G7 Denounces ‘Brutal’ Iran Protest Crackdown

 Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations during their meeting in Muenster, Germany on Friday, November 4, 2022. (AFP)
Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations during their meeting in Muenster, Germany on Friday, November 4, 2022. (AFP)
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G7 Denounces ‘Brutal’ Iran Protest Crackdown

 Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations during their meeting in Muenster, Germany on Friday, November 4, 2022. (AFP)
Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations during their meeting in Muenster, Germany on Friday, November 4, 2022. (AFP)

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations condemned on Friday Tehran’s response to a wave of protests in Iran sparked by the death of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.

They threatened the Iranian regime to continue to use all available diplomatic measures to hold the authorities accountable, hinting at the possibility of imposing further sanctions as a punishment for repressing demonstrators.

“We further condemn the brutal and disproportionate use of force against peaceful protesters,” the ministers said in a statement after two days of talks in the German city of Muenster.

They called on Iran to allow access to the country for relevant UN Human Rights Special Procedures mandate holders to assess the situation in the country following the repression and arbitrary arrests.

The G7 nations, which is made up of the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, urged Iranian authorities to honor their international obligations under international law.

The ministers expressed regret at the authorities’ decision to shut down the internet and social media, adding that they “advocate the right of all Iranians to access information.”

They called on the Iranian authorities to release unjustly detained prisoners, including recently arrested protesters, children, journalists and human rights defenders, and ensure accountability for perpetrators of human rights violations and abuses.

The statement called on Tehran to release dual citizens and end the “repellent practice of such unjust detentions in hopes of political gain.”

Germany's government on Thursday urged its citizens to leave Iran or risk arbitrary arrest and long prison terms there, warning that dual nationals were particularly at risk.

The two-day meeting also tackled Iran’s destabilizing activities, and the ministers condemned its continued activities in and around the Middle East.

These include Iran’s activities with both ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones, and transfers of such advanced weaponry to state and non-state actors.

“Such proliferation is destabilizing for the region and escalates already high tensions,” the statement stressed.

The ministers also reiterated their clear determination that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon.

“The G7 will continue working together, and with other international partners, to address Iran’s nuclear escalation and insufficient cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards agreement.”

They said they are “deeply concerned by the unabated expansion of Iran’s nuclear program, which has no credible civilian justification.”

They called on Iran to change course and fulfil its legal obligations and political commitments in the field of nuclear non-proliferation without further delay.

The statement also noted that despite many months of intense negotiations on a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran has not made the necessary decisions.



Washington Releases 10,000 Pages of Records about Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 Assassination

FILE - Senator Robert F. Kennedy, D-NY, tells reporters, and the nation, that he is a candidate for his party's presidential nomination on March 16, 1968, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Senator Robert F. Kennedy, D-NY, tells reporters, and the nation, that he is a candidate for his party's presidential nomination on March 16, 1968, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)
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Washington Releases 10,000 Pages of Records about Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 Assassination

FILE - Senator Robert F. Kennedy, D-NY, tells reporters, and the nation, that he is a candidate for his party's presidential nomination on March 16, 1968, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Senator Robert F. Kennedy, D-NY, tells reporters, and the nation, that he is a candidate for his party's presidential nomination on March 16, 1968, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)

About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were released Friday, including handwritten notes by the gunman, who said the Democratic presidential candidate “must be disposed of” and acknowledged an obsession with killing him.
Many of the files had been made public previously, while others had not been digitized and sat for decades in federal government storage facilities. Their release continued the disclosure of historical investigation documents ordered by President Donald Trump.
Kennedy was fatally shot on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after giving a speech celebrating his victory in California’s presidential primary. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison.
The files included pictures of handwritten notes by Sirhan, The Associated Press said.
“RFK must be disposed of like his brother was,” read the writing on the outside of an empty envelope, referring to Kennedy's older brother, President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. The return address was from the district director of the Internal Revenue Service in Los Angeles.
The National Archives and Records Administration posted 229 files containing the pages to its public website.
The release comes a month after unredacted files related to the assassination of President Kennedy were disclosed. Those documents gave curious readers more details about Cold War-era covert US operations in other nations but did not initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of Robert Kennedy, commended the release.
“Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government,” the health secretary said in a statement.
Documents include interviews with assassin's acquaintances
The files surrounding Robert Kennedy's assassination also included notes from interviews with people who knew Sirhan from a wide variety of contexts, such as classmates, neighbors and coworkers. While some described him as “a friendly, kind and generous person” others depicted a brooding and “impressionable” young man who felt strongly about his political convictions and briefly believed in mysticism.
According to the files, Sirhan told his garbage collector that he planned to kill Kennedy shortly after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The sanitation worker, a Black man, said he planned to vote for Kennedy because he would help Black people.
“Well, I don’t agree. I am planning on shooting the son of a bitch,” Sirhan replied, the man told investigators.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of “The Kennedy Half-Century," said there have always been conspiracies surrounding Robert Kennedy's assassination. He believes the rollout of documents Friday would be similar to the JFK documents released earlier this year.
He cautioned that a review needs to be done carefully and slowly, “just in case there is a hint in there or there is an anecdote" that could shed more light on the assassination.
“I hope there’s more information,” Sabato said. “I’m doubtful that there is, just as I said when the JFK documents were released.”
Some redactions remained in the documents posted online Friday, including names and dates of birth. Last month, the Trump administration came under criticism over unredacted personal information, including Social Security numbers, during the release of records surrounding President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Trump, a Republican, has championed in the name of transparency the release of documents related to high-profile assassinations and investigations. But he has also been deeply suspicious for years of the government’s intelligence agencies. His administration’s release of once-hidden files opens the door for more public scrutiny of the operations and conclusions of institutions such as the CIA and the FBI.
Trump signed an executive order in January calling for the release of government documents related to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and King, who were killed within two months of each other.
Lawyers for Kennedy's killer have said for decades that he is unlikely to reoffend or pose a danger to society, and in 2021, a parole board deemed Sirhan suitable for release. But Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected the decision in 2022, keeping him in state prison. In 2023 , a different panel denied him release, saying he still lacks insight into what caused him to shoot Kennedy.
RFK still stands as a hero to American liberals Kennedy remains an icon for liberals, who see him as a champion for human rights who also was committed to fighting poverty and racial and economic injustice. They often regard his assassination as the last in a series of major tragedies that put the US and its politics on a darker, more conservative path.
He was a sometimes divisive figure during his lifetime. Some critics thought he came late to opposing the Vietnam War, and he launched his campaign for president in 1968 only after the Democratic primary in New Hampshire exposed President Johnson’s political weakness.
Kennedy's older brother appointed him US attorney general, and he remained a close aide to him until JFK's assassination in Dallas. In 1964, he won a US Senate seat from New York and was seen as the heir to the family’s political legacy.