A video clip of a Kurdish-Iranian girl who died with her family attempting to cross the English Channel last month highlights their drive for a better life. The clip shows a nine-year-old girl crying and laughing. “My name is Anita Iranejad, I am from Sardasht,” she says. It is a screen test for a short film to be shot in her hometown. In the background, her father Rasoul Iranejad can be heard gently prompting her: “I would like to be an actress… say it.” The video suggests not just paternal pride, but ambition. Rasoul wants his daughter to achieve her dream. But that is a tall order for a little girl from this impoverished and politically oppressed region. The family are from Sardasht, a small, predominantly Kurdish city in western Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has not put even one single person on trial for the killing of hundreds of unarmed protesters during the bloody protests of November 2019. Instead, the Iranian Judiciary has prosecuted and sentenced more than a hundred protesters issuing death and prison sentences and other punishments in the 12 months since the protests were heavy-handedly suppressed. The Judiciary has sentenced three young protesters, all under 30, to death. In October the father of Amir-Hossein Moradi, one of the three young men sentenced to death, took his own life. Moradi’s family had been subjected to “psychological pressures”, the media said. His son and two others are on the death row now.
The insurrection against the regime of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that began on November 15, 2019, coupled with the Islamic Republic’s murder of the champion wrestler Navid Afkari this past September, reveal for all to see the fragility of the theocracy and its war on working-class Iranians. Khamenei’s order to his security apparatus last year to “do whatever it takes to stop them [the protesters]” marked the onset of absolute clarity about his long-standing campaign to enthrone the theocratic state above the working men and women of Iran. The supreme leader employed a spectacular level of violence in an effort to dismantle the growing nationwide revolt against rising fuel prices and, in some areas, against the very existence of the regime. Less than two weeks into the mass protests, the regime had murdered roughly 1,500 demonstrators, Reuters reported.
The Islamic Republic of Iran arrested the country’s Paralympian Reza Tabrizi because he questioned why gyms have been closed due to the coronavirus pandemic while religious shrines continue to remain open, according to posts on social media from human rights experts. Iranian dissident and women’s rights campaigner Masih Alinejad tweeted on Tuesday that “I got this shocking video from Iran. Reza Tabrizi, a disabled athlete, was violently forced into a police car & harassed by plainclothes agents as he struggled to walk. He was arrested for asking why religious shrines are open while gyms are closed during [COVID-19]. He faces death.”
October 31 marked the 60th birthday of the man born to be shah of Iran and who, for the first 19 years of his life, was the heir apparent – Reza Pahlavi. When his father, faced by an army mutiny and violent public demonstrations, went into voluntary exile on January 17, 1979 young Pahlavi was a trainee fighter pilot at a US air base in Texas. Two weeks later Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Revolution, returned to Iran after 15 years and took control of the country. Neither Pahlavi nor his father ever set foot in Iran again. Inwardly, however, Pahlavi says he has never left. “Iran has been my daily life,” he says. “It’s all I have…. If I were to step off the plane right now in Tehran my chances of survival are next to zero. But the moment I could return, I’d be on the first flight.”
Today (10 November), the National Council of Resistance of Iran hosted an online conference to mark the one-year anniversary of a nationwide uprising against Iran’s clerical regime. The demonstrations comprising that movement took place across at least 191 cities and towns, having erupted spontaneously after the government announced a sharp increase in gasoline prices. But the uprising also lasted only several days before it was fractured by brutal repression, primarily at the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
… Iranian opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI) which helped organize the protests. This is really what the state is worried about, even going so far as to admit that the MEK was involved when for decades they have tried to pretend that the MEK has little support in Iran. In reality, the government sees the MEK as the only group capable of overthrowing it, which is why they tried to exterminate the MEK in the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners. “Although they would never say so explicitly, there are clear signs that Iranian officials recognize this phenomenon and are afraid of it.
