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President Hassan Rouhani’s own returning environmental expert Kaveh Madani had to flee the country following an interrogation.
The charging of the environmentalists has been condemned by UN Environment head, Erik Solheim, who told the Guardian on October 24: “I have transmitted our concerns twice in writing to the Iranian authorities, and have also spoken with the authorities in Tehran. But this latest news gives us even greater cause for alarm.”
The detainee said to have hung himself, Kavous Seyed-Emami, was a renowned Canadian-Iranian environmentalist and professor. Madani, deputy head of Iran’s environmental protection organisation, was detained for 72 hours before leaving the country to live in exile.
A reporter close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) lately claimed that the environmentalists were planting cameras and collecting soil samples to pinpoint sensitive areas used for Iranian missile tests.
No evidence to substantiate such claims have been released in public by officials.
The Rouhani government remains adamant that there is no evidence of wrongdoing against the environmentalists, but the hardline and elite IRGC acts independently of the government, especially on security matters.
As they face upgraded “corruption on earth” charges, the five environmentalists could face the death penalty within a matter of months if an appeal is not successful in reducing the charges to the prior indictment of “espionage”.
The environmentalists are Houman Jowkar, Taher Ghadirian, Morad Tahbaz, Sepideh Kashani and Niloufar Bayani.
2.5 Noisy protests as Iranian MPs vote through bill against funding of terrorism
Iran’s parliament has voted through a bill allowing the country to join the UN convention against the funding of terrorism (known as CFT). But the approval did not pass without noisy objections. Hardline MPs and activists protested outside the main parliament building at the implementation of CFT and moves to counter money laundering in line with standards set by the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Their objections were mainly centred on how new financial rules stemming from the legislation would in effect block transactions to regional allied armed groups in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, some of whom are fighting on the side of the Damascus regime and others of whom are supporting the Iraqi government in its battle against militant groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The CFT legislation was ratified on October 7 by 143 votes to 120, with five abstentions. The legislation still has to be approved by a top clerical body, the Guardians Council, before it can pass into law.
"Neither I nor the president can guarantee that all problems will go away if we
8 IRAN Country Report November 2018 www.intellinews.com