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Here’s What You Didn’t Read About the Jewish Man Executed By Iran
Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani. Photo: screenshot.
Regarding the execution of Jewish Iranian citizen Arvin Ghahremani, the Associated Press wholeheartedly embraces the dubious narrative of the Islamic regime’s judiciary. While selling its wares on the mantra of “Advancing the power of facts,” the leading news service conceals the harrowing basic facts from readers — that the young man’s family insisted that he was defending himself from his attacker, and that the Iran Human Rights advocacy group slammed the legal case’s “significant flaws.”
The AP’s Nov. 4 coverage ignored the case’s glaring problems, and hewed closely to the line espoused from a website affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, starting with a headline that frames Ghahremani’s act as motivated by nothing more than money, as opposed to self-preservation: “Iran executes a Jewish citizen convicted of murder following a dispute over money.”
With no byline and a dateline of Tehran, the AP’s article begins:
Iran on Monday executed a Jewish citizen convicted of murdering another man in 2022 following a personal dispute, reports said. It was a rare case of an execution of member of a religious minority in the predominately Muslim nation.
Mizanonline.ir, a website affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, said 23-year-old Arvin Ghahremani was put to death after the country’s Supreme Court affirmed the capital punishment handed down in the case earlier last year. …
According to the report, Ghahramani attacked the victim outside a gym in Kermanshah in 2022 and stabbed the man several times following a dispute over money he had loaned the victim.
“In the midst of the threats of war with Israel, the Islamic republic executed Arvin Ghahremani, an Iranian Jewish citizen,” said IHR [Iran Human Rights] director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding the legal case had “significant flaws.”
“However, in addition to this, Arvin was a Jew, and the institutionalised anti-Semitism in the Islamic republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the execution of his sentence,” Amiry-Moghaddam added.
IHR said that Ghahremani was accused of killing a man during a street fight in Kermanshah two years ago. But it said that, according to his family, he had been attacked with a knife and defended himself using the attacker’s weapon.
Unlike AFP, the Associated Press story contained no mention of the claim of self-defense, nothing about IHR’s statement about “significant flaws” in the case, not a word about Amiry-Moghaddam’s charge that “institutionalized antisemitism … undoubtedly played a crucial role” in the ruling, and no hint of the backdrop of Iran’s attacks on Israel and its ongoing threats to wipe the Jewish State off the face of the earth.
Furthermore, AFP included additional essential information, raising further questions about the Iranian judiciary’s version of events which the AP shared without challenge:
The defendant’s lawyers requested a retrial three times, but each request was rejected, it added.
Mizan said that Ghahremani was 21 at the time of the fight. However IHR said he was 18 then, with other reports saying he was 20 or 21 by the time of his execution.
Moreover, the AP’s selective reporting omitted a clear indication that antisemitism played a key role in Ghahremani’s execution. Thus, the AP story noted the “the convicted man’s lawyers and relatives had failed to convince the victim’s family to abstain from qisas — an act under Islamic penal code that calls for similar punishment, or an ‘eye for an eye’ — and effectively pardon his killer.”
But, according to the Iran Human Rights NGO, Shokri’s family had initially agreed to pardon Ghahremani — that is, until they learned that Ghahremani was Jewish. Thus, IHR reported:
An informed source told IHRNGO: “Arvin’s religion was initially cited as Shia Muslim in the case and the victim’s family agreed to accept diya but changed their mind and insisted on his execution when they discovered that he was Jewish.”
Finally, on Nov. 6, Voice of America (VOA) revealed additional red flags indicating that there’s more to the story than the laundered Mizan-Iranian judiciary-AP version lets on (“New details emerge in Iran’s first execution of Jewish minority member in 30 years“):
VOA has learned that Arvin Ghahremani, the first Jewish person executed by the Islamic Republic in 30 years, was put to death in the western city of Kermanshah on Monday without prior notice to his family. …
A U.S.-based source with contacts in Iran sent VOA the text of a letter that Ghahremani’s Iranian lawyer, Peyman Saketkhou, wrote on Tuesday and stated that Ghahremani had been executed without notice to family members or defense lawyers. …
The source requested anonymity to safeguard communications with Iran-based lawyers, whose work on cases dealing with sensitive issues has exposed them to harassment and arrest by Iranian authorities.
“The execution of Ghahremani without notice to the family shows the cruelty of the regime,” George Haroonian, an Iranian American rights activist, said in a statement to VOA.
According to VOA:
Another Iran-based rights group, Human Rights Activists in Iran, reacted to Ghahremani’s execution by noting that under Iranian law, when a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, qisas does not give the non-Muslim’s family the right to seek the offender’s execution. It said that in such cases, only blood money or lesser punishments typically are imposed.
Finally, VOA included a reaction from the US government:
The Biden administration issued its first reaction to Ghahremani’s execution on Wednesday.
“We are dismayed by reports that the regime in Iran executed Arvin Ghahramani. The circumstances of the case and the prosecution raise troubling questions about due process,” U.S. special envoy Deborah Liptstadt said in a post on the X platform.
Meanwhile, while CAMERA contacted the AP about the gross failings of wire service’s Nov. 4 article the very same day it was published, the news agency has neither improved its initial story nor published a follow up with the developments noted by Voice of America.
“Advancing the power of facts” is the AP’s promise to readers, and concealing the troubling questions about due process in the horrific execution of Arvin Ghahremani is the reality.
Tamar Sternthal is the director of CAMERA’s Israel Office. A version of this article previously appeared on the CAMERA website.
The post Here’s What You Didn’t Read About the Jewish Man Executed By Iran first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
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