Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts

EXCLUSIVE: We are not on Twitter, will Sushma Swaraj still help us, ask families of men held captive in Iran

The ordinary believer may fast from dawn to dusk for the month of Ramazan, but for Noorjehan Umar Thaim the ritual of fasting has continued since her husband, seafarer and captain, Umar Salemamad Thaim (45) was put in captivity in Iran over two years ago.

She is not alone. In all, three families in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state are awaiting the return of their breadwinners. Striking, in this case, is the near absence of any meaningful response by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) especially the minister Sushma Swaraj, celebrated often for addressing the woes of those like Thaim using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
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Umar loaded his 45 metre long vessel Al Shena (registered VRL 11303) in Dubai and charted course for the Yemeni port of Aden.


Traversing the Persian Gulf in their 700 ton dhow (wooden boat built especially in Mandvi in Gujarat's Kutch region) was a routine matter for Umar Thaim. Transporting cargo from one port to the other is what Gujarati seafarers have done for centuries. In early August of 2014, Umar loaded his 45 metre long vessel Al Shena (registered VRL 11303) in Dubai and charted course for the Yemeni port of Aden. A usual response to a storm which was gaining strength saw Umar Thaim dropping anchor close to the Iranian port of Jask near Bandar Abbas. He would regret this decision.


On the fifth day of the month, before they could pull themselves back into their journey, the Iranian authorities swooped down upon them, arresting the 12 member crew and apprehending the boat. Said Isha Thaim, "They were taken to the port of Jask further east and then put behind bars in the city of Minab". It was not clear whether the arrest took place inside the territorial waters of Iran or outside. It was also not clear what charges were slapped against the apprehended crew.


Within months, the Iranians allowed the vessel to be taken away and also released nine of the 12 crew members. Only Umar, Ibrahim Sap (25) and Sajid Sumra (23) were held back. The families claim they neither knew the cause of the arrest or the cause of release. "I am in the business of dhows, so have my ancestors. At sea, it is common practice to seek shelter in case of a storm. We fail to understand the cause of their actions. We don't have even a piece of paper explaining why our relatives are being held for over two years," said Isha Thaim, Umar's relative and the owner of the vessel. "Hum Twitter pe nahee hai lekin thoda sa Twitter hum ne bhi kiya tha. Sushmaji ka koi reply aaya nahee lekin," he added. Isha Thaim and his cousin Ilyas Thaim have been camping in the capital for over a week, trying to get an appointment with Swaraj. They've enlisted support from their community, sent emails, carry a recent letter by the local BJP Member of Parliament Vinod Chavda addressed to Swaraj and are waiting. "We are yet to hear from MEA. Our families back in Gujarat have so much hope from us that they call us several times every day and ask the same question. We feel fed up that we have nothing to tell them even after spending so many days in Delhi," said Ilyas Thaim.

Source:-indiatoday
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Iran executes nuclear scientist who returned from US

Iran has executed a nuclear scientist convicted of handing over "confidential and vital" information to the United States, a judicial spokesman said on Sunday.

"Shahram Amiri was hanged for revealing the country's top secrets to the enemy," Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeie told reporters in Tehran.

Amiri disappeared in Saudi Arabia in June 2009 and resurfaced a year later in the United States.

Conflicting accounts said he had either been abducted or had defected at a time when international tensions over Iran's nuclear programme were at their peak.

In a surprise move, Amiri then returned to Tehran in July 2010, saying he had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two Farsi-speaking CIA agents in the Saudi city of Medina.

At first he was greeted as a hero, telling reporters as he stepped off the plane at Tehran airport that he had resisted pressure from his US captors to pretend he was a defector.

He denied he was a nuclear scientist and said US officials wanted him to tell the media he had "defected on his own and was carrying important documents and a laptop which contained classified secrets of Iran's military nuclear programme."

"But with God's will, I resisted," Amiri said as he was welcomed home by his tearful wife and young son.

However, it was soon clear that Iranian authorities had not accepted this version of events and Amiri dropped out of public view. He was probably arrested although it was never officially reported.

Iran's judicial spokesman said Sunday that the Iranian intelligence services had "outsmarted" the US.

"American intelligence services thought Iran has no knowledge of his transfer to Saudi Arabia and what he was doing but we knew all of it and were monitoring," Ejeie told reporters.

"This person, having access to confidential and highly confidential information of the regime, had established a connection to our number one enemy, America, and had provided the enemy with Iran's confidential and vital information," he added.

Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic ties since 1980, when students stormed the US embassy following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"Shahram Amiri was tried in accordance with law and in the presence of his lawyer. He appealed his death sentence based on judicial process. The Supreme Court... confirmed it after meticulous reviews," he added.

Iran last year signed a landmark deal with world powers, including the US, to place curbs on its controversial nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Numerous media reports in recent years have supported the idea that Amiri was a defector with highly prized information on its nuclear programme.

"Shahram Amiri described to American intelligence officers details of how a university in Tehran became the covert headquarters for the country's nuclear efforts," the New York Times reported in July 2010, citing unnamed US officials.

"While still in Iran, he was also one of the sources for a much-disputed National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's suspected weapons programme, published in 2007," the report said.

Source;-telegraph
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