PHOTO: European Union’s Catherine Ashton with Iranian women’s rights activists last weekend

LATEST: Iranian Oil Exports Recover to 1-Year High

The Tehran Friday Prayer continued days of attacks on Iran’s human rights activists, as well as the European Union’s Catherine Ashton for meeting them in Tehran last weekend.

Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani said the activists were equivalent to the “criminal takfiris who commit many crimes in oppressed countries”.

The Iranian regime uses the derogatory term “takfiris” to refer to Muslims whom it opposes, notably insurgents in Syria and Iraq.

Ashton, the lead negotiator for the 5+1 Powers, met the activists in the Austrian Embassy. Iranian clerics, MPs, and even representatives of the Supreme Leader immediately denounced her for supporting “sedition”, the term they apply to mass protests after the disputed 2009 Presidential election.

The activists included Narges Mohammadi, imprisoned for her work with the Center for Defenders of Human Rights, and Gohar Eshghi, the mother of blogger Sattar Beheshti, killed in detention in November 2012.

Ayatollah Emami Kashani said heads of powerful countries were “thugs”: “If only the Imam of the Age (Shia’s “Hidden” 12th Imam, Mahdi) would come and decapitate them.”

The cleric also repeated the Supreme Leader’s emphasis on implementation of policies for the “Resistance Economy”, saying success would “result in the failure of the enemies’ plots“.

Meanwhile, senior clerics and MPs maintained the attack on Ashton and criticism of the Rouhani Government.

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a Tehran Friday Prayer leader and member of the Assembly of Experts, said the meetings between “Westerners” and “petty and vile seditionists” were the beginning of the “human rights project” against Iran amid the nuclear discussions.

The deputy head of Parliament’s National Security Committee, Mansour Haghighatpour, said the Foreign and Intelligence Ministries were “most responsible” for the meeting.
Committee member Ahmad Saleh Jokar announced the formation of a “field investigative” committee to review the meetings with “elements of the sedition”.

And Mohammad Dehghan of Parliament’s Executive Board took aim at the Government, “A current that does not believe in religion and religious values has taken life under the flag of moderation. Their behavior is exactly like the behavior during the eight years of the Reformist era, which was breaking the sanctity of religious values.”


Iranian Oil Exports Recover to 1-Year High

The International Energy Agency reported on Friday that Iranian oil exports reached a one-year high in January and February.

The IEA said exports were 1.41 million barrels per day (bpd) during the two months.

The increase, following November’s interim nuclear part, was primarily because of a rise in purchases by Japan and South Korea, as well as continued sales to top customers China and India.

South Korea imported about 8.2 million barrels of crude from Iran in February, more than double the amount from a year earlier.

Iran’s exports fell to a historic low of less than 800,000 bpd last year. The US hoped to restrict growth to 1 million bpd under the six-month interim nuclear deal, but Iranian officials set a target of 1.5 million bpd.

A report earlier this week indicated that the US had put pressure on India to restrict its February purchases by 2/3rds.