27 inmates are still at large following an Israeli airstrike during the 12-day war, Iran says
The airstrikes were part of Israel's 12-day bombardment of the Islamic Republic that killed about 1,100 people. while 28 were left dead in Israel in Iranian retaliatory strikes.
Judiciary's news website, Mizanonline, quoted spokesman Asghar Jahangir as saying 75 prisoners had escaped following the strike, of which 48 were either recaptured or voluntarily returned. He said authorities will detain the others if they don't hand themselves over.
Jahangir said the escapees were prisoners doing time for minor offenses.
Iranian officials said the Israeli strike killed 71 people, but local media reported earlier in July that 80 were left dead at the time, including prison staff, soldiers, inmates and visiting family members. Authorities also said five inmates died.
It's unclear why Israel targeted the prison. The Israeli Defense Ministry had said that 50 aircraft dropped 100 munitions on military targets 'based on high-quality and accurate intelligence from the Intelligence Branch.'
The New York-based Center for Human Rights had criticized Israel for striking the prison, seen as a symbol of repression of any opposition, saying it violated the principle of distinction between civilian and military targets.
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Washington Post
9 minutes ago
- Washington Post
U.S. plans to ease human rights criticism of El Salvador, Israel, Russia
Leaked drafts of the State Department's long-delayed annual human rights reports indicate that the Trump administration intends to dramatically scale back U.S. government criticism of certain foreign nations with extensive records of abuse. The draft human rights reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia, copies of which were reviewed by The Washington Post, are significantly shorter than the ones prepared last year by the Biden administration. They strike all references to LGBTQ individuals or crimes against them, and the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened. The draft report for El Salvador, which, at the Trump administration's urging, has agreed to incarcerate migrants deported from the United States, states that the country had 'no credible reports of significant human rights abuses' in 2024. The State Department's previous report for El Salvador, documenting 2023, identified 'significant human rights issues' there — including government-sanctioned killings, instances of torture, and 'harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.' Several Venezuelans whom the Trump administration sent to the Salvadoran prison said they were subjected to repeated beatings. The leaked draft reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia underscore how the Trump administration is radically rethinking America's role in global human rights advocacy. The documents also are consistent with internal guidance circulated earlier this year by State Department leaders who advised staff to truncate the reports to the minimum required by statutory guidelines and executive orders signed by President Donald Trump, and to remove references to government corruption, gender-based crimes and other abuses the U.S. government historically has documented. The State Department declined to address questions about the leaked documents reviewed by The Post. 'The 2024 Human Rights report has been restructured in a way that removes redundancies, increases report readability and is more responsive to the legislative mandate that underpins the report,' a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to brief the news media, said Wednesday. 'The human rights report focuses on core issues.' This official said the Trump administration would bring a new focus to some issues, including backsliding on freedom of expression in some countries allied with the United States, even as the administration has itself faced criticism on free-speech grounds for seeking to deport foreigners studying in the United States who have criticized Israel's conduct in Gaza. U.S. diplomats have compiled the State Department's annual human rights reports for almost 50 years. Their findings are considered the most thorough and wide-ranging of their kind and are routinely relied upon by courts inside and outside the United States. The human rights reports are congressionally mandated to be sent to lawmakers by the end of February. Public release typically happens in March or April. The State Department is yet to officially release this year's reports, which cover activities and observations made in 2024. Current and former U.S. officials say most of this year's reports were nearly completed when the Biden administration transitioned out in January. The drafts for El Salvador and Russia are marked 'finalized,' while the draft for Israel is marked 'quality check.' All were edited in the last few days, the documents show. It is unclear whether the reports eventually transmitted to Congress and released to the public will mirror the drafts. The internal guidance circulated by State Department leaders earlier this year instructed diplomats responsible for drafting reports to remove references to numerous potential human rights violations, including governments that had deported people to a country where they could face torture, crimes that involve violence against LGBTQ people and government corruption. The internal guidance was written by Samuel Samson, a Trump political appointee at the State Department. Samson, initially little known in Foggy Bottom, attracted attention after writing an article for the agency's Substack in May criticizing Europe for what he alleged was the continent's descent into 'a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance.' Samson