The U.S. State Department accuses Iran of helping the Syrian government’s efforts to suppress protests that have taken place there in recent weeks.
“We believe that there is credible information that Iran is assisting Syria” in quelling the protesters, department spokesman Mark Toner said Thursday.
U.S. officials said the Iranian assistance includes gear used to suppress crowds, as well as equipment and technical advice for monitoring and blocking e-mail, cell phones, text messaging, and internet postings by and among activists.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry told the nation’s official news agency, SANA, that the claim is “absolutely untrue.” An official at Iran’s mission to the United Nations said Iran “categorically rejects” the accusation as “totally baseless and unfounded.”
He added, “This and similar allegations are in line with the mainstream anti-Iranian propaganda masterminded and propagated by known circles in the United States to tarnish the image of Iran and Syria.”
But Toner said of the Iranians, “They continue to play a meddling role in the region.”
American officials said Iran’s government is also sharing with Syria the best practices it developed during Tehran’s crackdown on the Green Movement protesters in 2009.
One security tactic Iran has developed, according to former Pentagon intelligence analyst Michael Rubin, is arresting protesters days later, rather than in the middle of heated street protests.
“What Iran does is, they take photos” of anti-government protesters, Rubin said. “Then they come, over the next two or three weeks, and they will round up people in the middle of the night, where you won’t create a spark, where you won’t create a backlash. That may be what they’re trying to teach Syria right now.”
source: CNN
The European Union has frozen the assets of 32 Iranian officials for violating human rights in Iran, announcing that they are also barred from tavelling to Europe.
Agence France Presse reports that the EU decision was approved two days ago in a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, but the names of the Iranians affected were not published.
Yesterday’s report does reveal the names of the Islamic Republic officials.
British Foreign Minister William Hague maintained that these individuals are either influential in Iran's judiciary or are believed to be "directly involved in the oppression of human rights activists and government dissidents."
The EU foreign ministers announced that the European Union supports U.S. measures aimed at human rights violators in Iran.
In September, the U.S. announced that it is imposing sanctions against eight Islamic Republic officials for violating human rights. The list included three current cabinet ministers, three military and security commanders as well as Iran's current Prosecutor General and former prosecutor for Tehran.
The EU list of Iranian officials under sanction includes several military and security officials, including head of Iran's security forces, Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam; the head of Basij, Mohammadreza Naqdi, and Abdollah Araghi, the deputy commander of Revolutionary Guards Ground Forces.
Iranian judiciary officials under EU sanctions include amongst several others, Hassan Shariati, the head of the Mashhad justice department; Abbas Jafari Dowlatabdi, the Tehran Prosecutor, and Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Iran's Prosecutor General.
source: Radio Zamaneh
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