UN AGENCY SAYS IT IS FACING 'STALEMATE' WITH IRAN OVER NUCLEAR PROGRAMME

The head of the United Nations atomic watchdog warned today that the agency has reached a deadlock with Iran over most aspects of its nuclear programme as he urged the country to credibly answer the international community's concerns over potential military dimensions to the programme.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told a meeting of the agency's 35-member Board of Governors that although Iran had cooperated on some issues, such as improving safeguards at a fuel enrichment plans, "on all other issues? there is stalemate.

"Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities or its work on heavy water-related projects as required by the Security Council, nor has Iran implemented the Additional Protocol [of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]," Dr. ElBaradei said at the board meeting, held at IAEA headquarters in Vienna.

He called on Iran "to respond fully to all the questions raised by the agency in order to exclude the possibility of there being military dimensions to its nuclear programme.

"To this end, it is essential that Iran substantively re-engage with the clarify and bring to closure all outstanding issues, including the most difficult and important questions regarding the authenticity of information relating to the alleged weaponization studies, by granting the agency access to persons, information and locations."

Dr. ElBaradei said that if Iran does not implement the Additional Protocol, the IAEA "will not be able to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear activities in Iran, especially given Iran's past record of failing to declare material and activities."

Iranian authorities must also clarify their future intentions regarding the nuclear programme, he stressed.

"This is essentially a question of confidence-building between Iran and the international c
ommunity through comprehensive dialogue and other measures. I call on all parties to begin this dialogue as soon as possible and urge Iran to respond positively to the recent United States initiative in this regard," said Dr. ElBaradei, referring to an offer of talks.

Elsewhere in his report to the board, the Director General also said he was dismayed by allegations of some Member States that information concerning Iran's nuclear programme had been withheld from the board by the IAEA secretariat, calling them "politically motivated and totally baseless."

Turning to Syria, he said that while authorities in Damascus had cooperated with the IAEA over its verification activities at the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor, they have not yet granted the agency access to information, locations, equipment or materials concerning a destroyed building at Dair Alzour, which has been alleged by some to be the site of a nuclear reactor.

"I urge Syria to cooperate with the agency in its verificatio
n activities related to the nature of the Dair Alzour site. It is in Syria's interest to enable the agency to corroborate its statements. I also call on other States which may possess information relevant to the agency's verification to make such information available."

UN AGENCY SHELTERS HUNDREDS OF RETURNING REFUGEES IN NORTHERN AFGHAN WASTELANDS

The United Nations refugee agency has started providing shelter to hundreds of Afghans who have recently returned from Iran to their homeland, more than two decades after they fled during the Soviet Union's occupation of the country in the 1980s.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is scaling up efforts to expand a temporary tented camp in a barren and arid region of northern Afghanistan as the total number of returnees is expected to climb to more than 1,500 in the coming weeks.

The influx of repatriated Afghan refugees – mostly nomadic Kuchi people of Baloch ethnicity who fled the country during the period of Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989 – are returning from a camp in south-east Iran to the Sozma Qala district to find their homes were destroyed by armed conflict or collapsed after years of neglect.

"Returning to this remote and desolate place, they are defying nature with their tireless determination to start anew," said Aurvasi Patel, head of the UNHCR office in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, adding that with "winter fast approaching, [the] reintegration of these families will be a major challenge."

Alessandra Morelli, UNHCR interim Deputy Representative in Afghanistan, also underscored the difficulties of setting up a transit camp and providing basic water, education and health services in such a desolate area.

"The settlement is a temporary solution to allow people to have a shelter while they are rebuilding their homes in nearby villages," stressed Ms. Morelli.
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Iraq/Iran/Kuwait: never-ending uncertainty for those seeking missing relatives

The families of hundreds of thousands of people who went missing in past wars in the Gulf region need continued support in their quest to find out what happened to their loved ones, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said today. Marking the International Day of the Disappeared on 30 August, the ICRC said families in Iraq longed to obtain news of those who vanished in the armed conflict that broke out in 2003 and in other armed violence over recent decades, while families in Iraq, Iran and Kuwait still hoped to discover what happened to their fathers, brothers and sons who went missing during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

"This never-ending uncertainty is a source of immense anguish for families in all three countries," said Beatrice Mégévand, the ICRC's head of operations for the Middle East and North Africa. "They want to know and they have a right to know what happened to their missing relatives, even if it means having it confirmed that they are dead."

