Iranian authorities’ psychological and mental pressures on the father of death-row political prisoner Amir Hossein Moradi pushed him to commit suicide
By Jubin Katiraie
The father of a jailed Iranian political prisoner on death row has died from suicide, according to state-run News Agency ROKNA.
Mohammad Moradi, 60, the father of protester Amir Hossein Moradi, died at home on Monday morning, having been under severe pressure following the confirmation of his son’s death sentence, something confirmed by his son’s lawyer Babak Paknia. His wife said that he talked constantly about his son, showing extreme concern.
Following Moradi’s death, the so-called“reformist” Telegram channel Emteded said that security forces and people with cameras descended on the house and stayed “for a few hours”, while “reformist” journalist, Mehdi Mahmoudian said they were trying to extract “forced confessions” from the family.
Amir Hossein, 26, was arrested for taking part in the November 2019 protests over the authorities’ decision to triple gas prices overnight and was sentenced to death, alongside fellow protesters Saeed Tamjidi and Mohammad Rajabi. Reports indicate that he was tortured after being arrested; namely beaten, subjected to electric shocks, and forced to endure an agent standing on his chest. He was told that his torture and solitary confinement would continue until he confessed.
The trio’s death sentences were confirmed in June, but Iranian launched a social medical campaign that resulted in the sentences being reviewed after the hashtag Do Not Execute was used over 10 million times, including by the President of the United States. Despite this Amir Hossein’s family were put under “mental pressure” and kept in limbo about the death sentence, which indicates that the review was never really going to result in their lives being spared. As the government usually does, they intended to delay the execution until the heat had passed, but they never wanted to stop the execution altogether.
An informed source said that following his father’s death, Amir Hossein’s mother and brother were summoned to the Intelligence Agency and threatened with arrest if they spoke to the press.
The source said: “Since Amir Hossein’s arrest and death sentence, his parents have been in poor mental health. His father was under severe mental pressure.”
At least nine Iranian protesters are on death row, but the true number may be much higher due to the state’s secrecy around things that make them look bad.
In August, Iranian authorities hanged protester Mostafa Salehi, a father of two from Isfahan, central Iran, and in early September they hanged protesters and wrestling champion Navid Afkari from Shiraz, southwestern Iran.
The Iranian people face a tsunami of poverty, but the leaders’ concern is how to fill their pockets
By Jubin Katiraie
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani claimed that the Iranian people’s bad livelihood situation is because of U.S. and global sanctions. On 12 September Rouhani cried out that world powers are not allowing them to buy medicine with their own money and tried to connect all the country’s problems to the sanctions.
His remarks were by and largely untrue since U.S. officials have on many occasions announced that there are no sanctions imposed on the import and purchase of medicine, food, medical equipment, and facilities and of course agriculture products, but Iranian officials struggle to show something else.
The truth is that the people’s livelihood problems and high costs are rooted in corruption, theft, and embezzlement by the government officials, Iran watchers argue.
To contour a real picture, we will show here some of the examples of these thefts and embezzlements.
In April 2020, it was revealed that $4.8 billion of government currency had been lost. (State-run Mashregh website, 15 April)
Aftab-e-Yazd daily wrote that $18 billion was wasted last year. This Rouhani-affiliated daily wrote that the currency was given to those who did not import goods at all, and if they did, they sold them in the open market, considering the price of the dollar in the open market. (Aftab Yazd, 11 November 2019)
Abdolnaser Hemmati, the governor of the Central Bank, admitted that in the last two years, $27 billion in foreign exchange has been given to exporters and in return, no good and currency has entered the country. According to him, these people must be held accountable. (Tabnak website, 14 July 2020)
Regarding the $27 billion figure mentioned by Hemmati, Hariri, the head of trade between Iran and China, explained that small businesses export $8-9 billion annually and that 50 percent of non-oil exports are gas and petrochemical condensates, which are in the hands of state-owned companies. (Kayhan, 20 July)
The family of Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, former Minister of Industry, has embezzled €6.6 billion from petrochemicals. (Khabar online website, 21 July)
Iranian Vice President Eshagh Jahangiri, Rouhani’s chief deputy, acknowledged that $22 billion in foreign exchange was taken to Dubai and Istanbul to reduce the price of the currency, but the fate of the money is unclear. (Aftab website, 23 October 2019)
According to Karimi Qodusi, a member of Iran’s parliament, more than $36 billion was given to smuggling bands of goods, currency, and drugs by the order of Rouhani. (Mehr news agency, 4 October 2020)
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said that we had to give $35 billion to those which are not clear how they squandered the money and where they took it. (Shargh daily, 2 May 2020)
In 2018, the ILNA news agency reported that $30 billion had been lost in the banking network in the past 10 months. (ILNA, 29 November 2018)
In an unprecedented move, who has decided to allocate $20 billion of the country’s foreign exchange resources to various groups, some of which even do not exist, the state-run news agency IRNA wrote on 2 August 2018.
