Russians have been telling RFE/RL about their experiences with the new Sputnik-V COVID-19 vaccine after the country began a mass vaccination program. President Vladimir Putin said on December 2 that 2 million doses of the Russian-made vaccine would be made available within days. A total of 150,000 people were vaccinated by December 25. According to a new poll, only about one-third of Russians are willing to be vaccinated.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The Russian couple who played a major role in exposing the nation’s sports doping scandal said in an interview published on December 27 that they no longer consider Russia their home and have no plans to return to the country.
Vitaly and Yulia Stepanov live in the United States in an undisclosed location with their 7-year-old son and are waiting for an interview as part of their application for asylum, they told the German news agency dpa.
Russia, Vitaly Stepanov said, “is a place where we were born. We have no plans to go back to Russia.”
The couple fled Russia in 2014, initially landing in Germany, days before the screening of a documentary in which they detailed Russia’s state-sponsored doping program.
Stepanov said the family applied for asylum in the United States in 2016 and have been living a typical middle-class American life.
“Nobody really knows who we are,” he said in the telephone interview. “We don’t have many friends, but we do have friends that we appreciate and we are proud that they are part of our life.”
And he said he has no regrets about doing what they did six years ago.
“The truth came out and the relevant organizations were forced to deal with it. We are glad,” he said, “and in general I believe the anti-doping movement is stronger.”
The doping was exposed after Yulia Stepanova, a former top runner on Russia’s national team, made secret recordings of coaches and athletes. A German television documentary reported it largely based on the Stepanovs’ evidence.
Grigory Rodchenkov speaks at a meeting with U.S. senators in March 2018
That prompted a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigation aided by another whistle-blower — the former head of Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov — that exposed state-sponsored doping practices and cover-ups in the country and at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
The result was a ban on Russia’s track-and-field team from the 2016 Olympics.
Earlier this month, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld doping sanctions that will prevent Russian athletes from competing at major sporting events under the country’s flag, but halved the period of the ban from four years to two.
The ban means Russia will not be allowed to use its flag and anthem at any major sporting events for the next two years.
Athletes will be able to compete under a neutral flag if they prove no connection to doping. They can wear a uniform bearing the Russian colors, but it cannot contain the Russian flag or any national symbol.
The ruling affects Russia’s participation in the delayed Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 Olympics.
Stepanov said he wished the punishment hadn’t been reduced, but he hoped it was proper, noting that “everybody has to live with this decision, including athletes from Russia.”
Stepanov believes that WADA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are doing more than in the past, despite wide-ranging criticism that they have been too lenient. But he has little hope that Russia will change its doping climate.
“The Russian government is not helping by continuing to cover up and cheat the Olympic movement. They are the main guilty party here,” Stepanov said.
Yuliya Stepanova receives funding from the IOC to help her train, while Stepanov works as an adviser to the organization.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Lyubov Sobol, a prominent lawyer for outspoken Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), has said upon her release from detention that charges filed against her are “revenge” for Navalny’s survival of a recent assassination attempt.
“I believe that this criminal case against me is, firstly, revenge against Navalny, no matter how absurd it may sound, revenge on him for surviving after being poisoned with chemical weapons, revenge for his anti-corruption activities,” Sobol told TV Dozhd regarding the charges, which stem from her ringing the doorbell of a Federal Security Service (FSB) officer implicated in Navalny’s August poisoning.
“And since they cannot do anything with him now, they apparently decided to take revenge on me,” said Sobol, who proclaimed her innocence and called the charges “absurd.”
Sobol was detained by police on December 25 and taken in for questioning by Russia’s main investigative body, the Investigative Committee. She was questioned six times in relation to a criminal probe that was launched after a group of journalists and activists, including Sobol, attempted to speak to the FSB officer at his home on December 21.
The officer, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, had been identified as the apparent recipient of a recorded phone call from Navalny in which the anti-corruption activist’s poisoning was discussed.
Navalny had earlier on December 21 published an audio recording of the call, in which Kudryavtsev appears to believe he is speaking with a Russian security official and freely describes the circumstances of Navalny’s poisoning by a Soviet-era nerve agent.
A criminal investigation into Sobol trespassing “with the use of violence or a threat to use it” was launched following a complaint from Kudryavtsev’s mother.
Upon questioning, Sobol’s status was changed from a witness to a suspect, and she was charged under Russia’s Criminal Code. She faces two to five years in prison if convicted.
Speaking to TV Dozhd, Sobol said that the charges against her were also a warning to journalists who have covered Navalny’s poisoning.
“You — Dozhd television — have approached one of the poisoners [of Navalny], coming to his apartment and trying to take comments from him. I myself went to another apartment. CNN came,” she said.
“That is why, I think, they are really scared that journalists will now be asking questions of the people who have tried to kill Navalny. Through me, they want to intimidate journalists as well.”
Sobol posted a video on Twitter of police raiding her apartment on December 25, before going incommunicado. In the video, her 7-year-old daughter can be heard crying as someone pounds on the front door, demanding it be opened.
“They knock on the door and say the police are here. Apparently, the search will be at my home. I’ve never had a personal search before. Well, everything happens for the first time. Apparently, because I recently went to Navalny’s poisoner, ” Sobol says in the video.
Police searched Sobol’s apartment and her computers and phones were taken away, according to Navalny supporters.
Navalny has blamed President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning in Siberia. The fierce Kremlin critic and Putin foe fell ill on August 20 while flying en route from Tomsk to Moscow. After his flight was diverted to Omsk, where Russian doctors said they had found no trace of poisoning and placed Navalny in an induced coma, the he was transferred to a hospital in Germany.
Laboratory tests in three separate European countries, confirmed by the global chemical-weapons watchdog, have established that Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent of the Novichok class.
Russia has rejected calls for an investigation into the poisoning, and denies the involvement of state agents in the case, saying it has yet to be shown any evidence. In October, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Navalny of collaborating with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, an allegation Lyubov at the time called “complete gibberish.”
In a separate case, a Moscow court has ordered Sobol, Navalny, and the FBK to jointly pay a total of 87.6 million rubles ($1.15 million) in relation to a defamation lawsuit filed by a businessman with close ties to Putin.
Sobol announced earlier this year that she would run in Russia’s 2021 parliamentary elections.
Navalny remains in Germany, where he is recovering from the poisoning. He has said he plans to return home at an undisclosed date.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A court in the Russian North Caucasus city of Nalchik has banned four archive videos by the AP news agency from the wars in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s for allegedly “propagandizing cruelty.”
One of the videos banned by the Nalchik court on December 27 shows Russian soldiers who were being held prisoner by Chechen fighters in 1995. In the video, which has been viewed nearly 2 million times, a Russian officer says he has been treated “very surprisingly” and criticizes Russian tactics in the war.
Another video, also from 1995, shows the results of Russian attacks on the Chechen cities of Grozny, Argun, and Shali.
The court’s decision stated that the videos “facilitate the undertaking of illegal activities,” could provoke “negative social, economic, and other consequences,” and violate “the right of citizens to live in a law-based state as guaranteed by the constitution.”
Russia fought two wars against separatists in Chechnya. The first began in December 1994 and lasted until August 1996. It ended with a peace agreement that left the republic a considerable degree of autonomy.
The second Chechen war began in August 1999 and formally came to an end when Russia declared the end of the “counterterrorism operation” in the republic in April 2009.
The conflicts produced tens of thousands of civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Both campaigns have been criticized by domestic and international human rights activists for rights violations and atrocities on both sides.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
On January 10, Kazakhstan will hold its first parliamentary elections since the country’s longtime president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, stepped down in March 2019.
Nazarbaev remains the head of the Nur-Otan party, which is expected to do well in these elections to the Mazhilis, the lower house of parliament, as it always has since its founding in 1999.
Conspicuously absent from these elections are any political parties that could remotely be called a genuine opposition, despite a pledge from the new president, Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, about the need for opposition parties to participate in politics.
Political activists are reporting increased harassment in the weeks leading up to elections.
And a new report from RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, known locally as Azattyq, casts new light on the vast wealth former President Nazarbaev and members of his family have acquired outside Kazakhstan.
On this week’s Majlis Podcast, RFE/RL’s media-relations manager for South and Central Asia, Muhammad Tahir, moderates a discussion on Kazakhstan’s approaching parliamentary elections and what has changed and what looks the same under a different president.
