AAt the Munich Security Conference, the stage was heard for the first time by Iranian opposition figures and not official representatives of the regime. The Iranian activist Masih Alinejad, who lives in the USA, and the son of the last Shah, Reza Pahlavi, sat together on the podium in Munich.
Alinejad expressed confidence that the removal of the veil by many demonstrators in Iran will ultimately have a revolutionary effect. “Just like tearing down the Berlin Wall.”
Pahlawi said no one need worry “who will fill the void” if the mullahs’ regime is overthrown. The most loyal allies of a free and democratic Iran are the well-educated Iranians in western exile countries, who could then return. French President Emanuel Macron met Alinejad in Munich for a brief encounter.
Israeli military response feared
Concern about a further escalation of the nuclear dispute with Iran dominated the confidential consultations between the foreign ministers during the Munich meeting. At the beginning of February, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which controls Iran’s uranium enrichment plants, informed about uncoordinated technical changes, which further fuel the suspicion that Iran has started with a 90 percent uranium enrichment and is thus producing weapons-grade material.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that “everyone agreed” that “a nuclear escalation must be prevented by all diplomatic means”. She had “many conversations” about it. In Munich, Baerbock spoke with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but also with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign politician. China, along with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, is one of Iran’s contracting parties in the suspended nuclear agreement, which requires a limit on Iranian uranium production and whose renegotiation was almost achieved last summer. Should Iran press ahead with the construction of nuclear weapons, a military counter-reaction by Israel is considered possible.
The protests don’t die down
Meanwhile, Persian-language broadcaster Iran International announced that it was closing its London studios and will only broadcast from Washington. The trigger was a “significant escalation of the state-backed threats from Iran,” it said on Saturday. Iran International has reported extensively on the protests in Iran over the past five months. The Tehran government declared the station a “terrorist organization”.
London Police recently told the broadcaster that it was no longer possible to protect the broadcaster’s staff or the public around the London studio. Since the beginning of 2022, twelve plots against opponents of the Iranian regime have been foiled. The 100 Iranian journalists would stay in London and work from home, the broadcaster said.
The protests in Iran are not abating. Last Thursday, thousands took to the streets to protest in two dozen cities, the 40th day after the execution of two demonstrators. Human rights organizations report further death sentences. The Ahwaz Revolutionary Court sentenced six demonstrators to death and another six to long prison terms. They were sentenced, among other things, for contacting “hostile media abroad” and for propaganda against the Islamic Republic.
The leadership in Tehran continues to react helplessly to the protests. Rahim Safawi, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, admitted at a military academy symposium that he had “lost the media war and social media altogether,” which Noor-News, the mouthpiece of the National Security Council, accused him of “replacing the already defeated enemy ‘ to motivate. Safawi had previously been confirmed in his assessment by Hossein Taeb. The former head of the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence service had justified internet throttling and social media scouring as saying they had fallen into enemy hands. The dangerous situation in London shows that the Tehran leadership is not content with that.
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