Yousefian Mollah, a former member of parliament, said it was unclear what had happened to the $9 billion and where it had gone. (Bahar website, 15 April 2020)
Saeed Leylaz, a government economist, also said that the unaccounted distribution of the 4,200 tomans currency, by wasting currency and gold resources, led to the loss of $30 billion and 80 tons of gold. (90 Eghtesadi website, 26 August 2020)
If we consider gold at the current price of $1945 an ounce, this amount of gold is equal to $5.5 billion, and in fact, it is $35.5 billion in sum, which the state has squandered in this way.
Leaving aside embezzlement by officials’ children, Omid Assadbaygi the managing director of the Haft Tapeh sugarcane factory, embezzled 2.5 trillion tomans, and Abas Irvani, economically active in the automotive industry and its affiliated group named Ozam, embezzled nearly 764 million tomans.
Ali Abedzadeh, the former head of the airline, bought the King Air 2000 for $2.5 million, but invoiced $11 million and stole $8.5 million for the aircrafts.
Theft and embezzlement are taking place in a way that it is very difficult to calculate the numbers. The figures revealed by the media or admitted by both members of the factions have something in common. The common denominator is that the leaders of the government and their affiliates are looting every moment.
From the above figures, it can be concluded that at least $50-60 billion has been looted in the last two or three years. With this amount, each Iranian receives at least 20 million Tomans, with the same amount of money, the meat consumed for seven years in Iran can be provided. With this money, 18 years of wheat consumption in Iran can be provided and two million sustainable jobs can be created by international standards.
With this money, more than two million standard hospital beds, five million standard classrooms can be built, and this money is equivalent to the national budget with a population of 30 to 40 million people.
Iran-backed terror squads attempt to subvert regional states to create chaos and instability across the Middle East
By Pooya Stone
In a statement on September 28, the Saudi State Security announced that it managed to disband a terrorist cell linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). According to the statement, security forces arrested ten individuals who had received training by the IRGC in Iran.
Saudi authorities have also discovered large quantities of weapons and explosives hidden in a house and on a farm. Security forces seized “electrical components used in the making of explosives such as capacitors, transformers and resistors, gunpowder, chemicals, Kalashnikov rifles, guns, sniper rifle, live ammunition, machine guns, blades, military clothes, and wireless communication devices,” reported al-Arabiya.
Previously, Bahraini authorities declared that they managed to foil a terrorist attack backed by the ayatollahs in early 2020. On September 20, the Ministry of Interior Kingdom stated the IRGC was behind the attack. According to the ministry’s investigations, a new group called the “Qassem Soleimani Brigade” had planned to attack several public and security structures in Bahrain.
On September 24, German officials imposed a ban on the sale of model aircraft engines to Iran after a shipment ended up in drones used by the Houthis in Yemen to sophisticated drones and cruise missiles in attacks targeting Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities Aramco on September 14, 2019.
Notably, two weeks after the attack, Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) U.S. Representative Office revealed details proving that high-ranking Iranian officials had ordered the strike. Detailed planning began after Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s initial approval of this operation and the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) referred a plan to Khamenei for final approval. Khamenei ordered IRGC Major General Rashid and Brigadier General Hajizadeh to begin the operational implementation of the plan, the NCRI statement explains.
On the other hand, for decades, Iranian authorities are funding extremist groups across the Middle East such as the Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah, and Houthi rebels in Yemen. These groups have acted as arms of the IRGC’s Quds Force in the regions and across the globe to create chaos in these mentioned countries and prevent political stability.
“It’s hard to find a conflict or terror group in the Middle East that does not have Iran’s fingerprints all over it,” said the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2017-18) Nikki Haley said back in December 2017.
In this context, Iran-backed Hezbollah has taken hostage the fate of the Lebanese people and paved the path for the ayatollahs’ meddling in this country. The group has stockpiled a large amount of weapons and ammunition in different areas around the country in order to carry out orders from Tehran.
“Our goal, which we have no choice but to adopt due to our ideological beliefs, is the project of the Islamic State of Lebanon… Not as a separate Islamic Republic but as a part of a ‘Great Islamic Republic,’ ruled by the Vali-e Faqih [former Iranian supreme leader Ruhollah] Khomeini,” said Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in 1982.
