Iranian Americans Outline a Comprehensive, Bi-partisan Iran Policy for 2021

December 19, 2020; EIN Pressnews

Focusing on Human rights violations, regional threats and global terrorism

WASHINGTON, DC, USA, December 19, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- On December 15, 2020, the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC) hosted a virtual event on US policy toward Iran. The event was titled “Iranian Americans Call for a Comprehensive US-Iran Policy” and featured several members of OIAC's Advisory Board, members of OIAC's Young Professionals and Students Chapter, and a panel of Iranian American community leaders. The focus was on countering the escalating human rights violations in Iran as well as the regional and terror threats posed by the Islamic Republic.

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Iran diplomat on trial over plot to bomb opponents in France

November 25, 2020; AP News

BRUSSELS (AP) — The bomb was meant to explode in a Paris suburb during a huge rally being held by an exiled Iranian opposition group. It could have caused carnage.

Instead, the explosion ripped apart the robot that army specialists were using to defuse the bomb after it was found in the car of a couple arrested in a Brussels suburb.

More than two years after the last-minute, cross-border operation that thwarted the planned attack, the couple go on trial Friday alongside two Iranian citizens, including a diplomat believed to be the plot’s mastermind.

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Iran executes wrestler Navid Afkari despite pleas from Trump and Dana White

September 12, 2020; Washington Examiner

The Iranian regime has hanged 27-year-old champion wrestler Navid Afkari after international backlash grew against the jailed protester’s conviction, according to the country's state-run news agency.

Afkari was executed at a prison in Shiraz on Saturday, Iranian state-run news reported. The wrestler was handed two death sentences after being accused of killing a security guard during anti-regime protests in 2018, but Afkari maintained his innocence and claimed he was forced to confess after brutal torture.

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Iranian opposition figures unite to demand country’s freedom

July 19, 2020; Arab News

The Iranian regime’s approaching demise became more apparent on Friday, as hundreds of thousands of Iranians and their international friends joined together in a historic and unprecedented virtual summit calling for a free Iran.

The global summit was groundbreaking in technological and logistical terms. International dignitaries praised the main opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) for industriously overcoming the challenges of the coronavirus disease pandemic to host the event. “It is a real tribute to the organizational skills of the NCRI that we could pull together in the middle of a worldwide pandemic this kind of gathering… in support of freedom for the people of Iran,” said former White House Director of Public Liaison Linda Chavez.

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Marjan, Iranian actress and singer who became symbol of rebellion, dies at 71

June 12, 2020; The Washington Post

Marjan, a popular singer and actress in pre-revolutionary Iran who, after being imprisoned by the country’s Islamic authorities in the 1980s, lent her voice to the cause of political freedom in her homeland, died June 5 at a hospital in Los Angeles. She was 71.

The cause was complications from surgery, the National Council of Resistance of Iran said in a statement.

Marjan, the stage name for Shahla Safi Zamir, acted in more than 30 Farsi-language films in the 1960s and 1970s and was one of Iran’s best-known celebrities before the overthrow of the country’s Western-backed leader, or shah, in 1979. She also made hit records, often evoking nostalgic sentiments, that were popular with Iranians.

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