening harm to their families still living in the home country.
But it is not clear how New Zealand law could prevent this as it cannot protect people who are not within its jurisdiction. This is something which diaspora citizens and overseas students studying here must be acutely conscious of. This issue is one for diplomacy and negotiation rather than law.
A threat to democracy The terms sedition and subversion have gone into disuse and are no longer part of our law.
They were used in the past to criminalise some and ensure that others were subject to intrusive surveillance.
In essence both terms justified State actions against dissidents or those who held an alternative vision of how society should be ordered. In Cold War times the State was particularly exercised with those who championed communist ideas, took an interest in the Soviet Union or China or associated with Communists.
Those who associated with Soviet diplomats or attended functions at the Soviet Embassy would often be subject to SIS surveillance.
Outgoing CIA director William Burns stated in an interview on 10 January that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, following a decision it made in 2003, and that the US is concerned about the revival of ISIS.
In an interview with state broadcaster National Public Radio (NPR) to discuss his time as director of the notorious spy agency under President Joe Biden, Burns was asked whether Iran may accelerate its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons given the setbacks the Islamic Republic and its allies in the regional Axis of Resistance have sustained over the past year.
Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump adopted an aggressive Iran policy in his first term. He withdrew from the Obama administration’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), adopted harsh sanctions on the country, and assassinated Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani.
Should we expect more of the same this time around? Does he actually want a deal with the country? Who might end up pushing him on the issue behind the scenes? Is there any reason to take his non-interventionist seriously or does neocon ideology still prevail within the Republican party? Is the Iranian government actually vulnerable right now? What role does Israel play in all of this?
Washington D.C., January 8, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by reports that Islamic Republic of Iran authorities arrested Iranian journalist Mohammad-Hossein (Mehrdad) Aladin in the capital, Tehran, and have since detained him in Evin prison, according to newsreports.
“Iranian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release journalist Mehrdad Aladin and cease the practice of arbitrarily jailing members of the press,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Journalists must be able to work without fear of retaliation.”
Aladin, a reporter, photojournalist, and a documentary filmmaker for the Didban Iran news website, was immediately arrested Janurary 7 after appearing at the preliminary court known as Shahi Moghadas, which is based inside Evin prison. Aladin was summoned earlier in the week to be interviewed before the court, according to reports.
Authorities have yet to publicly announce any charges against Aladin.
CPJ was also unable to confirm whether the journalist had been charged.
Aladin covers social and environmental issues. Aladin’s brother Koroush Aladin is a U.S. based journalist who reports for Voice of America Persian service.
CPJ emailed the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York requesting comment on the arrest of Aladin but did not receive a response.
In recent months, even across the collective West’s media, growing admissions are being made about both Russia and China’s superior military industrial capacity. With Russia’s first use of the intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, it is admitted that Russia (and likely China) possess formidable military capabilities the collective West currently lacks.
Despite the collective efforts of NATO in arming, training, and backing Ukraine, Ukrainian forces continue to give ground at an accelerated rate across the entire line of contact amid the ongoing Russian Special Military Operation (SMO).
New York, December 28 2024—CPJ is deeply concerned by the arrest of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala in Iran.
Italy’s foreign ministry said Sala was arrested on December 19 and was being held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, although news of her arrest was only made public on December 27.
“Iran has a long and ignominious history of detaining journalists — both local and foreign — for reporting the realities of life in the country. We urge authorities to release Cecilia Sala immediately,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
Iran — the world’s sixth-worst jailer of journalists in CPJ’s last annual prison census, with 17 imprisoned journalists as of December 1, 2023 — has not yet commented publicly on the arrest.
Houmam al-Sayed (Syria), Namle, 2012.
Hakim al-Akel (Yemen), The Symbolic History of Arab Joy (Arabia Felix), 1994.
Safwan Dahoul (Syria), Dream 92, 2014.
Fateh al-Moudarres (Syria), Child of Palestine, 1981.
Djamila Bent Mohamed (Algeria), Palestine, 1974.