Also, Iran-backed militias in Iraq have frequently announced their loyalty to Khamenei. On September 15, 2011, Iranian state-run TV aired a video showing Hadi al-Ameri, then minister of transportation in Iraq and head of the Badr Corps kissed Khamenei’s hand showing his allegiance to him and the Iranian government’s projects in Iraq.
Forces under the command of al-Ameri and other Iran-linked politicians in Iraq are the source of instability and insecurity in this country. “Iran-backed militias fostered sectarian and violence by providing training and equipment to the Shiite militia organizations by mid-2006. I can tell you there is no question that they were doing this. I firmly believe that Iran bears responsibility because their training and equipping of the Iraqi militia groups was the major factor in sustaining the sectarian violence that swept Iraq in 2006 and 2007. And to me that makes Iran directly responsible for the death of hundreds of coalition forces and thousands of Iraqis,” said Gen. George Casey, Commander of Multi-National Force – Iraq (2004-07), in June 2018.
Back in January 2007, the NCRI held simultaneous press conferences in Paris, London, and Berlin revealing the identities of tens of thousands of Iraqi officials with strong ties to Iran. The document consisted of the names, specifications, monthly salaries, addresses, and personal codes of around 32,000 politicians and military personnel literally implementing Iran’s policies in Iraq.
All these facts obviously underscore the imperative of adopting a firm policy against the Iranian government’s malign behavior. As Iranian authorities suppress any opposition voice at home, they severely jeopardize the peace and stability in the region and across the globe.
For 40 years, the ayatollahs have extended their terror attacks from Tehran to Buenos Aires, Mecca, Baghdad, Benghazi, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Washington DC. Now, that is the time for the international community to hold them accountable and spare them on respecting human rights and international law. The world must prevent the Iranian government to obtain even a single bullet, which will shot against either peaceful protesters inside Iran or innocent people in other countries.
While Iranian authorities have intensified suppression and restrictions on citizens, Iranian media outlets sound alarms about upcoming protests
By Jubin Katiraie
Iranian state-run media spent Sunday warning officials of looming protests by people in poverty, all while the mullahs’ are trapped in an international deadlock.
The state-run Arman daily wrote: “A glance at what we witnessed in forms of protests in recent years shows that these protests started in areas where people are suffering from poverty and have difficulties earning their living wages. The economic pressure that lower social classes endure is unbearable. We should be careful that they do not lose their tolerance because this could have social and security consequences [for the state].”
Of course, the Iranian theocracy has long failed to help the poor people there; instead plundering what insignificant money they do have in order to fund terrorism and warmongering abroad, which the paper acknowledged had destroyed society and would be tough to repair.
Meanwhile, the Ebtekar daily wrote: “The social and national challenges have become so diverse and massive that any justification or trick can no longer conceal them. There is an inefficiency (lack of ambiguous plans and goals) of macro-management, which is the bedrock of all kinds of social and national challenges without prospects. Thus, we could safely say that a ‘fundamental national issue or concern’ in no way matters for politicians, officials, clergymen, and those seeking power.”
The paper noted that officials were prioritizing their shaky hold on power rather than fixing people’s problems, which was actually making it more likely that people would rebel against the entire ruling system and would soon make things more difficult for the rulers to maintain power.
The Siasat-e Rouz spoke about the new European-led joint-statement on the Iranian government’s human rights violations, which was signed by 47 countries, saying that effectively symbolizes the EU giving the US the “green light” to process in its sanctions and other actions against the regime, citing that previous EU statements on Iran’s human rights, missile capability, and regional role, had already shown the direction they would be taking.
They wrote: “The EU’s biased statement on human rights against Iran has been issued while political observers believe that this statement is a continuation of preparing the ground for further agreements like JCPOA [the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.] And bringing missile case and Tehran’s regional role to the negotiating table.”
Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian opposition president, recently tweeted: “So long as the clerical regime in Iran has not been overthrown, it will not let up on executions and torture. Nor will it let up on misogyny, religious discrimination, terrorism, and warmongering.”
So long as the clerical regime in #Iran has not been overthrown, it will not let up on executions and torture. Nor will it let up on misogyny, religious discrimination, terrorism and warmongering #FreeIran2020#NoImpunity4Mullahspic.twitter.com/WnxpRemRec
Iranian families face empty food baskets while authorities give skyrocketing loans to their relatives to dine shark fin soup and import expensive fruits
By Pooya Stone
These days, the people of Iran bear intolerable economic pressures and many families cannot provide sufficient foodstuffs. Long ago, many citizens have fallen below the poverty line and now, they are scrambling to stay above the misery line. In other words, they struggle to remain alive.