In an effort to determine what befell people missing in connection with recent conflicts in the region, the ICRC has been providing support for the authorities and for forensic experts, especially in Iraq and Iran. Where necessary, the ICRC has provided training, supplied equipment and repaired facilities. In addition, it has facilitated the exchange of information relating to missing persons between the countries concerned.

"It's a blessing that I saw my son and buried him," said Sabria, an Iraqi mother who retrieved the mortal remains of her son, who went missing during the Iran-Iraq war, in November 2008. "Now he is in a cemetery and I will be buried beside him."

The ICRC calls on the authorities concerned to do everything in their power, in accordance with international humanitarian law, to clarify what happened to those who went missing in armed conflict and to provide the families with any information they obtain.

REPORTED TORTURE OF IRANIAN ELECTION PROTESTORS CONCERN UN RIGHTS EXPERTS

A group of independent United Nations human rights experts voiced serious concern today over accusations of torture and rough interrogation tactics in connection with trials of protesters of Iran's disputed presidential elections.

The victims include lawyers, journalists and other human rights defenders, as well as members of the opposition who took to the streets to demonstrate over the results of the 12 June polls, according to the UN experts.

"No judicial system can consider as valid a confession obtained as a result of harsh interrogations or under torture," stressed Manfred Nowak, the Special Rapporteur on Torture.

"These confessions for alleged crimes such as threats against national security and treason must not, under any circumstances, be admitted as evidence by the Revolutionary Court," added El Hadji Malick Sow, the Vice-Chairperson of the Working Group on arbitrary detention.

Foreign media have been banned from covering the judicial proceedings and it is unclear whether the defendants have adequate legal counsel, noted the experts, which also include the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggya.

The experts added that many detainees are kept without any communication with the outside world, without knowing the charges they face, medical treatment, legal assistance or family visits.

The group said they continue to receive reports of people dying in custody, and whose families are given false or contradictory information regarding the cause of death.
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Iran: Free Baha'i Leaders

On Anniversary of Detention, Reports of New Charges

May 14, 2009

(New York) - Iran should immediately free seven detained Baha'i community leaders, or bring them promptly to trial so they can defend themselves in fair and open proceedings against the serious charges against them, Human Rights Watch said today. Today is the one-year anniversary of the detention of six of them, while the seventh was detained earlier. None have had access to a lawyer.

The seven men and women have been charged with spying for Israel, "insulting religious sanctities," and spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic. In addition, prison officials at Evin prison in Tehran informed relatives visiting the detained men and women last week that they would also be charged with "spreading corruption on Earth" (mofsede fel arz), said Diane Ala'i, the Baha'i International Community's representative to the UN in Geneva. This offense is punishable by death under Iran's Penal Code.

"These Baha'i leaders have been languishing in prison for a year now, with no access to their lawyers and no glimmer of a trial date," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "These reported new charges only add to the fears for their lives under a government that systematically discriminates against Bahai's."

As with other religious communities throughout Iran, Baha'i observance is grounded in local community organizations. On May 14, 2008, six leaders of the national organization of Bahai's - a group that operates in the absence of the normal Baha'i practice of having a National Spiritual Assembly - were arrested at their homes in Tehran. They are: Fariba Kamalabadi; Jamaloddin Khanjani; Afif Naeimi; Saeid Rezaie; Behrouz Tavakkoli; and Vahid Tizfahm. A seventh, Mahvash Sabet, the secretary of the national community organization, was arrested on May 5, 2008, in Mashhad, northeast Iran, after responding to a summons from the Ministry of Intelligence.

The Baha'i faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Baha'ullah in 19th-century Iran and has approximately 300,000 followers in Iran. The Iranian government considers Baha'is to be apostates from Islam. Today, Baha'is face discrimination in their pursuit of higher education and many areas of employment. In addition, the inclusion of Israel as a "holy place" in the Baha'i faith in 1868 has, since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, been used to fuel persistent accusations against Baha'is in Iran of spying for Israel, with which Iran has hostile relations.

UN-SUPPORTED HIV SERVICES TARGET DRUG-ADDICTED WOMEN AND AFGHANS IN IRAN

UN-SUPPORTED HIV SERVICES TARGET DRUG-ADDICTED WOMEN AND AFGHANS IN IRAN
New York, Mar 20 2009 4:00PM

The United Nations drug control agency has signed agreements with the Government of Iran to provide HIV prevention and care services to women and Afghan refugees there who are dependent on drugs.

