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Iran to Kick off Trial of Iranian-Swedish Opposition Figure

Ahvaz activist Habib Chaab during an interview with Iranian television last year. (ISNA)
Ahvaz activist Habib Chaab during an interview with Iranian television last year. (ISNA)
    London, Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat
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Iran to Kick off Trial of Iranian-Swedish Opposition Figure

Ahvaz activist Habib Chaab during an interview with Iranian television last year. (ISNA)
Ahvaz activist Habib Chaab during an interview with Iranian television last year. (ISNA)

The trial of an Iranian-Swedish dissident held in Iran on security charges for over a year will kick off on Tuesday, the judiciary said.

Habib Chaab, also known as Habib Asyud, went missing during a visit to Turkey in October 2020 and a month later appeared in a video, broadcast by Iranian state television, making confessions.

Human rights groups condemn such confessions, describing them as "coercive," accusing the Iranian authorities of forcing them under torture.

Chaab's trial comes as tensions grew between Iran and Sweden following the prosecution of former Iranian official Hamid Nouri, who is on trial in Stockholm over alleged involvement in 1988 executions.

"The first hearing in the case of Habib Farjollah Chaab, also known as Habib Asyud, the leader of the terrorist group ASMLA, opens tomorrow (Tuesday) before Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court," the judiciary's Mizan Online agency said.

Chaab is accused of "planning and carrying out several terrorist acts, including bomb attacks in Khuzestan province," the agency said.

Last November, the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA) said the authorities wanted to obtain false confessions from Chaab to execute him, noting that it ultimately rejected all the accusations against him.

ASMLA also revealed that Chaab was subjected to "physical and psychological torture."

Chaab's family, who resides in Sweden, denies the accusations.

Stockholm said it had not been granted consular access to Chaab, who lived in exile in Sweden, where he received citizenship.

In December 2020, Turkey arrested 11 people suspected of spying and kidnapping Chaab on behalf of Iran.

It is believed that Chaab was kidnapped in Istanbul before being taken to Van, on the Iranian border, before he was handed over to authorities in Tehran, according to Turkish police.

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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)
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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.

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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."