was tasked with reviewing the country reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia. While all three reports continue to describe human rights abuses in those countries, each was whittled down considerably from a year before and all bear significant changes to the language used to describe alleged abuses. The draft prepared for Israel, for instance, is 25 pages long; last year's report was more than 100 pages. Meanwhile, a comparison of the documents covering El Salvador shows the Trump administration downplaying the country's history of prison violence, emphasizing that there has been a reduction overall while stating that purported deaths were under government review. Trump has expressed fondness for El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, and hosted him in the Oval Office earlier this year after the administration secured an agreement to deport people to the country's notorious CECOT megaprison. The Salvadoran Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Scrutiny of corruption and judicial independence also is significantly scaled back in the draft report for Israel. The 2023 report compiled by the Biden administration addresses the corruption trial of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, another of Trump's international allies, and judicial overhaul efforts, which critics say threatens the independence of the country's judiciary. The Trump administration's draft report for Israel makes no mention of corruption or threats to the independence of Israel's judiciary. Previous human rights reports also have mentioned Israeli surveillance of Palestinians and restrictions of their movement, including an Amnesty International finding on Israel's use of 'experimental facial recognition system to track Palestinians and enforce movement restrictions.' This issue is not addressed in the draft report either. The Israeli Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The draft reports examined by The Post contain no reference to gender-based violence or violence against LGBTQIA people. Keifer Buckingham, who worked on these issues at the State Department until January, said it was a 'glaring omission' in the case of Russia, where the country's Supreme Court had banned LGBTQIA organizations and labeled them 'extremist,' with raids and arrests last year. The Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Buckingham chastised Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who as a U.S. senator for many years was a vocal defender of human rights. 'Secretary Rubio has repeatedly asserted that his State Department has not abandoned human rights, but it is clear by this and other actions that this administration only cares about the human rights of some people … in some countries, when it's convenient to them,' said Buckingham, who now works as managing director at the Council for Global Quality. During his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio praised the State Department's annual human rights reports. In 2012, he said 'the world has been a better place [for two centuries] because America has strived to defend these fundamental human rights both at home and abroad.' 'The State Department's annual human rights report sheds light on foreign governments' failure to respect their citizens' fundamental rights,' he said a statement then, adding that it was important for the world to know that 'the United States will stand with freedom-seeking people around the world and will not tolerate violations against their rights.' U.S. officials have repeatedly pointed to a speech given by Trump during a visit to the Middle East in May as an example of the new way Washington relates to the world, with an emphasis on sovereignty over universal rights. Speaking in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Trump had criticized 'Western interventionists … giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs.' This shift of the U.S. role in promoting human rights has coincided with a change in U.S. promotion of democracy. In a cable sent in July, Rubio instructed diplomats to no longer publicly comment on other countries' elections, including making an assessment of whether the election was 'free and fair,' unless there is a 'clear and compelling U.S. foreign policy interest to do so.' The move was a shift from long-standing U.S. practice — even under Rubio himself. The secretary had personally congratulated world leaders in Trinidad and Tobago and Ecuador for conducting 'free and fair' elections since January. Last month, the Trump administration tightened sanctions on Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, stepping up a feud with the Brazilian government for the prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, for his alleged role in a violent coup plot in 2022. In announcing those sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department invoked the Magnitsky Act, a law that allows the American government to impose penalties on foreign nationals accused of corruption and human rights violations. In a statement, Rubio said that Moraes had committed 'serious human rights abuse, including arbitrary detention involving flagrant denials of fair trial guarantees and violations of the freedom of expression.' Moraes has said that the court would not yield to foreign pressure, but on Wednesday eased some house arrest restrictions on Bolsonaro. Clara Ence Morse and Meg Kelly contributed to this report.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
On the Hunt for Spies, Iran Executes a Nuclear Scientist