This week’s guests are: from Kazakhstan, Darkhan Umirbekov, Azattyq’s digital editor, who also participated in preparing the report on the Nazarbaev family wealth; Sofya du Boulay, who is researching the study of legitimation, authoritarian durability, and politics in Central Asia and the South Caucasus at Oxford Brookes University; Luca Anceschi, professor of Central Asian studies at Glasgow University and author of the recently published book Analysing Kazakhstan’s Foreign Policy: Regime Neo-Eurasianism In The Nazarbaev era; and Bruce Pannier, the author of the Qishloq Ovozi blog.
Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes or on Google Podcasts.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Tens of millions of people were dead. Cities and towns lay in rubble months after the bloodiest conflict the world had ever known. With much of Europe still reeling from World War II, it hardly seemed the time for games.
But in November 1945, clubs from Great Britain, the cradle of the modern game of soccer, would host matches involving an unusual foe: Dynamo Moscow, champions of the Soviet Union.
Interest would be high as the Soviet Union still basked in the glow of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and British fans were eager to get a peek of such an exotic opponent.
However, Cold War tensions were already percolating when Dynamo Moscow arrived, as Josef Stalin’s communist regime was occupying most of Eastern Europe. The tour would come months ahead of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s famous Iron Curtain speech, condemning the Soviet Union’s expansionist policies in Europe. As such, the game would take on political overtones. It was, George Orwell later said, “war minus the shooting.”
And so, while British fans were eager to watch the Soviet side, British authorities were much less eager to accommodate them.
The Foreign Office said that “it would take much more than a football match to break down the real barriers which the Soviet government firmly believes in.” Pressed by the British Embassy in Moscow, London ultimately acquiesced, but said Dynamo Moscow was being hosted not by the government but the British Football Association (FA).
The Soviet delegation had its own list of demands, including that a Soviet referee call one match — a game against Arsenal — and that all team meals take place at the Soviet Embassy, ostensibly because they feared the British might poison them. Moscow also insisted that revenue from the tour be split 50-50, a demand that was met.
Four games were finally scheduled, against London clubs Arsenal and Chelsea, Welsh side Cardiff City, and the Scottish team Glasgow Rangers.
Dynamo Moscow players (in dark) attack the Chelsea goal during the match at Stamford Bridge, London, on November 13, 1945.
The tour started inauspiciously in November, 1945. The FA angered Dynamo Moscow by first accommodating the team in a military barracks in central London without pillows or sheets, before scrambling to book them in a fancy hotel.
British press reports hinted that the local teams and their fans had little to fear. “Don’t expect much from Dynamo. They are only beginners, blue-collars, amateurs,” the London newspaper Evening Standard wrote.
That blasé attitude contrasted with Soviet awe.
“Until those games, we only knew that England was the motherland of football, that English football was the best in the world,” Dynamo Moscow forward Konstantin Beskov said in a 2001 documentary, More Than Just Football.
Leonid Solovyov, a Dynamo midfielder, remembered, “They told us that Englishmen are awesome, that they can carry the ball across the fields on their heads.”
At the same time, the Dynamo players were also aware of the pressure to positively represent the Soviet Union, which would use sports over the coming decades to illustrate the ostensible superiority of the communist system.
“It would have been a disgrace if we had come back to Moscow defeated. We would have been ashamed to show our faces in public,” Beskov recalled. In the end, Dynamo won two matches and drew the other two.
The visitors’ first match, against Chelsea, took place on November 13. Some 75,000 tickets were sold but at least 100,000 fans turned up, packing Stamford Bridge stadium to the rafters. The sheer weight of the crowd literally led to gates around the grounds crashing to the ground.
British Labour Party politician Albert Victor Alexander greets members of the Dynamo Moscow team before their game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
Before kickoff, Dynamo players handed bouquets of flowers to their bemused opponents, who were empty-handed and not used to such gestures.
Dynamo Moscow players walk out onto the pitch at Stamford Bridge carrying bouquets for their Chelsea opponents.
On the field, powerhouse Chelsea took a quick 2-0 lead, as Dynamo players appeared awed by the amped-up audience — a change from the sedate and somber supporters they were used to at home. But the Soviet side shook off the early jitters and, supported by strong goalkeeping from Aleksei Khomich, fought back to earn a 3-3 tie.
After the match, Chelsea players tipped their hats to Dynamo, expressing their own awe. “Dynamo were one of the fastest teams I have ever seen in my life. They flash the ball from man to man in bewildering fashion, often while standing still,” defender Tommy Lawton said.
Later, Orwell wrote that “Dynamo is one of the fastest teams I’ve ever seen. They passed the ball while we were standing.”
Up next on November 19 was Cardiff City, then a third-division team, which Dynamo trounced 10-1 in a game broadcast live by Radio Moscow.
With socialist sympathy relatively high among the coal miners and steelworkers of South Wales, Cardiff warmly welcomed their Soviet visitors, hoisting the hammer-and-sickle flag above city hall and gifting each player a commemorative miner’s lamp.
Dynamo Moscow goalkeeper Aleksei Khomich kicks the ball up-field at Cardiff City’s Ninian Park ground during his team’s British tour. Cardiff lost 10-1.
On November 21, Dynamo faced Arsenal, which suited up “guest” players to replace regular squad members still serving in the armed forces. Among the additions was future legend Stanley Matthews, who in the 1960s would become the first player to be knighted.
Suspecting they were facing an English all-star team, the Soviet delegation insisted the match be officiated by their Russian referee, Nikolai Latyshev.
Arsenal’s home, Highbury, was still being used as an air-raid precaution center, so the match was played at Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium, White Hart Lane.
Lines of fans formed overnight, and police began letting them in the morning of the match.
But with fog blanketing most of London that day, few in the stands — or on the field, for that matter — could see much of the action. Latyshev was accused by Arsenal and British soccer heads of several dubious calls, including calling back what appeared to be a legitimate Arsenal goal. The game, dubbed “the farce in the fog” by the British, ended with Dynamo winning 4-3.
Soviet soccer legends Konstantin Beskov (left) and Vsevolod Bobrov did most of the scoring in Britain for Dynamo.
Scotland was the last stop for the Soviet side, which faced Glasgow Rangers at Ibrox Stadium on November 28. Tickets were sold on the black market for as much as 10 pounds –10 times their face value.
The game ended 3-3 and witnessed what some later called the goal of the tournament, scored by Vasily Kartsev after a passing sequence between Beskov and Vsevolod Bobrov. It was “as perfect a goal as has ever been scored at Ibrox,” The Daily Telegraph said.
Dynamo Moscow’s return home “resembled scenes reminiscent of soldiers returning from war — as they had done just months earlier,” Russian sportswriter Vladislav Ryabov wrote.
Dynamo left its mark on soccer fans in Britain as well — in a way that was summed up by Sir Stanley Matthews, the knighted former player nicknamed the Wizard of Dribble.
“Many years passed since we first met the Russian football players,” he would later recount. “Since then, in the hearts of everyone who lived in those days, the words Dynamo Moscow are associated with the concept of class football.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Last week, Kadyr Yusupov marked his third straight birthday in jail.
A 69-year-old career diplomat for Uzbekistan, Yusupov was detained shortly after a reported suicide attempt in December 2018, interrogated by security officials while hospitalized, and convicted of treason and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison in January on the basis of a confession he purportedly made from his hospital bed.
Yusupov is said to suffer from schizophrenia, and there were questions from the start over his fitness for questioning and whether anything he said while recovering should be used as evidence.
The case has been shrouded in secrecy.
A lawyer hired by Yusupov’s family was forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement and was rarely allowed to meet with him.
Yusupov’s family has been unable to see him since he was taken into custody shortly after jumping in front of a subway train in Tashkent two years ago.
So Yusupov’s family sought help outside Uzbekistan.
Geoffrey Robertson, a founding head of the U.K.-based Doughty Street Chambers, a private legal defense firm that focuses on human rights and civil liberties, has been brought in as legal counsel for the Yusupov family. He has said he is preparing applications on Yusupov’s behalf to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions.
At a December 10 press conference, Robertson alleged a long list of procedural violations under Uzbek and international law in Yusupov’s case.
Yusupov is one of several people who worked many years for the Uzbek government before reports suddenly emerged saying they had been accused of spying and charged with treason.