Justice for Iran, a London-based human rights NGO, on November 14 announced the establishment a ‘people’s tribunal’ to investigate “atrocities” and “human rights violations by Iran” during November 2019 protests that left hundreds dead. The tribunal, announced on the protests’ first anniversary, will see international lawyers investigate human rights violations and judge whether they contravene international law, a statement released by Justice for Iran(link is external) said. It will convene early in 2021 to receive evidence from victims and expert witnesses during three days of hearings in The Hague, and will announce its judgement in April 2021. The tribunal is a joint initiative of Justice for Iran, Iran Human Rights, and the world coalition Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM).
Bahareh Zare Bahari is distinct in so many ways – as an Iranian woman who, in her early 20’s, started her own school, soon shut down by the regime in Iran, who then moved to the Philippines to become a Doctor of Dentistry, and who won 3 beauty queen crowns, using the opportunity to both hold up the beauty & power of the Iranian women and people. Because of her witness, she has been threatened, nearly abducted, and had her nose broken. She is stranded precariously in the Philippines, trapped, with minimal help and protection from vengeful Iranian forces, with people all around her reluctant to step into the path of that wrath. If you wish to help, you can reach out to Bahar on Instagram or via Facebook, but better yet through an email to Ran Meir at [email protected], who will channel aid to Bahar.
English grandmaster and vice-president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), Nigel Short, warned that Iran will soon be banned from international events if the nation’s officials continues to force Iranian chess players not to compete against their Israeli counterparts and boycott events involving Israel. “We are increasing pressure on Iran to follow the law, and if it does not comply, the Iranian federation will see the consequences,” Short, who has also coached Iran’s national chess team, told the Chess 24 website. In a resolution submitted to the FIDE General Assembly, Short described the failure of the Iranian Chess Federation (ICF) “to request their players compete against all countries in FIDE before the next GA, or any future boycott by an Iranian player will automatically result in the ICF’s suspension from all FIDE activities.”
Opponents of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have accused the ayatollah of wearing an earpiece during his recent sermons so aids can remind the octogenarian to wish “Death to America.” Iranian dissidents and opposition leaders have noted that the 81-year-old Khamenei has often appeared confused in recent years and are demanding that a third-party inspector check the ayatollah’s ears for electronic devices before each public sermon. “If Mr. Khamenei is too old to remember to say ‘Death to America,’ he is too old to lead the country,” said Reza Pahlavi, the leader of the exiled opposition group National Council of Iran. “The Iranian people have the right to know if their leader is slipping into senility.”
Iran’s Green Movement opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard, who have been under house arrests since 2011, have contracted the coronavirus, a dissident website, Kalameh reported on November 15. Mousavi who was prime minister in the 1980s and a presidential candidate in 2009, led the Green Movement, which challenged the official election results when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the 2009 vote in a highly controversial and dubious election result. Mousavi, his wife and another candidate, Mehdi Karrubi and their supporters continued to challenge the election by organizing leading large rallies and eventually in 2011 they were put under house arrest, when Mousavi called for protests in support of the Arab Spring.
In an exclusive interview with Radio Farda, a young Iranian actress revealed that Iranian intelligence agents have threatened her with possible arrest and extradition. 22-year-old Reyhaneh Parsa, a rising star in Iranian cinema, theater, and television in the past two years, left her homeland and currently lives in Turkey. Speaking to Radio Farda’s Babak Ghaffouri-Azar, the young actress claimed that intelligence organizations exert pressure on Iranian movie stars to comply with the Islamic Republic’s directives. Parsa described how she was summoned by intelligence agencies and currently faces a lawsuit has in the Cultural and Media Court. “A movie producer, connected with the Islamic Republic’s intelligence and judicial institutions, has pressured to contact me, even now that I live in Turkey,” she said.
On the first anniversary of November 2019 bloody protests the Iranian Writers’ Association in a statement has announced its support for “people’s right to protest and the families of victims and detainees to demand justice.” It has also demanded an end to the “policy of fear and suppression” of protesters and the “unconditional” release of all political prisoners. The banned Writers’ Association issuing its statement on Saturday [November 14] said the violent suppression of protests in 2017, 2018 and 2019 “is a clear sign of violating the most elementary human rights, meaning freedom of expression”. The Islamic Republic has blocked all avenues for victims’ families and detainees to seek justice and even to grieve, the statement said. In many instances, security forces have blocked mourning ceremonies and intimidated families to remain silent since the events one year ago.
