LATEST: 2nd Iranian Journalist in 2 Days Killed in Syria
With the Rouhani Government publicly setting the goal of removal of all sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme, the regime raised the rhetoric on Wednesday in a letter from Alireza Marandi — President of Iran’s Academy of Medical Sciences and former Health Minister — to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
Marandi, who has written Ban on two previous occasions, “underscored that these inhumane sanctions…are definitely having a significant and negative impact on the health of the Iranian public including women, children, hospital patients, and anyone on medication”.
The doctor continued that, with the inability to collect needed medicines, there were “more and more cases of the gradual malnutrition and death of children and of patients with specific diseases”.
The US has argued that the sanctions do not block the sale of drugs and medical equipment to Tehran; however, those exports have been significantly restricted by the restrictions on financial transactions.
Some analysts — including inside Iran — have argued that mismanagement has contributed to the crisis. Last December, Health Minister Marziyeh Vahid Dastjerdi was dismissed after she complained that the Central Bank was not providing the required funds for import of the medical supplies.
For Marandi, however, these were not matters for debate:
“The gross negligence of the United Nations and other international organizations towards this issue of great importance, besides being recorded on the pages of history, will further weaken these already diminished international bodies in defending the inalienable rights of innocent individuals and populations in the face of sadistic collective punishment.”
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Mehr News Slams “Anti-Iran, Anti-Shia, Pan-Turkism Currents” For Facebook Photo Controversy
Mehr News has published a blistering condemnation of what it dubbed “Anti-Iran, Anti-Shia, Pan-Turkism Currents”, after a photograph one of its journalists took at a Department of Foreign Affairs ceremony drew criticism on Facebook.
Mehr said that criticism of the photograph, which shows a group of women journalists sitting on Persian rug at the crowded ceremony while their male counterparts are seated on chairs, was “out of context”.
Critics of the image suggested that the fact that women and not men were relegated to the floor was evidence of sexual discrimination, or as Mehr put it: “biased releases of the photo where they claimed that women in Iran have a status like that of the slaves, men taking seats and women siting on the floors.”
Mehr, however, said that the women were sitting on the floor only because the room was crowded, and pointed out that: “many male journalists were watching the ceremony while standing on their feet”.
2nd Iranian Journalist in 2 Days Killed in Syria
An Iranian journalist, Esmail Heydari, has been killed near Damascus.
Two Iranian reporters have been slain in two days — on Wednesday Hadi Baghban, making a documentary, was killed amid the regime offensive in the Damascus suburbs.
Fars News opened a Damascus bureau last year. It featured Baghban’s funeral prominently on Thursday.
Iran Media: What Chemical Attack in Syria?
Press TV uses the rather weak resolution from the United Nations last night to set out Iran’s line on the Syrian attacks on Wednesday that killed at least 1360 people near Damascus: “Chemical Attack in Syria Yet to Be Confirmed: UN Security Council“.
The report emphasizes, “The Syrian government and the army denied any role in the alleged chemical attack,” and then turns to Moscow for support: “Russia also called for an objective and professional investigation into the alleged attack, adding that previous such reports have proven false.”
State news agency IRNA quotes Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, “If the news is correct, the crime has certainly been committed by terrorist and takfiri [heretic] groups, because they have actually shown that they are ready to commit any crime.”
Zarif, speaking to Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu by phone, reportedly continued, “The UN inspectors are in Damascus and the government has successfully driven back the terrorists. Why should they do such a move and that the criminal act had been done by the terrorists, because escalating [the] crisis in Syria and internationalisng it is in their favour.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian echoed, “The Syrian people will have a decisive victory against the terrorists and the takfiris, and Iran will defend the legitimacy of the Syrian people against the Zionists.”