Iran executed one of its nuclear scientists on Wednesday over allegations that he was a spy for Israel and had facilitated Israel's assassination of another nuclear scientist during the two countries' war in June, according to the judiciary's news outlet, Mizan. The judiciary said the scientist, Roozbeh Vadi, had worked at one of the country's most sensitive and important nuclear sites and had access to the type of classified information sought by Iran's enemies. Mr. Vadi was executed by hanging after he was found guilty of espionage and providing information to Israel, the judiciary said. The execution follows a 12-day war with Israel and the United States in June, when Israel assassinated at least 30 Iranian senior military commanders and 11 nuclear scientists. Iranian officials have acknowledged publicly that Israel's widespread infiltration of its security and intelligence apparatuses enabled Israel to eliminate key parts of Iran's military chain of command in the war's first night and helped it launch drone attacks from inside Iran. Following the war, officials have blamed Israel for a series of explosions and fires around the country. While the two countries have been locked in a long-running shadow war, the apparent accuracy of Israel's information and its launching attacks inside the country has rattled Iranian officials. Since the war ended, authorities have swept up hundreds of people, including activists and dissidents, on suspicions of spying and threatening national security, Iranian media reports and rights groups say. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Lebanon's Hezbollah rejects cabinet decision to disarm it
Hezbollah said Wednesday that it would treat a Lebanese government decision to disarm the militant group "as if it did not exist", accusing the cabinet of committing a "grave sin". Amid heavy US pressure and fears Israel could expand its strikes on Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Tuesday that the government had tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by year end. The plan is to be presented to the government by the end of August for discussion and approval, and another cabinet meeting is scheduled for Thursday to continue the talks, including on a US-proposed timetable for disarmament. Hezbollah said the government had "committed a grave sin by taking the decision to disarm Lebanon of its weapons to resist the Israeli enemy". The decision is unprecedented since Lebanon's civil war factions gave up their weapons three and a half decades ago. "This decision undermines Lebanon's sovereignty and gives Israel a free hand to tamper with its security, geography, politics and future existence... Therefore, we will treat this decision as if it does not exist," the Iran-backed group said in a statement. - 'Serves Israel's interests' - The government said its decision came as part of implementing a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which culminated in two months of full-blown war. Hezbollah said it viewed the government's move as "the result of dictates from US envoy" Tom Barrack. It "fully serves Israel's interests and leaves Lebanon exposed to the Israeli enemy without any deterrence", the group said. Hezbollah was the only faction that kept its weapons after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. It emerged weakened politically and militarily from its latest conflict with Israel, its arsenal pummelled and its senior leadership decimated. Israel has kept up its strikes on Hezbollah and other targets despite the November truce, and has threatened to keep doing so until the group has been disarmed. An Israeli strike on the southern town of Tulin on Wednesday killed one person and wounded another, the health ministry said. Israel also launched a series of air strikes on southern Lebanon, wounding at least two people according to the health ministry. The Israeli military said it struck "weapons storage facilities, a missile launcher and Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure which stored engineering tools that allowed for the re-establishment of terrorist infrastructure in the area". Hezbollah said Israel must halt the attacks before any domestic debate about its weapons and a new defence strategy could begin. - 'Pivotal moment' - "We are open to dialogue, ending the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, liberating its land, releasing prisoners, working to build the state, and rebuilding what was destroyed by the brutal aggression," the group said. Hezbollah is "prepared to discuss a national security strategy", but not under Israeli fire, it added. Two ministers affiliated with Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement walked out of Tuesday's meeting. Hezbollah described the walkout as "an expression of rejection" of the government's "decision to subject Lebanon to American tutelage and Israeli occupation". The Amal movement, headed by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, accused the government of "rushing to offer more gratuitous concessions" to Israel when it should have sought to end the ongoing attacks. It called Thursday's cabinet meeting "an opportunity for correction". Hezbollah opponent the Lebanese Forces, one of the country's two main Christian parties, said the cabinet's decision to disarm the militant group was "a pivotal moment in Lebanon's modern history -- a long-overdue step toward restoring full state authority and sovereignty". The Free Patriotic Movement, the other major Christian party and a former ally of Hezbollah, said it was in favour of the army receiving the group's weapons "to strengthen Lebanon's defensive power". Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a televised interview that any decision on disarmament "will ultimately rest with Hezbollah itself". "We support it from afar, but we do not intervene in its decisions," he added, noting that the group had "rebuilt itself" following setbacks during its war with Israel. lar/lg-nad/js