The Washington Kurdish Insinuate (WKI) interivew the Kurdish activist and writer Ava Homa. Ms. Homa spoke about her novel Daughters of Smoke and Fire and the Kurdish question. Set in Iran, this extraordinary debut novel takes readers into the everyday lives of the Kurds. Leila dreams of making films to bring the suppressed stories of her people onto the global stage, but obstacles keep piling up. Leila’s younger brother Chia, influenced by their father’s past torture, imprisonment, and his deep-seated desire for justice, begins to engage with social and political affairs. But his activism grows increasingly risky and one day he disappears in Tehran. Seeking answers about her brother’s whereabouts, Leila fears the worst and begins a campaign to save him. But when she publishes Chia’s writings online, she finds herself in grave danger as well.
In November 2019, Iran went through the most significant outpouring of popular unrest in decades. The uprising was sparked by the announcement of sharp increases in the government-set price of gasoline, but it quickly became an outlet for the revival of previously established demands for regime change. The regime has resorted to brute repression, killing at least 1500 protesters and arresting thousands more. It also shut down Iran’s internet completely for a week, blocking images of the protests from reaching the outside world.
Shortly after major U.S. news organizations called Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, eighty-one-year-old Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been ruling the country since 1989, issued a characteristically harsh statement: “The situation in the US and what they themselves say about their elections is a spectacle! This is an example of the ugly face of liberal democracy in the US. Regardless of the outcome, one thing is absolutely clear, the definite political, civil, and moral decline of the US regime.”
Iran’s security and intelligence services have renewed their active espionage and intelligence operations abroad, targeting opposition activists worldwide, especially in Europe. Iran’s primary modus operandi is to lure them to various countries in the region – Turkey or the United Arab Emirates – to abduct them and transfer them for investigation and trial in Iran. Sometimes Iranian agents assassinate them on European soil. During the 1990s, Iranian intelligence agencies carried out a series of assassinations of top leaders of Iranian opposition organizations operating in Europe.
به دنبال اعتراضات آبان ۹۸، آمار مختلفی در مورد تعداد کشته شدگان انتشار یافت که حتی بر مبنای محافظه کارترینِ آنها، رکورد جانباختگانِ اعتراضات خیابانی در تاریخ جمهوری اسلامی ایران شکسته شده بود. همزمان سخنگویان حکومت ایران، “کمپین ضداطلاعات” بزرگی را به راه انداختند تا اثبات کنند معترضان، نه “مردم معمولی”، که “اشرار” غیرعادی هستند و در نتیجه نگرانی در مورد سرنوشت یا زندگی آنها، موضوعیت چندانی ندارد.
İran’da 2017’de zorunlu başörtüsü yasasına karşı birçok eylem düzenlendi. Eylemler nedeniyle onlarca kadın aktiviste hapis cezası verildi. Bu kadın aktivistlerden biri de Nasibe Şemsai’ydi. Şemsai aynı zamanda bir dağcı. İran’ın en yüksek dağı Demavend’e çıkarak başörtü takmanın zorunlu olmasını protesto eden Şemsai, 2018’de tutuklandı.
علی ربیعی، سخنگوی دولت ایران پس از نشست هیات دولت در جمع خبرنگاران اعلام کرد “تعطیلی گسترده از شنبه اول آذر اجرایی میشود. در این تعطیلی گسترده حتی نسبت به خروج از شهرها سختگیری خواهد شد و تردد از شهر به شهر ممنوع خواهد بود”.
سایت کلمه نزدیک به میرحسین موسوی خبر از ابتلای وی و زهرا رهنورد به کووید ۱۹ داد. بر اساس این گزارش تست کرونای خانم رهنورد و آقای موسوی امروز صبح مثبت اعلام شده است.