Trump signs Russia-Iran sanctions bill into law

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin

Washington, August 2, 2017 - U.S. President Donald Trump has signed into law new sanctions against Russia, Iran and N. Korea that were passed overwhelmingly by Congress last week.
A White House official said on Wednesday he had signed the bill, and White House adviser Kellyanne Conway confirmed this during an interview with Fox News.
Given the delay since Congress approved the legislation last Thursday, there had been speculation that the Republican president might be resisting signing a bill that has already provoked countermeasures by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump accepted the new sanctions, which also include Iran and North Korea. The bill had enough support in Congress to override a presidential veto.
The new sanctions measure, the first major foreign policy legislation approved by Congress since Trump took office in January, includes a provision allowing Congress to stop any effort by the president to ease existing sanctions on Russia.
It also cracks down on Iran and North Korea for activities including their missile development programs and human rights abuses, including seeking to punish foreign banks that do business with North Korea.

Source: Extracted from a Reuters report

Iran: Political prisoner on hunger strike, protesting suspicious measures

National Council of Resistance of Iran

Call for urgent action to save their lives, launch fact-finding mission

The Iranian Resistance is issuing a warning regarding the lives of 53 political prisoners in Gohardasht Prison of Karaj, west of Tehran, who have been attacked and transferred to a different location.
These measures are taking place as the Iranian people mark the 29th anniversary of the 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners.
The Iranian Resistance calls on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran to establish a fact-finding mission to see into this situation.

On Sunday, July 30, these political prisoners were viciously attacked in this prison’s ward 4 in hall 1 and transferred to hall 10. More than 60 surveillance devices and 40 closed-circuit cameras have been installed in this hall to prevent any reports of this development leaking outside of the prison. All openings and windows have been covered with metal sheets.
The prison authorities are also preventing the prisoners from transferring any medicine, personal items, refrigerators, air conditioners and water purification devices purchased by the prisoners themselves to the new hall.
A number of the prisoners are in poor condition as they have been denied access to their medicine and the lack of any ventilation. Several have been transferred to the prison clinic.
The transferred prisoners have launched a hunger strike protesting the regime’s pressures and conspiracies threatening their lives, health and security.
Two months after Iran’s sham elections that saw Hassan Rouhani reach a second term, who during the election campaign admitted the country has during the past 38 years been managed through execution and imprisonment, cases of executions, torture and crackdown have expanded significantly.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
August 1, 2017

Western nations decry Iran space launch; US levies sanctions

Iran regime space launch

WASHINGTON, Washington Post, July 28, 2017 — The United States punished Iran on Friday for launching a satellite-carrying rocket into space by hitting six Iranian entities with sanctions targeting the country’s ballistic missiles program.

Three European nations that helped broker the landmark Iran nuclear deal in 2015 joined the U.S. in condemning the launch, and said it was too close for comfort to the type of intercontinental ballistic missiles used to deliver a nuclear payload. At the United Nations , U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said Iran was “breaking its obligation” and added, “We can’t trust them.”

“Under this administration, the United States will not let Iran off the hook for behavior that threatens our interests and our allies,” Haley said. “We will continue to impose consequences until Iran stops its provocations and complies fully with Security Council resolutions.”

The U.S. sanctions hit six Iranian subsidiaries of the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, described by the Treasury Department as “central” to Iran’s ballistic missiles program. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin cast the sanctions as part of an ongoing U.S. effort to aggressively oppose Iran’s ballistic missile activity, including what he called a “provocative space launch” carried out by the Islamic Republic on Thursday.

In another allegation against the U.S. adversary, Mnuchin said that missile attacks on U.S. partner Saudi Arabia over the weekend by Houthi rebels in Yemen had likely come with the support of Iran. The U.S. has long accused Tehran of shipping weapons to the Houthis, a Shiite group that controls part of Yemen and is being fought by a Saudi-led coalition.
The sanctions came a day after Iran successfully launched its most advanced satellite-carrying rocket into space, in what was likely a major advancement for the country’s space program. The “Simorgh” rocket is capable of carrying a satellite weighing 550 pounds (250 kilograms), Iran state television said.

The U.S. National Air and Space Intelligence Center said in a report released last month that the Simorgh could act as a test bed for developing the technologies needed to produce an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM.

In a joint statement, the U.S., Britain, Germany and France called the launch “inconsistent” with the U.N. Security Council resolution enshrining the nuclear deal, adding that such activities destabilize the region. The grouping represented all of the Western nations that are part of the nuclear deal, which also includes Russia, China and the European Union .

“We condemn this action,” the countries said. “We call on Iran not to conduct any further ballistic missile launches and related activities.”

Yet beyond the U.S. sanctions, it was unclear what, if anything, the group could do to increase pressure quickly on Tehran. Notably, the nations stopped short of saying the launch had “violated” the U.N. resolution, saying only that it was “inconsistent” with the text. That’s because the resolution calls upon, but doesn’t oblige, Iran to refrain from ballistic missile development.

Britain, Germany and France also said they were raising their concerns directly to the Islamic Republic. Despite brokering the nuclear deal, the U.S. doesn’t maintain regular diplomatic relations with Iran.
The U.S. penalties reflect an attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to show it’s staying tough on Iran even though Trump has yet to scrap the 2015 nuclear agreement, despite threatening to do so as a candidate and labelling it a bad deal.

Iran accuses US of ‘brazen’ plan to change its government

Tillerson advocates a regime change in Iran

UNITED NATIONS, Washington Post, June 28, 2017 — Iran is accusing U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of “a brazen interventionist plan” to change the current government that violates international law and the U.N. Charter.
Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres circulated Tuesday that Tillerson’s comments are also “a flagrant violation” of the 1981 Algiers Accords in which the United States pledged “not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.”
Tillerson said at a June 14 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the State Department budget that U.S. policy is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons “and work towards support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government.”