عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
World

Sweden Says Iran Has Denied Access to Detained Dissident

A prison guard stands in a corridor inside Iran’s Evin prison (Reuters-File Photo)
A prison guard stands in a corridor inside Iran’s Evin prison (Reuters-File Photo)
TT
TT

Sweden Says Iran Has Denied Access to Detained Dissident

A prison guard stands in a corridor inside Iran’s Evin prison (Reuters-File Photo)
A prison guard stands in a corridor inside Iran’s Evin prison (Reuters-File Photo)

Sweden said Tuesday it had not been granted consular access to a Swedish-Iranian dissident who is detained in Iran after disappearing during a visit to Turkey in October.

Iran’s state media in November reported the arrest of Habib Chaab, a political dissident living in exile in Sweden.

A spokesman for Sweden’s foreign ministry said Tuesday its diplomats had still not been given consular access to Chaab, who has Swedish citizenship.

"Immediately when we learned of the reports we investigated through our foreign missions in Turkey and Iran. The case has also been raised with Turkey’s and Iran’s ambassadors to Stockholm,” Erik Karlsson at the foreign ministry told AFP.

Tehran accuses Chaab of being a leading figure in the Arab separatist group known as the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), which Iran has designated a terrorist organization.

The report provided no details about how he ended up in Iranian custody, but he disappeared during a visit to Turkey in mid-October.

Turkish police said Monday they had arrested 11 people suspected of spying for Iran and abducting the Iranian dissident.

In November, Chaab appeared on Iranian state television in a video in which he made a number of confessions.

Such videos are common in Iran and are frequently condemned by rights groups arguing that confessions are often forced and the result of torture.

Sweden and Iran already butted heads last month after Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde urged Tehran to call off the planned execution of Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who was sentenced to death in Iran three years ago for spying.

Iran at first denounced the “interference” from Sweden, but in early December Djalali’s wife told AFP that she had learned from her husband’s lawyer that the execution had been postponed.

Most Viewed

 
 
World

France Holds Day of Mourning for Mayotte Islands Devastated by Cyclone

French President Emmanuel Macron (C-R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (C-L) stand for a minute of silence at the Elysee Palace during a day of national mourning for the lives lost after a cyclone hit the Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, in Paris, France, 23 December 2024. (EPA)
French President Emmanuel Macron (C-R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (C-L) stand for a minute of silence at the Elysee Palace during a day of national mourning for the lives lost after a cyclone hit the Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, in Paris, France, 23 December 2024. (EPA)
TT
TT

France Holds Day of Mourning for Mayotte Islands Devastated by Cyclone

French President Emmanuel Macron (C-R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (C-L) stand for a minute of silence at the Elysee Palace during a day of national mourning for the lives lost after a cyclone hit the Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, in Paris, France, 23 December 2024. (EPA)
French President Emmanuel Macron (C-R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (C-L) stand for a minute of silence at the Elysee Palace during a day of national mourning for the lives lost after a cyclone hit the Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, in Paris, France, 23 December 2024. (EPA)

France held a national day of mourning for Mayotte, its Indian Ocean territory devastated by a violent cyclone on Dec. 14, beginning in the morning on Monday with a minute of silence for the scores of residents left dead by the storm.

Cyclone Chido was the worst storm to hit Mayotte's two main islands in 90 years, and authorities have said that perhaps thousands of people may have been killed in its wake, though the government's death toll stands at 35.

To commemorate Mayotte's losses, French flags were lowered to half-mast. Separately, flags were flown at half-mast in Brussels and Strasbourg because of Mayotte, as well as following attacks last week on a German Christmas market and in a Croatian school.

"It is a communion in mourning," Prime Minister Francois Bayrou told reporters. He said the day showed solidarity for those in Mayotte, and that France was "present to reconstruct Mayotte and make sure the people of Mayotte feel surrounded by the entire country."

Following the storm, officials say corpses may have been buried quickly per religious custom, before they could be counted, and that many of the people killed may have been undocumented immigrants.

Mozambique has said 94 people died in the disaster, while 13 were killed in neighboring Malawi.

ANGER

The slow pace of aid and delays in the arrival of clean water have angered residents of Mayotte, France's poorest overseas territory located between Madagascar and Mozambique about 8,000 km (4971 miles) from the mainland, with some heckling President Emmanuel Macron during his visit last week.

For Mohamed Abdou, a doctor in Pamandzi, the day of French mourning was a political stunt and did not do enough to account for historic neglect leading up to this point.

"Whether in terms of hospitals, the lack of water infrastructure, electricity, and so on ... at this point, we need to say 'mea culpa' and acknowledge mistakes were made," he told Reuters, speaking from his town in the south of Mayotte's smaller island.

Francois-Noel Buffet, France's acting minister of overseas territories, told France 2 that water - a flashpoint even before the disaster - had made it to the island, saying: "We are not missing water. We have water, notably bottled water. We have a problem with distribution."

Buffet said he expected a special law on the reconstruction of Mayotte to be introduced in early January.

In Paris, Bayrou, France's fourth prime minister this year, is expected to unveil his cabinet Monday evening, though the timing was uncertain. The French presidency said the announcement would not take place before 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT), to take into account the day of mourning.

Estelle Youssouffa, a lawmaker for Mayotte, criticized the government in an interview with Radio France Internationale for possibly making the announcement on the day of mourning, accusing Bayrou, who had not yet visited the islands, of "humiliating us a second time."