HIV programmes for such vulnerable groups represent "an often neglected and humanitarian side of drug control," said Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), expressing thanks to the Netherlands for financial assistance and urging other funding partners to follow suit.

"These agreements are further evidence of UNODC's pro-health approach to drugs, and to a deepening of our partnership with the Islamic Republic of Iran," Mr. Costa added.

According to UNODC, there are more than 900,000 Afghan refugees in Iran, down from a peak of 2 million in 2002 and 2003, making it one of the largest refugee populations in the world.

The group has been identified as being high-risk and has thus far not fully benefited from Iran's HIV prevention and support services, such as opioid substitution treatment, for injecting drug users.

The project is part of a three-year sub-regional initiative to assist Afghan drug-dependent refugees in Pakistan as well as those who have returned home.

"The hardships of Afghan refugees are compounded, not solved, by drugs. We need to reach out to this vulnerable group, and lower their vulnerability to drug abuse and the spread of HIV/AIDS through injecting drug use," Mr. Costa said.

Partners in the project include the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), along with the Governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The second project targets Iranian women who are either drug dependent or affected by HIV or both, aiming to increase quality services tailored to the specific needs of these women in prison settings and elsewhere.

It will complement the "significant resources" that the Government of Iran already devotes to prevention and treatment of HIV and to drug-demand reduction measures, UNODC said.
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Iran: Illegal Detention of Iranian-American Journalist

Iranian officials are unlawfully detaining the Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi by holding her without charge, Human Rights Watch said today. Saberi has been in detention without charge since January 30, 2009, in the political prisoners' section of Tehran's Evin prison. Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian authorities to immediately release the journalist they promised to free, or immediately bring her before a judge to review her detention in a public hearing, with the power to order her release.

Saberi, a 31-year-old journalist whose work was broadcast for networks including NPR, BBC, and FOX, was the Tehran bureau chief for Feature Story News (FSN) when she was detained in January. Her father, Reza Saberi, says that authorities alleged that she had purchased wine, against the law in Iran, a year ago. However, after six weeks of detention, she has not been charged with any crime.

"The constitution of Iran guarantees free speech, yet the government continues to detain journalists without charge for doing their jobs," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "In fact, Iran continues to be one of the biggest jailers of journalists worldwide."

Saberi, a dual Iranian-American citizen whose father is Iranian and mother is Japanese, has lived in Iran for the past six years. Her family said she was also pursuing a master's degree at the University of Public Relations (daneshkadehyeh ravabeteh omoomi), an English-language university in Tehran. She is the latest in a series of people with dual American and Iranian citizenship detained while visiting or working in Iran.

Iran is violating its own laws and international laws to which it is a signatory by detaining Saberi without charge, and - until the case received international attention - without access to a lawyer or her family, Human Rights Watch said.

Saberi was in daily contact with her family in Fargo, North Dakota, until an email and phone call on January 31 went unanswered. On February 10, her father said, Saberi called her parents at about 3 a.m. Fargo time, speaking "under stress and tense" for less than two minutes. She told him, in English, that Iranian authorities had detained her for purchasing alcohol, then abruptly hung up. She then called back two minutes later and pleaded with her parents not to take any action because prison officials had told her they would release her in a few days.

"Then we waited to see if we would hear anything, and we didn't," her father told Human Rights Watch. "At the end of February, we decided that we had waited enough, so we talked to NPR and from then it became public."

On March 3, Ali Reza Jamshidi, a spokesperson for Iran's Judiciary, confirmed Saberi's detention, stating that, "The arrest took place on a writ issued by the Revolutionary Court." Jamshidi further stated that authorities had detained Saberi because of her unspecified "illegal activities" and would release her within a few days, but she remains in detention. The Saberi family then contacted a lawyer, Samad Khorramshahi, who agreed to represent her.

Khorramshahi had his first opportunity to meet Saberi on March 8, over six weeks after her arrest, at a visit arranged at a courthouse in Tehran. Reza Saberi said the lawyer reported that his daughter "appeared depressed" but was heartened to discover that her family was making efforts toward her release and that her situation had received international attention. On March 10, another visit was arranged for Khorramshahi, this time at Evin prison itself. Her father said that was the first time that the lawyer had concrete confirmation that they were indeed holding Saberi in Section 209, the political prisoners' section. It appeared to the lawyer that she was being held in a cell with several other female political prisoners.