A recent Majlis podcast explored Yusupov’s case along with those of former Defense Ministry reporter Vladimir Kaloshin and a former director of the presidential Institute for Strategic and Interregional Research, Rafik Saifulin.
Spying cases by nature involve matters of state security that many governments try to keep away from the public record.
But in Yusupov’s and other cases, public information has mostly been limited to the facts that they were arrested, confessed, and were tried and convicted.
Even details like on whose behalf they might have been spying has been unavailable.
Yusupov’s family and rights groups have repeatedly called for him to be freed on compassionate grounds, since the coronavirus is reportedly spreading within Uzbekistan’s prison system.
Robertson said at his press conference that he and Yusupov’s family had been hoping the former diplomat would be released under a recent amnesty to mark Uzbek Constitution Day on December 8, but he was not among those released.
The family has released a video on Yusupov’s case, in the hope of getting broader support for his release.
Family, friends, and rights defenders now hope the United Nations might pressure the Uzbek government to act, since Uzbek courts and prosecutors seemingly appear to have no intention of freeing Yusupov.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Armenia’s beleaguered prime minister has for the first time signaled a willingness to hold early parliamentary elections as opposition groups mount pressure for his resignation over the handling of a six-week war with Azerbaijan.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on December 25 again rejected calls to step down but offered to negotiate with Armenia’s leading political groups about holding snap elections sometime in 2021.
“I invite the parliamentary and interested nonparliamentary forces to take part in consultations on 2021 snap parliamentary elections,” the prime minister wrote on Facebook.
“I can give up the post of prime minister only if the people decide so,” he said. “Should the people reaffirm their trust I am also ready to continue leading the Republic of Armenia in these difficult times. There is only one way to answer these questions: by holding pre-term parliamentary elections.”
Pashinian, who swept to power amid nationwide protests in 2018, has come under fire since agreeing to a Moscow-brokered deal with Azerbaijan that took effect on November 10, ending six weeks of fierce fighting in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh that saw ethnic Armenian forces suffer battlefield defeat.
Scenes of grief and political upheaval across Armenia through three days of mourning for those killed during the recent conflict with Azerbaijan
A coalition uniting 16 opposition parties has been holding anti-government demonstrations in Yerevan and other parts of the country in a bid to force Pashinian to hand over power to an interim government.
Opposition forces want their joint candidate, Vazgen Manukian, to become transitional prime minister to oversee fresh elections.
In showing a willingness to hold early elections, Pashinian is trying to ease political tensions while ensuring he would be the one overseeing the electoral process, something the opposition rejects out of concern that a vote may be unfair.
Despite facing a united opposition front, Pashinian’s My Step bloc maintains an overwhelming majority in parliament.
In his message, Pashinian said the opposition campaign has failed to win popular support and that it is fizzling out on the streets.
The prime minister has for weeks dismissed the protests as a revolt by the country’s traditional “elites” who lost their “privileges” after he swept to power in 2018.
Under the Moscow-brokered cease-fire, a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by Armenians.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but the ethnic Armenians who make up most of the region’s population reject Azerbaijani rule.
They had been governing their own affairs, with support from Armenia, since Azerbaijan’s troops and Azeri civilians were pushed out of the region and seven adjacent districts in a war that ended in a cease-fire in 1994.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Ruhollah Zam’s father, a cleric who served as the head of Iran’s state propaganda agency in the 1980s, named him after the leader of the 1979 revolution and the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
But as an adult, Zam turned against the clerical establishment that was created by his infamous namesake.
Zam’s opposition activities — including his popular Amadnews Telegram channel with its more than 1 million followers — cost him his life as Iranian officials accused the channel of fomenting violence during the December 2017-January 2018 mass protests.
Zam, who chose for himself the name Nima instead of Ruhollah, was hanged on December 12 after being convicted on the vague charge of “corruption on Earth.” The criminal charge is used against dissidents, spies, and for those who attempt to overthrow the Islamic establishment.
Zam was 42 years old.
In 2019, Zam was reportedly lured — under unclear circumstances — to Iraq from Paris, where he was living in exile. He was believed to have been captured by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and taken to Iran where he was put on a trial and sentenced to death.
Zam is just one of a number of sons and daughters of the Islamic republic who have rebelled against the system that was created by their fathers.
Zam, who openly said he was working to take down the Islamic establishment that he accused of “robbing the country,” is believed to be the only one of those offspring who has been executed recently.
His father, Mohammad Ali Zam, was not successful in protecting him from authorities or preventing his execution. The cleric wrote on Instagram that his son was even unaware that his death sentence had been upheld on appeal when the father and son met one day before he was hanged.
Other prominent “rebels” include Khomeini’s oldest grandson, Hossein Khomeini, who used to be a vocal critic of what he considered the repressive system founded by his grandfather.
In media interviews, he accused Iranian leaders of oppressing the people and violating human rights.
Khomeini traveled to the U.S. in 2003 where he announced that Iranians want democracy and freedom while adding they have realized that religion should be kept separate from the state.
He returned to Iran with his family in 2005 and was put under temporary house arrest in the holy city of Qom, according to some reports, but was not prosecuted.
Media reports later suggested the restrictions had been lifted after his prominent relatives mediated on his behalf. In 2018, a Tehran University professor posted a photo with Hossein Khomeini writing the Islamic republic founder’s grandson was “busy teaching and discussing” in Qom.
No Chip Off The Old Block
The eldest son of former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai was also critical of the Iranian establishment. Ahmad Rezaei moved to the United States in 1988 where he blasted the clerical establishment in media interviews, accusing it of carrying out “terrorist attacks.”
Ahmad Rezaei (right) with his father, former IRGC cmmander Mohsen Rezaei. (undated file photo)
He returned to Iran in 2005 but did not face prosecution. Six years later he was found dead in a Dubai hotel. Some reports suggested that he had died of “an overdose of medicine.”
Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of one of the founders of the Islamic republic, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has also become an outspoken critic of the establishment.
Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani is the daughter of the late Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. (file photo)
She has warned that the system her father helped create has been weakened and could face collapse. She has also said Iranian leaders have been “misusing” Islam to push their agenda forward.
In a 2018 interview, Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani said that “intimidation” and “fear” were the main things propping up the Islamic regime.
She has been briefly detained a few times. In 2012, she was given a six-month jail term for “spreading propaganda against the system,” a charge often brought against critics and intellectuals.
In 2016, Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani created controversy when she visited a former cellmate, a leader of the Baha’i community that has faced state persecution since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The meeting was described by powerful clerics as “despicable” and against norms amid calls for her prosecution. Her father was also critical of the meeting, describing the Baha’i faith that originated in Iran as a “deviant sect.” She later said in an interview that she didn’t regret the meeting.
The division within families began in the early years of the revolution when some of the sons and relatives of Islamic republic officials joined groups such as the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), which carried out a number of deadly attacks in the 1980s and later sided with Iraq during the bloody 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.
Among them is Hossein Jannati, one of the sons of the head of the powerful Guardians Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who is also the chairman of the Assembly of Experts. That group is tasked with overseeing the work of the country’s supreme leader and choosing his successor.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of Iran’s assembly of experts.(file photo)
According to some reports, Hossein Jannati was killed in clashes with security forces in 1981. His brother, former Culture Minister Ali Jannati, said in a 2017 interview that Ayatollah Jannati never expressed any grief over the death of his son, but adding: “he must definitely be very upset” over his fate.
Another prominent case of a son straying from the views of his father is the son of the former Friday Prayers leader of Orumyeh, Gholam Reza Hassani, a member of the leftist Fedayin Khalq organization.
In his 2005 memoirs, Hassani described how he helped authorities arrest his son, Rashid, in the 1980s. Rashid was executed shortly after his arrest.
Hassani said he wasn’t saddened when he heard the news of Rashid’s execution because he felt he had carried out his duty.
“When it comes to the Islamic Revolution, I will never balk at my duties, even if it comes to my son,” he said.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A mathematician at the center of a high-profile trial in Russia gave a final statement to a Moscow court on December 25 as police detained journalists and activists gathered outside.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Photo: Aleksei Vasilyev (Courtesy Photo)
Hey, you’re busy! We know rferl.org isn’t the only website you read. And that it’s just possible you may have missed some of our most compelling journalism this week. To make sure you’re up-to-date, here are some of the highlights produced by RFE/RL’s team of correspondents, multimedia editors, and visual journalists over the past seven days.
