Europe urged to raise plight of Iran's political prisoners in any future talks
The Iranian foreign ministry appears to be in no rush to stage further talks with the west without clear US assurances that it will not be attacked again.
Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, travelled to China on Monday for a summit between foreign ministers in Shanghai, implying talks with the US were not imminent.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, on Monday defended the principle of future negotiations but said: 'We will not enter into such a process until we are sure of the effectiveness of diplomacy and the negotiation process.'
But Iranian human rights groups say Tehran has used the delay to move against those it has long opposed, weakening groups urging national unity.
A debate has been raging inside Iran whether the upsurge in patriotism created by the Israeli attacks, which began on 12 June, could be nurtured by freeing political prisoners and commuting some of the death sentences.
Emadeddin Baghi, a human rights activist, said he had recently been invited to Iran's interior ministry for a meeting with senior government officials and a minister along with other civil activists.
He said: 'I spoke about several imprisoned and death-sentenced women and men, and the minister of interior gave promising assurances for discussions with the judiciary.'
As many as 60 political prisoners are listed for execution. But there are widespread concerns of further repression as the security forces elide political dissent with espionage. Attention has focused on the fate of five Kurdish men, especially Rezgar Babamiri, a farmer who was arrested in 2023 in connection with the 'women, life, freedom' protests after the death of Mahsa Amini. He faced charges both in the criminal and revolutionary courts.
Babamiri's supporters say he was detained after providing aid and medical supplies to wounded protesters in the north-western Iranian city of Bukan. Initially, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison by Iran's criminal court on charges of complicity in the murder of a member of the Basij paramilitary force – a verdict rights groups say was based on confessions extracted under torture.
However, Iran's revolutionary court also sentenced him to 15 years for collaborating with the Mossad and possession of a Starlink device. His situation escalated dramatically when, at the point of sentencing, a new and severe charge was abruptly introduced – plotting to assassinate the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei – a charge absent from all previous investigations and court hearings.
The charge was derided on social media, since Babamiri had been in prison at the time of the alleged conspiracy, but on 7 July human rights lawyers reported he had been given the death sentence, suggesting reconciliation is not high not on the judiciary's agenda.
Zhino Babamiri, his 24-year-old daughter who has been tirelessly advocating for his release at the European parliament, has written to the Norwegian government urging it to raise his and other cases if Oslo acts as host for the planned talks between the US and Iran.
Norway's foreign affairs minister, Andreas Kravik, has said he is aware of the Babamiri case from local NGOs and opposes the death penalty in all circumstances – a message regularly conveyed as part of Norway's dialogue with Iran.
Norway also condemned the Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Zhino believes her father and others have been falsely accused of murder in order to justify their execution and deter further unrest. She said the punishments are meant to send a message.
'They're using my father to scare others into silence,' she said. 'If they are truly confident my father is guilty, they should allow him a fair trial and the right to defend himself.'
The reputation of the ministry of intelligence has suffered after Israel was able to penetrate Iran's security so completely that it was able to bomb a secret meeting of the supreme national security council, injuring the president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
The prospect of a breakthrough in talks with the US remains hazy after two meetings between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump ended without any public resolution on how to handle the security threat posed by Iran. Netanyahu made a new demand that Iran should not be allowed to possess missiles with a range longer than 300 miles (480km).
Araghchi responded by saying: 'Having miserably failed to achieve any of his war aims in Iran and compelled to run to 'daddy' when our powerful missiles flattened secret Israeli regime sites, which Netanyahu is still censoring, he is openly dictating what the US should or shouldn't say or do in talks with Iran.'
Araghchi's remarks are part of an Iranian government pattern of trying to drive a wedge between the US and Israel.
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