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)
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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.



Sri Lanka Train Memorial Honors Tsunami Tragedy

A train “Queen of the Sea” arrives with family members of the victims on-board at a special memorial monument to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 2004 tsunami, in Peraliya on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
A train “Queen of the Sea” arrives with family members of the victims on-board at a special memorial monument to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 2004 tsunami, in Peraliya on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Sri Lanka Train Memorial Honors Tsunami Tragedy

A train “Queen of the Sea” arrives with family members of the victims on-board at a special memorial monument to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 2004 tsunami, in Peraliya on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
A train “Queen of the Sea” arrives with family members of the victims on-board at a special memorial monument to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 2004 tsunami, in Peraliya on December 26, 2024. (AFP)

Just inland from the crashing waves on Sri Lanka's palm-fringed shores, the train slowly came to a stop on Thursday -- marking the moment a deadly tsunami hit 20 years ago.

Sri Lanka's Ocean Queen Express became a symbol of the biggest natural disaster to hit the South Asian nation in living memory, when the train was struck by the giant waves of December 26, 2004.

About 1,000 people were killed -- both passengers and local residents, who had clambered inside desperately seeking shelter after the first wave hit.

After they boarded, two bigger waves smashed into the train, ripping it from the tracks and tumbling it onto its side more than 100 meters (330 feet) from the shoreline.

Each year since then, the Ocean Queen has stopped on the tsunami anniversary at the spot in Peraliya, a sleepy village some 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of the capital Colombo, to commemorate those killed.

"To me, it all brings back the very hard memories," said Tekla Jesenthu, whose two-year-old daughter died as the waves hit the area. "I don't want to think about or talk about it -- it hurts that much."

"Monuments won't bring them back," she added.

- Climbing for survival -

Survivors and relatives of the dead boarded the train in Colombo early in the morning before it headed south with national flags fluttering on its front and then slowed to a creaking halt in commemoration.

Villagers came out, the line was closed and a few moments of quiet settled.

Mourners offered flowers and lit incense at a beachside memorial for 1,270 people buried in mass graves, with Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim ceremonies held.

"When I saw the first wave, I started running away from the waves," said U. A. Kulawathi, 73, a mother whose daughter was killed, her body swept out to sea.

"The water reached the roof levels and people climbed the roofs to save themselves."

The 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the western coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island triggered huge waves that swept into coastal areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other nations around the Indian Ocean basin.

A total of 226,408 people died as a result of the tsunami according to EM-DAT, a recognized global disaster database. Of those, 35,399 were in Sri Lanka.

Sarani Sudeshika, 36, a baker whose mother-in-law was among those killed, recalled how "animals started making strange noises and people started shouting, saying, 'Sea water is coming'".