Iran To Receive UN Award For Combating Piracy while its Navy commits Atrocities

Iran will be presented with a 'Certificate of Commendation' for helping to combat piracy at the annual International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Awards for Exceptional Bravery at Sea, its news agency IRNA reported Saturday.

The awards ceremony come as the UN specialized agency is starting its 26th regular assembly session, during which the election of council members is being held on Friday November 27.

Commanding officers of ships, which have served in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia, are attending a ceremony to receive their award in recognition of exceptional services to shipping and to humanity at the IMO headquarters in London on Nov 23 evening.

Those in attendance also include High Commissioners and Ambassadors from countries, who have deployed naval assets in the region that recently became notorious for piracy.

Figures compiled by IMO show that there were a total of 135 piracy attacks in the region during 2008, resulting in 44 ships been seized and more than 600 seafarers kidnapped and held for ransom.

But by January this year, a regional agreement on a Code of Conduct on the Repression of Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden was adopted at a high-level meeting in Djibouti.

The IMO was originally established in Geneva in 1948 to develop and maintain a comprehensive regulatory framework for shipping before coming into force ten years later. Today it tried to play an important role in the piracy frenzy and gets more and more entangled in sectors outside its mandate.

The organisation of some 168 member states and three associate members includes safety, environmental concerns, legal matters, technical co-operation, maritime security and the efficiency of shipping in its remit. But while safety on the ships and for the crews is still very much neglected, the IMO tried to solicit funding for issues concerning piracy.

Iranian soldiers assault Yemeni fishermen in Gulf of Aden

Iranian soldiers on Saturday assaulted a group of Yemeni fishermen off the southern coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden, Yemen's coast guard said.

After receiving the distress signal sent by the Yemeni fishermen, Yemeni naval forces dispatched two vessels to the area where the assault took place, the coast guard said in a statement posted on the Interior Ministry's website.

"The Iranian soldiers assaulted us and searched our fishing boats from top to bottom," the fishermen were quoted as saying.

An investigation was still under way, said the statement.

The incident came as Yemen has recently stepped up accusations that non-governmental Iranian Shiite groups are backing Shiite rebels in their fights with government troops in Yemen's Saada province.

Not a single time the Iranian Navy reported anything to the Somali government or its Counter-Piracy envoy, while the above reported latest case of an assault against simple fishermen is part of many such reports concerning the Iranian navy mainly targeting Somalis.

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