Aleksei Vasilyev is a Yakut photographer and a rising Instagram star with tens of thousands of followers. His most famous project, titled My Dear Yakutia, evokes what he calls the “magic realism” of this part of Russia’s Far North, where people and spirits seem to cohabitate in frozen spaces. Vasilyev shared his images with RFE/RL, along with stories from behind the scenes. By the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service
As the government of Russian President and former Soviet KGB officer Vladimir Putin was marking the Day of State Security Agency Workers earlier this month, St. Petersburg artist Kirill Gorodetsky went public with his yearslong struggle to find out what happened to his great-grandfather, who disappeared without a trace in September 1941. By Tatyana Voltskaya and Robert Coalson
Under the European Green Deal initiative, the European Union is aiming to reduce its net greenhouse-gas emissions to zero by 2050 and become “climate neutral.” That target poses a big challenge for EU member state Bulgaria, where 60 percent of the country’s power comes from plants that burn mostly coal. The managers of the Bobov Dol thermal plant are working on a survival plan to convert to cleaner energy sources and protect jobs. By RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service and Neil Bowdler
A new RFE/RL investigation has identified at least $785 million in luxury European and U.S. real estate purchases made by relatives and family members of powerful former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev. By Mike Eckel and Sarah Alikhan
Siberia’s Evenk region is larger than any European country but it is home to only around 17,000 people. It’s so vast and remote that scientists have spent decades searching and failing to find one of the largest meteorites ever to fall to Earth — the Tunguska meteorite. While this region has a relatively small population, the harmful impact of human activity can still be felt here. By Harutyun Mansuryan and Current Time’s Unknown Russia
Video games can be found on the Internet that simulate military conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Some of these virtual missions take place in locations where documented atrocities were committed, though war crimes are never mentioned in the games. As extremists increasingly incorporate elements of video games into their propaganda, and even into their attacks, should gaming that attempts to rewrite history be restricted? By RFE/RL’s Balkan Service
In the attic of an old house, artist Ihor Solodovnikov stumbled on a collection of 5,000 photographs taken by his grandfather, Ivan Lytvyn. The images preserve the faces of Ukrainian villagers in the postwar period and the folk traditions that were rarely, if ever, captured by official Soviet photographers. By RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service
The authorities in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, have ordered a clampdown on what they say are illegally constructed homes on state-owned land, demolishing over a dozen houses in a small settlement on the outskirts of the capital. Nugzar Aluashvili and his six children live in the settlement and watched as the bulldozers moved in. Their plight caught the attention of their fellow Georgians on social media. By RFE/RL’s Georgian Service and Neil Bowdler
The Circum-Baikal Railway was a feat of engineering when it was built during the reign of Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II. Today, the route beside the world’s deepest lake is used more for tourism than for transport, but it still inspires visitors with its stunning views. By Harutyun Mansuryan and Current Time’s Unknown Russia
As part of an occasional series on how the end-of-year holidays are observed in our broadcast region, we talked to RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service about how Christmas is celebrated in her country. Like many of their Central and Eastern European neighbors, the evening before Christmas is an event that is often just as important to Bulgarians as the day itself. By Coilin O’Connor and Teodora Barzakova
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Photo: Aleksei Vasilyev (Courtesy Photo)
Hey, you’re busy! We know rferl.org isn’t the only website you read. And that it’s just possible you may have missed some of our most compelling journalism this week. To make sure you’re up-to-date, here are some of the highlights produced by RFE/RL’s team of correspondents, multimedia editors, and visual journalists over the past seven days.
Aleksei Vasilyev is a Yakut photographer and a rising Instagram star with tens of thousands of followers. His most famous project, titled My Dear Yakutia, evokes what he calls the “magic realism” of this part of Russia’s Far North, where people and spirits seem to cohabitate in frozen spaces. Vasilyev shared his images with RFE/RL, along with stories from behind the scenes. By the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service
As the government of Russian President and former Soviet KGB officer Vladimir Putin was marking the Day of State Security Agency Workers earlier this month, St. Petersburg artist Kirill Gorodetsky went public with his yearslong struggle to find out what happened to his great-grandfather, who disappeared without a trace in September 1941. By Tatyana Voltskaya and Robert Coalson
Under the European Green Deal initiative, the European Union is aiming to reduce its net greenhouse-gas emissions to zero by 2050 and become “climate neutral.” That target poses a big challenge for EU member state Bulgaria, where 60 percent of the country’s power comes from plants that burn mostly coal. The managers of the Bobov Dol thermal plant are working on a survival plan to convert to cleaner energy sources and protect jobs. By RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service and Neil Bowdler
A new RFE/RL investigation has identified at least $785 million in luxury European and U.S. real estate purchases made by relatives and family members of powerful former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev. By Mike Eckel and Sarah Alikhan
Siberia’s Evenk region is larger than any European country but it is home to only around 17,000 people. It’s so vast and remote that scientists have spent decades searching and failing to find one of the largest meteorites ever to fall to Earth — the Tunguska meteorite. While this region has a relatively small population, the harmful impact of human activity can still be felt here. By Harutyun Mansuryan and Current Time’s Unknown Russia
Video games can be found on the Internet that simulate military conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Some of these virtual missions take place in locations where documented atrocities were committed, though war crimes are never mentioned in the games. As extremists increasingly incorporate elements of video games into their propaganda, and even into their attacks, should gaming that attempts to rewrite history be restricted? By RFE/RL’s Balkan Service
In the attic of an old house, artist Ihor Solodovnikov stumbled on a collection of 5,000 photographs taken by his grandfather, Ivan Lytvyn. The images preserve the faces of Ukrainian villagers in the postwar period and the folk traditions that were rarely, if ever, captured by official Soviet photographers. By RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service
The authorities in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, have ordered a clampdown on what they say are illegally constructed homes on state-owned land, demolishing over a dozen houses in a small settlement on the outskirts of the capital. Nugzar Aluashvili and his six children live in the settlement and watched as the bulldozers moved in. Their plight caught the attention of their fellow Georgians on social media. By RFE/RL’s Georgian Service and Neil Bowdler
The Circum-Baikal Railway was a feat of engineering when it was built during the reign of Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II. Today, the route beside the world’s deepest lake is used more for tourism than for transport, but it still inspires visitors with its stunning views. By Harutyun Mansuryan and Current Time’s Unknown Russia
As part of an occasional series on how the end-of-year holidays are observed in our broadcast region, we talked to RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service about how Christmas is celebrated in her country. Like many of their Central and Eastern European neighbors, the evening before Christmas is an event that is often just as important to Bulgarians as the day itself. By Coilin O’Connor and Teodora Barzakova
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A top Belarusian diplomat who had been appointed the first ambassador to the United States in nearly 12 years has died.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan on December 25 began to consider a criminal case against eight people accused of negligence and safety violations in a major dam burst earlier this year.
The earth-filled dam at Sardoba Reservoir in eastern Uzbekistan collapsed in May, causing flooding in both Uzbekistan and neighboring Kazakhstan that killed six people and forced the evacuation of 70,000 residents.
The Sardoba Reservoir was completed in 2017, after seven years of construction work that began under the supervision of current President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who was prime minister at the time.
The case before the Supreme Court involves eight contractors, including the head of the Tupalang canals, Bakhshullo Asadov. He and contractors from Uzbekistan’s national rail company are accused of forgery, negligence, and violating construction laws.
RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reported that for unclear reasons the trial is being held behind closed doors. Under the law, all criminal proceedings must be open to the public unless the case involves state secrets or a sexual crime.
The trial against the contractors, which began on December 21, was separated from another part of the criminal procedure.
In October, the head of the Anti-Corruption Agency said that 17 people are accused of crimes related to the dam burst.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan on December 25 began to consider a criminal case against eight people accused of negligence and safety violations in a major dam burst earlier this year.
The earth-filled dam at Sardoba Reservoir in eastern Uzbekistan collapsed in May, causing flooding in both Uzbekistan and neighboring Kazakhstan that killed six people and forced the evacuation of 70,000 residents.
The Sardoba Reservoir was completed in 2017, after seven years of construction work that began under the supervision of current President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who was prime minister at the time.
The case before the Supreme Court involves eight contractors, including the head of the Tupalang canals, Bakhshullo Asadov. He and contractors from Uzbekistan’s national rail company are accused of forgery, negligence, and violating construction laws.
RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reported that for unclear reasons the trial is being held behind closed doors. Under the law, all criminal proceedings must be open to the public unless the case involves state secrets or a sexual crime.
The trial against the contractors, which began on December 21, was separated from another part of the criminal procedure.
In October, the head of the Anti-Corruption Agency said that 17 people are accused of crimes related to the dam burst.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The Catholic archbishop of Minsk is in Belarus for Christmas after authorities lifted a four-month ban on his entry to the country amid massive anti-government protests.
Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the leader Belarusian Catholics, was denied entry on August 31 as he returned from a trip to neighboring Poland.
Some of the key events that have followed the contested reelection of longtime Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
The 74-year-old spiritual leader was barred from his homeland after he criticized the crackdown on protests against the contested reelection of strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
The archbishop was allowed to return after an envoy from the Vatican met Lukashenka last week in Minsk.
“When I crossed the border, I knelt down and prayed, I kissed this land,” Kondrusiewicz said in comments on December 24, adding that “the Fatherland cannot be thrown out of the heart.”
“This is my land. I grew up here, I want to be here, I want to serve here. And I have never opposed Belarus, I have always defended the interests of Belarus and I will continue to do so,” the metropolitan said.
Kondrusiewicz was able to lead Christmas Eve mass at Minsk’s main Cathedral.
Catholicism is the second largest religious denomination in Belarus, after Eastern Orthodoxy.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Security video shows Russian officers taping over a camera before pounding on the door of Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer for Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Sobol also shared footage of her reaction as she waited inside with her husband and child before the officers took her in for questioning on December 25. Authorities opened a criminal case against Sobol for trespassing after she rang the doorbell of a Federal Security Agency (FSB) agent who has been implicated in the poisoning of Navalny with a deadly toxin. (YouTube/NavalnyLive)
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A Russian court has sentenced a flamboyant Russian professor who killed and dismembered his student lover to 12 1/2 years in prison after convicting him of her murder.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
TURKMENABAT, Turkmenistan — As daily temperatures creep below freezing with the onset of winter, authorities in eastern Turkmenistan have warned families that they risk losing access to subsidized food if they don’t catch up on their utilities payments.
The verbal warnings were issued to households in Lebap province in early December as the government launched a campaign to help state-run utilities collect unpaid bills, according to dozens of local residents who spoke to RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service.
“Authorities have given people in our region until the end of December to pay any debts they have in utility bills,” said a resident of Darganata district. “But people can barely afford to buy bread, let alone to pay for gas and electricity.”
Authorities in the Lebap region of Turkmenistan have given some residents until the end of December to pay any debts they have in utility bills.
The man and others who spoke to RFE/RL requested anonymity, saying that authorities punish those who speak to independent media.
The outstanding debts are new to many Turkmen residents, as the former Soviet republic only ended government subsidies for gas, electricity, and drinking water a year ago.
They also threaten to compound the effects of food shortages and economic malaise amid a coronavirus pandemic that Turkmen officials, almost uniquely in the world, still insist hasn’t caused any local infections.
Villagers complain that, while they understand the need to pay for the energy they consume, many families spend almost all of their income on food and simply don’t have the resources to settle their debts.
Income Struggles
Many rural residents struggle to earn income outside of seasonal farming work, making it harder to catch up with bills in the off-season.
Some rely on odd jobs they find in nearby cities or the remittances from family members working abroad in places like Turkey.
But travel to cities, especially the capital, Ashgabat, has been restricted to combat the COVID-19 threat that is officially raging everywhere except Turkmenistan. (World Health Organization and other international officials have unsuccessfully urged Turkmen officials to be more forthcoming with coronavirus statistics.)
Remittances have dried up, too, as nearby economies are hard-hit and supply chains interrupted by the ongoing pandemic.
RFE/RL correspondents in Lebap’s Darganata and Farap districts were aware of at least 10 families who said they were unable to raise the money before the end-of-December deadline.
Turkmen saw electricity and gas meters first installed in their homes in 2018, when the government announced it was going to end decades of major subsidies for electricity, gas, and drinking water as of the following year.
Under a subsidies system introduced in 1993, every registered household member was entitled to 35 kilowatt-hours of electricity and 50 cubic meters of natural gas each month. The subsidies also included 250 liters of potable water per day per person.
Turkmenistan’s economic woes caught up with it in 2014, after declining global fuel prices took a toll on the gas-rich Central Asian state’s budget.
Many of its 6 million people have faced food price hikes and a shortage of foodstuffs for much of the past four years, although the authoritarian government in Ashgabat doesn’t acknowledge the existence of such hardship.
The situation deteriorated further in 2020 after borders were closed and food imports were disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The retail price of flour has gone up by 50 percent and cooking oil by 130 percent in the past year.
It is unclear whether authorities plan to act on their verbal warnings to deny access to subsidized food for those who don’t meet the deadline to settle their utility debts.
Doing so could leave thousands of residents in the rural communities that were targeted facing acute hunger in the middle of winter.
Loading up on supplies outside a state grocery store in Ashgabat. (file photo)
Many Turkmen buy staples including flour, bread, cooking oil, rice, sugar, and potatoes from state grocery shops where prices are sometimes one-sixth of what they are in private stores and bazaars.
But the choice of goods in state-owned shops has become increasingly sparse, and supplies arrive in limited amounts.
People often wait hours in long lines outside state stores that operate on a first come, first served basis. Many people go home empty-handed as limited supplies run out before their turn.
In November, Ashgabat residents told RFE/RL that people in some neighborhoods were standing in line overnight to be at the front of the line when state-run shops opened at 7:00 the following morning.
Food shortages have even sparked small public protests in Turkmenistan, where the government shows little tolerance for dissent and brutally clamps down on critics and opponents.
On November 10, dozens of people gathered near the Garagum district government building in Mary Province to complain of a shortage of flour in local state shops.
However, after a brief meeting with the crowd, district officials ordered the police to disperse the gathering. The authorities made no promise that they would try to resolve the problem.
It was the second such protest in Mary Province this year. About 30 women briefly blocked a highway on April 3 before gathering in front of the Mary region’s government headquarters to protest food shortages.
That rally ended when authorities promised the protesters two kilograms of flour each.
Authorities haven’t publicly announced any plans for tackling the long-running food crisis in Turkmenistan, which has never held an election deemed fair and competitive by Western observers.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A British-based group monitoring the Syrian conflict says least six Iran-backed fighters have been killed in an Israeli rocket attack in central Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on December 25 that the Israeli attack launched in the province of Hama also destroyed depots and rocket-manufacturing facilities belonging to pro-Iranian militias.
Earlier, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported that Israeli rockets had targeted the area of Masyaf in rural Hama.
The agency, citing a military source, added that Syrian air defenses had intercepted the “hostile” rockets and destroyed most of them.
SANA did not report any casualties nor damage resulting from the reported attack.
State television aired footage purporting to show air defenses responding to the attack.
There has been no comment from Israel, which rarely confirms details of its operations in Syria.
Along with Russia, Iran has provided crucial military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian conflict, which began with a crackdown on anti-government protesters in March 2011.
Israel accuses Iran of building up its military presence in Syria and has repeatedly struck Iran-linked facilities, positions, as well as weapons convoys destined for Hizballah fighters in the war-torn country.
Israel has carried out more than 30 air strikes on targets across Syria so far in the present year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A British-based group monitoring the Syrian conflict says least six Iran-backed fighters have been killed in an Israeli rocket attack in central Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on December 25 that the Israeli attack launched in the province of Hama also destroyed depots and rocket-manufacturing facilities belonging to pro-Iranian militias.
Earlier, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported that Israeli rockets had targeted the area of Masyaf in rural Hama.
The agency, citing a military source, added that Syrian air defenses had intercepted the “hostile” rockets and destroyed most of them.
SANA did not report any casualties nor damage resulting from the reported attack.
State television aired footage purporting to show air defenses responding to the attack.
There has been no comment from Israel, which rarely confirms details of its operations in Syria.
Along with Russia, Iran has provided crucial military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian conflict, which began with a crackdown on anti-government protesters in March 2011.
Israel accuses Iran of building up its military presence in Syria and has repeatedly struck Iran-linked facilities, positions, as well as weapons convoys destined for Hizballah fighters in the war-torn country.
