Iran news in brief, May 21, 2019

Iran news in brief, May 21, 2019

Iran's Regime Sentences 4 MEK Activists to Execution, Imprisonment

Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on Sunday sentenced four men affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran to prison and or death.

Branch 28 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court headed by the notorious judge, Mohammad Moghiseh, sentenced 34-year-old Abdullah Ghasempour to death and eight years behind bars on charges including “waging war on God,” “assembly and collusion,” and “membership in the MEK.”

The court said that Ghasempour had set fire to a paramilitary Bassij base, filmed the event and sent it to the MEK media. The Bassij is affiliated to the regime’s Revolutionary Guards, which was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department last month.

Three other men, Mohammad Hossein Ghasempour (Abdullah’s brother), Alireza Habibian, and Akbar Dalir, all in their thirties, were sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison each for “assembly and collusion.”

The trio are currently held in Ward 4 of Tehran’s Evin Prison.

All four had been arrested on May 21, 2018, in Tehran and were transferred to the notorious Evin Prison. They were kept in a state of limbo for nearly a year before being tried.

Three Kurdish Women Arrested for Civil Activism

Security forces arrested three Kurdish women in the city of Marivan for civil activities and for holding a protest.

On May 16, the Iranian regime’s security forces attacked Koolan Village near Marivan and arrested at least 7 civil activists, including three Kurdish women, who had protested the murder of a woman in that area. The three Kurdish women are Daiman Fat’hi, Somayyeh Roozbeh and Mojdeh Mardokhi.

On this day, civil activists in Marivan had planned to gather at the village’s cemetery by the grave of the murdered woman.

Britain Tells Iran's Regime: Don't Provoke the United States

Britain told Iran’s regime on Monday not to underestimate the resolve of the United States, warning that if American interests were attacked then the US administration would retaliate.

“I would say to the Iranians: Do not underestimate the resolve on the US side,” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters in Geneva.

“They don’t want a war with Iran. But if American interests are attacked, they will retaliate. And that is something that the Iranians needs to think about very, very carefully.”

Officials Say Iran's Regime Quadruples Production of Enriched Uranium

The Iranian regime quadrupled its uranium-enrichment production capacity amid tensions with the U.S. over Tehran’s atomic program, nuclear officials said Monday.

By increasing production, the regime soon will exceed the stockpile limitations set by the 2015 nuclear deal.

The state-run IRNA news agency later quoted Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as acknowledging that capacity had been quadrupled.