In the early hours of March 9, prison officials allowed Saberi her second brief supervised call to her family in North Dakota. Saberi stated that her situation was "psychologically challenging" but that physically she was fine, Reza Saberi told Human Rights Watch.

On March 10, representatives from the BBC, FOX, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and FSN wrote a letter on Saberi's behalf, urging that Iran provide access to Saberi.

The Iranian code of criminal procedure requires the government to inform individuals of the charges against them within 24 hours of their arrest and to provide access to a lawyer. Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran ratified in 1975, says that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention. It goes on to require that anyone arrested shall be informed "promptly" of any charges against them, and shall be brought promptly before a judge. Anyone unlawfully arrested or detained should have an enforceable right to compensation.

Saberi's case is one of several over the past few years involving Iranian-American dual nationals. In 2007, security forces detained three scholars with dual citizenship for months before freeing them. The detentions are part of a broad crackdown against journalists, writers, scholars and activists by Iranian intelligence officials based in the country's Information Ministry. The government also has increasingly brought security charges based merely on an individual's connections to foreign institutions, persons, or sources of funding, alleging that they undermine national security.

Human Rights Watch has documented extensive patterns of forced confessions, arbitrary detentions, and prison torture against opposition journalists, political activists, and anyone perceived as a critic (http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/01/06/you-can-detain-anyone-anything-0 ).

CONSTANT VIGILANCE ON NUCLEAR RISKS CRITICAL, HEAD OF UN ATOMIC AGENCY SAYS

CONSTANT VIGILANCE ON NUCLEAR RISKS CRITICAL, HEAD OF UN ATOMIC AGENCY SAYS
New York, Mar 2 2009 4:00PM

Nuclear safety worldwide is steadily improving but the risk of accidents or malicious acts can never be eliminated and there is no room for complacency, the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency said today.

"Vigilance and continuous improvement are key, both at existing nuclear facilities and at new facilities being planned in a growing number of countries, Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said as he opened the Board of Governor's meeting of the organization today in Vienna.

Introducing IAEA's Nuclear Safety Review for the Year 2008, he added "The drive to introduce, or expand the use of, nuclear power always needs to be matched by a strong commitment to safety and security as indispensable enablers of nuclear technology."

To keep up, he said, the agency must focus on improving its Incident and Emergency Centre to enhance capabilities to respond to a large accident, and must provide more effective support for Member States, especially those who have recently embarked on nuclear power projects.

According to the IAEA's current Nuclear Technology Review, 2008 was a paradoxical year for nuclear power, being the first year since 1955 in which not a single new power reactor came on line, but also seeing construction start on no fewer than ten new reactors, the highest number since 1985, the year before the Chernobyl accident.

At the same time, growth targets for nuclear power were raised in China and the Russian Federation, and the ending of restrictions on India's nuclear trade should allow an acceleration of its planned expansion of nuclear power.

In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has now received combined licence applications for 26 new reactors, while the Department of Energy submitted a formal application to build and operate the long-planned high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The number of Agency technical cooperation projects on energy planning accelerated this year from 29 to 41 and there were also significant increases in the number of projects on uranium exploration and mining and on introducing nuclear power.

In April, China will host an International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century, organized by the Agency with the support of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organisation of industrialised countries.

In regard to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, Mr. ElBaradei said that in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Agency has continued to monitor and verify the shutdown status of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities.

All of the fuel rods discharged from the experimental reactor remain under Agency containment and surveillance, he said.

In Iran, he said that the Agency was unable to make any progress on the remaining issues that give rise to concerns about possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programme because of "lack of cooperation by Iran."

"Unless Iran implements the transparency measures and the Additional Protocol, as required by the Security Council, the Agency will not be in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran," he reiterated.

On Syria, he said that further analysis of the environmental samples taken from the Dair Alzour site has been carried out, revealing additional particles of uranium which had been produced as a result of chemical processing.

Syria has stated that the particles came from the missiles used to destroy the building, which Israel has denied, he said, noting that the Agency's current assessment is that there is a low probability that the uranium was introduced by the missiles.

In subsequent communications, he maintained, Syria's responses to some of the Agency's questions were only partial, adding that "the Agency expects Syria to provide additional information and supporting documentation about the past use and nature of the building at the Dair Alzour site, and information about procurement activities."
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