Israel has carried out more than 30 air strikes on targets across Syria so far in the present year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The Kremlin has said it does not rule out delays to the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in light of the threat of new U.S. sanctions.
Sanctions are aimed at hampering the project and can fulfill their goal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news conference on December 24.
“Of course, this can complicate [the implementation of the project], but at the same time, our European partners and we are interested in the project’s implementation so that it is finalized in the interests of European consumers and Russian gas suppliers,” Peskov said.
Commenting on whether the Trump administration will have time to stop the project, Peskov said: “We are not inclined to read coffee grounds here. We have our own issues to work out, and we’re working on them.”
“However, our European partners and we are interested in this project being implemented,” he said.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is to carry Russian-sourced gas directly to Germany, the European Union’s largest economy, via a route under the Baltic Sea similar to the existing Nord Stream line.
The United States has condemned the pipeline as threatening the security of NATO allies in the EU by increasing dependence on Russia.
Washington in December 2019 passed a bill that imposed sanctions on vessels laying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, forcing Swiss-based Allseas to stop work on the project shortly before its completion.
Russia is now seeking to retrofit its own vessels to finish the pipeline to complete the project.
The National Defense Authorization Act, an annual bill that mainly sets the policy for the U.S. Department of Defense, includes an extension of Washington’s sanctions against the pipeline. However, outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump on December 23 vetoed the bill.
Peskov would not comment on whether Trump could still stop completion of the pipeline. Washington does want to make it as difficult as possible to implement the project, he added.
The pipeline is currently reported to be 93 percent completed.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Maia Sandu was sworn in as the new president of Moldova after taking the oath of office at a ceremony in the capital, Chisinau, on December 24. Sandu is a former World Bank economist who favors closer ties to the European Union and the United States. She was elected last month after a clear runoff victory against Russia-backed Igor Dodon.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Amid the launch of mass COVID-19 vaccination drives in the West, there’s growing concern among Iranians that they could be left behind.
They fear U.S. sanctions and what some regard as the Iranian clerical establishment’s failure to prioritize the well-being of its citizens.
Iranians, including health workers, have taken to social media to call on their leaders to purchase vaccines against the coronavirus amid allegations by Iranian officials that U.S. sanctions are impeding their ability to procure them through COVAX, a global payment facility aimed at ensuring vaccine distribution around the world.
The concern over Iranians’ access to vaccines was also highlighted in a December 22 statement by more than two dozen rights groups and humanitarian organizations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), who called on “all stakeholders to ensure that Iranians have swift, unencumbered, and equitable access to safe, effective, and affordable COVID-19 vaccines.”
Without inoculations, many more Iranians are likely to die from the Middle East’s worst COVID-19 outbreak, which has already infected more than 1.1 million Iranians and claimed the lives of nearly 54,000, according to officials figures. Health officials have suggested that the country’s real coronavirus death toll could be twice that number.
Sanctions
Earlier this month, Iranian Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said in a social-media post that “inhumane sanctions by the U.S. government” were preventing the country from making any payment for vaccine doses via “the official channel of the World Health Organization (WHO).”
Republican U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed stifling sanctions on Iran in 2018 after withdrawing the United States from a multilateral 2015 nuclear deal that exchanged sanctions relief for curbs on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.
Democratic President-elect Joe Biden has said the United States will rejoin the accord if Tehran returns to strict compliance, although there is at least one effort afoot among Republicans in the U.S. Senate to prevent that.
A COVAX spokesperson was quoted as saying that Iran has received a license from the U.S. Treasury Department to procure vaccines and that Tehran does not face any “legal barrier.”
Humanitarian goods, including medicine and food, are supposed to be exempt from U.S. sanctions. But HRW has documented that U.S. sanctions have constrained Iran’s ability to finance vital medicines.
Esfandiyar Batmanghelidj, the founder of Bourse And Bazaar, an opinion website focused on Iran’s economy that promotes business diplomacy between European countries and Iran, told RFE/RL that he thought Iran was seeking to use foreign-exchange reserves held in South Korea to make payments through the COVAX facility.
“U.S. sanctions exemptions and licenses technically permit these payments to be made for a humanitarian good such as vaccines. But there are only two banks that have engaged in Iran-related transactions since the tightening of oil-related sanctions in 2010: Woori Bank and Industrial Bank of Korea. And both banks have in the last decade come under significant pressure from U.S. authorities over their Iran business,” Batmanghelidj said.
A patient being treated for coronavirus at a hospital in Tehran.
“It is possible that the Trump administration has explicitly told these banks not to process these payments, but even without such a directive, bank executives will be strongly inclined to wait until the Biden administration is in office before proceeding,” he added.
HRW Iran researcher Tara Sepehrifar argued that the United States and Iran must work together to provide Iranians access to vaccines quickly, adding that humanitarian exemptions have been insufficient to ensure Iran’s access to medicine in a timely manner.
“The U.S. Treasury should actively work with banks and financial mechanisms to ensure Iran’s money in the form of foreign currency can be used for purchasing vaccines,” Sepehrifar told RFE/RL.
“Iranian authorities should prioritize Iranians’ right to health and do everything in their power to ensure Iranians access to safe and effective vaccines as soon as possible,” she added.
Iranians Blaming Their Leaders
Speaking on December 22, government spokesman Ali Rabiei suggested that part of Iran’s problem was self-inflicted.
He pointed to a failure to comply with rules of the global anti-money-laundering- and anti-terrorism-funding task force — known as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — that are opposed by the country’s hard-liners.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei recently ordered a review of legislation that would bring the country into FATF compliance.
“Based on sanction laws and FATF principles, several possibilities for transferring money encountered problems,” Rabiei said, adding that the FATF blacklisting of Iran is affecting the country’s financial dealings.
Many Iranians have tweeted about the need to access vaccines quickly using the Farsi hashtag #Buy_vaccines. Some blamed their own leaders for any potential delay and accused them of prioritizing their own ambitions over the health of citizens.
Among them was prominent former political prisoner Zia Nabavi, who said “[Iranian authorities] consider nuclear energy, but not the right to life, an inalienable right.”
“When I see my parents who, in their 70s, have become so frustrated at not seeing their children and grandchildren for a long time, I can no longer remain silent and control myself,” economist Siamak Ghassemi wrote on social media.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei
“We know you well. Stop this self-sufficiency show and don’t [sacrifice] our lives for your own adventurism,” he added in an apparent reference to announcements by officials about working on Iranian vaccines and Tehrani officials’ long-running efforts to ensure stability despite Western isolation.
A doctor in Tehran who did not want to be named said clinical trials for the Iranian vaccines have not started and added that the effort, even if successful, could take many more months.
“For now, we have to rely on foreign vaccines,” he said.
Speaking on December 23, President Hassan Rohani attempted to ease Iranians’ concerns.
“We don’t have any worries for the future, even regarding the production of vaccines or the purchase of vaccines,” he said.
Rohani added that the Central Bank and the Health Ministry were doing all they could to provide Iranians with vaccines.
Mostafa Ghanei, the head of the scientific committee at Iran’s National Headquarters for Combating the Coronavirus, told the official news agency IRNA earlier this month that Iran was unlikely to purchase the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine due to its price tag and a local lack of infrastructure.
But, without being specific, he suggested that the country has several other options.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan — An activist in Kazakhstan’s southern region of Turkistan has been handed a parole-like sentence for his links with a banned political movement.
The Keles district court on December 22 sentenced Marat Duisembiev to 3 1/2 years of “freedom limitation” after finding him guilty of involvement in the activities of the banned opposition Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK).
The trial was held online due to coronavirus restrictions. Duisembiev participated in the process via a video link from a detention center in the regional capital, Shymkent.
The 44-year-old activist was arrested and charged in August after he openly called for people to take part in an unsanctioned rally organized by the DVK.
Human rights organizations in Kazakhstan recognized him as a political prisoner last month.
Duisenbiev’s sentence was handed down two days after another activist, Alibek Moldin, was sentenced to one year of “freedom limitation” for being associated with the DVK-linked unregistered Koshe (Street) Party, also banned in Kazakhstan as an extremist organization.
DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.
Several activists have been sentenced to various prison terms and limitations in Kazakhstan in recent months for involvement in the DVK’s activities, including taking part in the DVK-organized unsanctioned rallies.
Opponents of the Kazakh government have said that the crackdown on the DVK’s supporters has intensified ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for January 10.
Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings contradicts international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Colombia has confirmed two Russian diplomats were stripped of accreditation and forced to leave the South American country, due to what local media reported was espionage.
Colombia’s Foreign Ministry said December 22 that two diplomats stationed at the Russian Embassy in Bogota had engaged in activities that were “incompatible” with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Colombian officials did not provide specifics as to why the two men left but said that in response Russia had removed two Colombian diplomats.
Local media cited anonymous security sources as saying the two men were engaged in gathering military intelligence and economic information related to natural resource extraction.
President Ivan Duque also cited the Vienna Convention for the move.
In an interview with television outlet NTN24, he declined to reveal more information about the issue, saying it would go against the principle of continuing good bilateral relations with Russia.
Francisco Espinosa, the head of Colombia’s migration agency, told a news conference the two men left on December 8 for “issues related to the state.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran’s clerical establishment has used religious organizations to expand its clout abroad.
Key among them is the Al-Mustafa International University, a network of religious seminaries based in the Shi’ite holy city of Qom that has branches in some 50 countries.
The university claims to teach Shi’ite Muslim theology, Islamic science, and Iran’s national language, Persian, to tens of thousands of foreign students across Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America.
But Tehran’s adversaries say the university has been involved in espionage and recruited foreign fighters for Iran’s proxy war in Syria.
For years, experts have documented the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) recruitment, training, and deployment of thousands of Shi’ite fighters to Syria to defend the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, Tehran’s key ally in the brutal civil war that erupted in 2011.
‘Recruitment Platform’
The United States imposed sanctions on the massive university network on December 8, alleging that it was involved in the recruitment of Afghan and Pakistani students to fight in the Syrian conflict.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Iran’s elite Quds Force, the overseas operations arm of the IRGC, used the university’s foreign branches as a “recruitment platform” for “intelligence collection and operations,” including recruitment for pro-Iranian militias.
The Treasury Department alleged that the Quds Force used the Al-Mustafa International University as a “cover” to recruit Afghans for the blacklisted Fatemiyoun Brigade, a pro-Iranian militia that fought in Syria.
Moreover, Treasury said the Quds Force also used Al-Mustafa’s campus in Qom “as a recruitment ground” for Pakistani students to join the blacklisted Zeynabiyoun Brigade, a militia that consisted of Pakistani Shi’a.
Treasury added that “multiple students from the university have been killed fighting in Syria.”
In a statement on December 9, the university said it promoted “peace, friendship, and brotherhood among nations” and slammed the U.S. decision as “hegemonic.”
‘High-Value Individuals’
Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington who has closely monitored IRGC activity in Syria, said that, according to his database from January 2012 to December 2020, 3,059 Iranian and allied foreign fighters were killed in combat in Syria.
Alfoneh says of those, only three were students or graduates of the Al-Mustafa International University — known as Jamiat al-Mostafa University in Iran.
“This indicates that Jamiat al-Mostafa has never served as the primary recruitment ground for the IRGC’s war effort in Syria,” he says.
The IRGC recruited thousands of Afghan migrants and refugees within its own borders and covertly drafted hundreds of Shi’a inside Afghanistan. The same strategy was used to recruit Pakistanis.
Alfoneh says the “three individuals identified appear to have been in command, intelligence, or political-ideological indoctrination positions.”
That means, he said, that the IRGC perceived the graduates or students of the Al-Mustafa International University as “high-value individuals.”
Regular fighters in the poorly trained forces of the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun brigades were often used as the first line of attack.
Alfoneh says the IRGC considered the Afghan fighters “cannon fodder,” considering the seemingly minor investment made to train them and the exposure they faced on the battlefield.
The total number of Fatemiyoun members who fought in Syria is unclear. Experts estimate the number was between 5,000 to 20,000, although Alfoneh says the figure is likely closer to the lower figure cited.
Iranian authorities said the fighters travelled to Syria voluntarily to defend Shi’ite holy sites. Human rights groups said Afghan migrants and refugees in Iran were offered financial rewards and Iranian residency permits to join the fight in Syria.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates there to be some 3.5 million documented and undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants living in Iran. Tehran has expelled many Afghans and periodically threatens those who remain with mass expulsion.
Afghan Commander
Among the three Al-Mustafa students or graduates killed in Syria was Seyyed Hashmat-Ali Shah, a Pakistani national and graduate of Al-Mustafa. He was a member of the Zeynabiyoun Brigade and was killed in combat in Syria in September 2016.
Another Pakistani national was Mohammad-Hossein Momeni, also known as Mohammad Hosseini, a student at Al-Mustafa who was killed in Syria in April 2017.
A funeral is held in the Iranian city of Mashhad for four Afghan refugees who were killed in action in Syria. (file photo)
The most prominent graduate of the university was Alireza Tivasolii, the Afghan commander of the Fatemiyoun Brigade.
Also known as Abu Hamed, he was killed in 2015 during clashes with the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front in the southern Syrian province of Daraa.
Tivasolii moved with his family to Iran during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Soon after, he volunteered for the Abouzar Brigade, an Afghan militia that had fought on Iran’s side in the war against Iraq.
After the war ended in 1988, Tivasolii enrolled and then graduated from the Al-Mustafa International University in Qom.
In the 1990s, he returned briefly to his native Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, which had seized large swaths of the country after the Soviet withdrawal and a devastating civil war.
Tivasolii also fought alongside the Iranian-backed Hizballah movement in Lebanon during the war with Israel in 2006.
In 2015, a large funeral was held for Tivasolii in his adopted city of Mashhad, in northwestern Iran. Iranian state media reported that Tivasolii was trusted by the former powerful commander of the Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. air strike in January 2020.
Former Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani (left) with Afghan Alireza Tivasolii, commander of the Fatemiyoun Brigade, who was killed fighting in Syria: (undated)
The hard-line Rajanews.ir posted a photo of Soleimani and Tivasolii in military uniform.
With the Syrian war ebbing, most fighters in the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun brigades have returned to Iran or their homelands.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Afghanistan’s Tolo News in an interview on December 21 that less than 2,000 Fatemiyoun fighters still remain in Syria.
Afghan Branch
It is unclear how U.S. sanctions will affect Al-Mustafa’s international activities.
One of Al-Mustafa’s largest foreign branches is in neighboring Afghanistan, where the majority of Muslims are Sunni, but around 15 percent of its population — mainly Hazaras — are Shi’a with religious links to the Shi’ite-majority in Iran.
Iran shares deep historical, cultural, and linguistic ties with Afghanistan, and it has expanded its sway in the country through the funding of seminaries, media outlets, cultural centers, and infrastructure projects.
Members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade attend the funeral in Tehran for Major General Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s top military commander. (file photo)
Hundreds of students are enrolled at the local branch of the university — locally known as Jamiat ul-Mustafa — in the capital, Kabul.
Afghanistan’s Higher Education Ministry told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that the Iranian university has “conducted its activities in accordance with the rules and regulations” of the ministry.
But spokesman Hamid Obaidi said the ministry would soon “make a decision” about the university’s future in Afghanistan considering U.S. sanctions against Al-Mustafa.
Exporting Shi’ism
Observers say Al-Mustafa has become Iran’s chief tool for promoting Shi’ism abroad.
The university received around $80 million in the 2020-2021 Iranian budget, serving to highlight its importance.
Al-Mustafa is believed to receive additional funding from the office of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and businesses under his control.
Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who studied Shi’ite theology in Qom, said the Al-Mustafa International University is owned and run by Khamenei.
Khalaji said Al-Mustafa “specializes in educating non-Iranian clerics.”
Observers say Al-Mustafa spreads anti-Western and anti-Semitic propaganda, and its activities are seen to be tied to Tehran’s longstanding effort to export the Islamic Revolution.
The university’s activities in Europe came under scrutiny in 2016 when an Iranian national in Kosovo was charged with financing terrorism.
Hasan Azari Bejandi was the head of the Qur’an Foundation of Kosova, an umbrella group for five Shi’ite organizations operating in Kosovo. The umbrella group appeared to be affiliated with the Al-Mustafa National University, which claimed that Bejandi was its representative in Kosovo.
Saeed Ghasseminejad and Alireza Nader at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) wrote that three religious organizations — the Islamic Development Organization, Al-Mustafa International University, and the Islamic Propaganda Office of Qom Seminary — play a “central role in projecting [Iran’s] influence abroad.”
They said that the three organizations were focused on “training Shi’ite clerics, sending missionaries across the globe, and disseminating Shi’ite propaganda” with the goal of creating a “network of native missionaries in each country who are loyal to Tehran.”
Iranian journalist and writer Akbar Ganji said that Al-Mustafa “harbors a huge army of potential sympathizers of ayatollahs who could spread their ideology around the globe.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
MINSK — The head of the Belarusian Press Club, Yulia Slutskaya, has been detained by police in Minsk. Authorities have also searched the offices of the independent journalistic organization and the homes of some of its members.
Slutskaya’s relatives said on December 22 that she was detained when she arrived back in Belarus after a holiday abroad where she had spent time with her daughter and grandchildren. The relatives said they do not know Slutskaya’s current whereabouts.
Meanwhile, the program director of the Belarusian Press Club, Ala Sharko, informed the Belarusian Journalists’ Association that police stormed into her apartment on December 22.
Sharko’s lawyer, Syarhey Zikratski, says police forced him out when he arrived at the apartment during the search operation.
The Belarusian Press Club said via its Instagram account that police also searched the apartment of Syarhey Yakupau, the director of the group’s educational programs.
The moves come just days after the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) listed Belarus as a country where authorities have significantly increased their arrests of reporters in recent months..
The arrests come as mass protests continue across the country over a disputed presidential election in August.
Election officials in Minsk say incumbent Alyaksandr Lukashenka won a landslide victory. Opposition supporters say the results were rigged in Lukashenka’s favor.
Since August, at least 373 journalists have been arrested in Belarus. At least six remain in custody.
In October, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry revoked media accreditations from several foreign news organizations in a move widely criticized as an attempt to stifle reporting about ongoing anti-government demonstrations.
Founded in 2011, the Belarusian Press Club calls itself “a platform for professional development of independent media and journalists.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Within 24 hours of being posted, Russian opposition figure Aleksei Navalny’s video report of a conversation in which a Federal Security Agency (FSB) chemist confesses to participating in Navalny’s poisoning with a deadly nerve agent in August racked up nearly 12 million views.
A video report posted one week earlier that identified the FSB agents who tracked Navalny and purportedly attempted to assassinate him at least three times has been viewed nearly 19 million times.
The shocking report, in which Navalny tricked FSB military chemist Konstantin Kudryavtsev into confessing that FSB agents smeared a toxin from the Novichok group in the oppositionist’s underwear in a hotel in Tomsk in a bid to kill him, lit up the Russian Internet.
A full day after the video landed, Navalny’s name was still No. 2 on Twitter’s “Russia Trends” list. And St. Petersburg writer and journalist Tatyana Shorokhova wrote: “This was the day the entire Russian Facebook rumbled.”
History In The Making
“What Navalny did to the FSB with his investigations, in terms of the extent of the demoralization and humiliation of the employees of this ‘new aristocracy’ is comparable only to the historical moment when the monument to [Soviet secret police founder Feliks] Dzerzhinsky was dragged along the Lubyanka like a market girl by the hair “wrote the humorous Stalingulag account on Twitter, referring to the August 1991 toppling of the colossal Dzerzhinsky statue in front of Moscow’s KGB headquarters at Lubyanka.
Moscow photographer Yevgeny Feldman also highlighted the potentially historic significance of the episode, writing on Twitter: “Russia’s Watergate: senseless and pitiless.”
Russian politician Gennady Gudkov (file photo)
Former State Duma Deputy Gennady Gudkov wrote on Facebook that Navalny’s investigations mean Russia “has entered a new phase in the recognition of the criminal character and complete amorality of the Putin regime…. Russia is ruled by a criminal band that has seized power and that in order to continue its usurpation is prepared to undertake openly monstrous crimes.”
Time To Investigate?
Other observers noted that the revelations would seem to put significant pressure on the government of President Vladimir Putin to open a criminal investigation into Navalny’s poisoning. Previously, the government had said there was no evidence of a crime and had insinuated that Navalny either poisoned himself or was poisoned after he was medically evacuated to Germany by Western security agents.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky (file photo)
“This is a serious business, but I was laughing my head off,” wrote former Russian oligarch and Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Twitter, addressing Putin by his first name and patronymic. “It looks like a criminal case will have to be opened after all, eh, Vladimir Vladimirovich?”
On Facebook, journalist Roman Dobrokhotov, of The Insider, wrote: “Earlier we said: ‘Well, what more proof do you need? Do you insist that they personally confess to everything?’ Now look – they have confessed.”
Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov (file photo)
Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who also is a vocal critic of Putin, compared the Navalny case to the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in a post on Twitter: “Doing business as usual with Putin after this, like ignoring the Saudi murder of Khashoggi, just encourages more murders. It doesn’t matter if they get caught if they get to keep killing critics with impunity.”
Politics Is All In The Timing
Still other commentators noted that Navalny’s revelations come just days after Putin’s end-of-the-year marathon press conference. During the December 17 event, Putin denied that Russian agents had poisoned Navalny and dismissed the accusations as disinformation from the CIA.
The humorous Twitter account Prof. Preobrazhensky noted that many more people have watched Navalny’s video than tuned in for Putin’s much-hyped Q-and-A session.
Activist Mikhail Svetov praised the political acumen of Navalny’s timing in a post on Twitter: “The way that Navalny knows how to pick his moment deserves particular respect. He could have rushed and published the recording before Putin’s press conference. But he held on until afterward in order to give the Kremlin the chance to dig itself in still deeper. This is real politics.”
Political commentator and former head of Gazprom-Media Alfred Kokh wrote on Facebook: “Putin was dissected like a complete sucker. A real professional should have assumed that his opponent had a trump card in reserve.”
In a post on Facebook, Voronezh lawyer Vasily Shlykov was even more direct: “According to the codes of the Russian-speaking world, any officer and soldier who has sworn an oath to the Fatherland must, after such a thing, shoot himself. Putin is an officer! Russia has never seen such a shameful thing!!”
Journalist Roman Super voiced the general surprise at the low level of professionalism the FSB agents allegedly involved in the case seemed to show: “In just 20 years, [Putin] destroyed all state institutions in general, not even sparing the State Security Committee [KGB] that pushed him to the zenith of this beautiful Russian chaos. But still he understands nothing. That is talent.”
Meanwhile…
The day after the Navalny video appeared, Russia’s state news agency TASS cited a survey from the Kremlin-friendly All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) in which a plurality of Russians named Vladimir Putin “2020’s politician of the year.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
AQTOBE, Kazakhstan — Authorities in the northwestern Kazakh city of Aqtobe have forcibly placed a wheelchair-bound activist in a psychiatric clinic after he allegedly tore down a poster of the ruling Nur Otan party.
Dana Zhanai, the chairwoman of the Qaharman human rights center, said on December 22 that activist Asanali Suyubaev had been taken to a psychiatric clinic a day earlier, a move she says is likely part of a campaign by the ruling party to sideline activists ahead of January 10 parliamentary elections.
The clinic’s deputy chief physician, Esenaman Nysanov, confirmed to RFE/RL that Suyubaev had been brought to the facility by medical personnel and police.
“The patient has mental changes. But he does not accept it. He behaved in a strange way, namely, while outside, he was tearing election posters, which can be defined in a medical term as addictive behavior,” Nysanov said, adding that Suyubaev had been under “psychiatric control” since 2012.
Aqtobe police refused to comment on Suyubaev’s situation.
Zhanai told RFE/RL that Suyubaev was forcibly placed in a psychiatric clinic for 20 days in April after he distributed leaflets for the unregistered and banned Koshe (Street) party.
“The authorities isolated him intentionally right before the [January 10] parliamentary elections. Activists have started a campaign to prove that the ruling Nur Otan party’s ratings are fictitious and that votes will be stolen during the poll. Because of that, many activists across Kazakhstan are being persecuted now. Many are under house arrest, in detention centers, and in this case, they put Suyubaev in a psychiatric clinic,” Zhanai said.
Rights activists in Kazakhstan have criticized authorities for using a Soviet-era method of stifling dissent by placing opponents in psychiatric clinics..
Earlier in November, another government critic, journalist Aigul Otepova, was placed in a psychiatric clinic for 18 days. She was released on December 11 and remains under house arrest over posting an article on Facebook criticizing official efforts to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
Investigators have charged her with having links with banned opposition movement Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, which Otepova denies.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.