In such circumstances, the minimum price of essential supplies rises every day while paychecks are fixed. Furthermore, many citizens have been bankrupted due to the government’s economic mismanagement and inattention to small businesses. In this context, unemployment numbers are skyrocketing.
On September 24, Arman daily pointed out a rampant increase in prices, severely affecting people’s living conditions. In its piece titled, “Families’ empty food baskets,” Arman reckoned that the current high-prices originated from the rise of the foreign exchange rate—dropping the national currency rial against the U.S. dollar.
“These days, a surplus pressure has been applied to working-class families. This pressure would be increased as much as these families have no longer capability due to empty food baskets and small product baskets. The poverty, the decrease in purchasing power, and the increase in social rift have reached a level that cannot be ignored easily,” Arman wrote.
“Currently, the food basket of a labor family of three has reached 76 million rials [$275] in Alborz province and 90 million rials [$325] in metropolitans. These numbers do not have any harmony with workers’ 26-million-rial [$95] paychecks. Laborers suffer from a 50-million-rial [$180] gap between their salaries and expenditures. In this respect, workers’ paychecks do not cover the costs of even ten days,” said Mohammad Sayyah, a member of the Labor Supreme Assembly managing board in Alborz province.
In the past, people—even the poor— were able to purchase bread, dairy, and eggs. However, given the high prices, these people have lost their purchasing power to provide even these basic goods. Removing these foodstuffs has placed the society on the horizon of emerging malnutrition among different classes.
“Each person must receive a daily use of 320g bread, 100g rice, 20g pasta, 26g beans, 70g potatoes, 280g vegetables, 48g red meat, 50g white meat, 24g eggs, 225-240g milk or dairy, 35-40g of oil, 40-50g carbohydrates and sugar,” a professor of food science explained about the calories an adult person needs based on a healthy food basket, according to Aftab News website on September 1.
Notably, a single person would need more than 10 million rials [$40] to provide such a food basket. This is while Iranian families are not at all capable of paying these costs. Moreover, the prices of these goods are continuously rising.
On September 24, Mardom Salari daily highlighted the economic weakness of working-class families in a piece titled, “Monthly salary of a worker is spent in less than ten days.”
“According to the Statistics Center, Iranian families’ expenditures have increased by 34 percent in the past 30 days. This increase imposes more costs on families in the non-official market and on the ground. With the current paychecks based on workers’ minimum wage, a labor family cannot provide for even ten days of a month,” the daily wrote.
After months of arguments, officials finally admitted to raising the workers' monthly wages from $114 to $146. The ayatollahs refuse to raise Iranian workers' payment while they pay at least $1,500 to each foreign combatant who fights Syrian protesters to hold al-Assad in power. pic.twitter.com/4NsHogxBOi
On the other hand, while many citizens face troubles in purchasing cheese, butter, and eggs as essential foodstuffs, talking about the consumption of red meat, chicken, and fish is likely a joke. For instance, up to June, the price of cheese was 400,000 rials [$16] per kilo. Now, Iranian families pay 800,000 rials for the same amount of cheese.
Remarkably, these are only a portion of the problems that families of employees and workers deal with. However, hundreds of thousands of people have recently been unemployed. Also, there are contract, temporary or seasonal workers whose salaries do not reach 10 million rials [$40] per month.
Hadi Abavi, secretary-general of the Higher Association of Labor Unions, in an interview with Mashreq daily acknowledged that just “bread and boiled potato” constitutes the “workers’ food basket.”
“If workers received their minimum paychecks, in the best conditions they could cover only one-third of their expenditures. When a worker cannot feed his family and fills his family’s food basket with bread and boiled potatoes, how can they purchase sanitizers and hygiene necessities, or benefit from proper nutrition?” he questioned.
“Also, many workers must attend workplaces due to their in-person careers. They produce sanitizing goods, foodstuffs, and other cargo that cannot be shut down. Is it possible to shut down bakeries or groceries? They are exposed to the novel coronavirus risk. And in such circumstances we are also witness rising unemployment and decrease in revenues,” Mashreq quoted Abavi as saying.
Furthermore, many people, including particularly young couples, must pay skyrocketing housing rents and this issue adds insult to their injuries. All the while, state-linked individuals and entities have shaped a housing mafia with millions of empty houses across the country. However, the majority of Iran’s population is in poverty, facing high-prices, unemployment, and displacement, while officials say the number of people who spend their nights on roofs, cars, graves, and caves is increasing in alarming fashion.
It is worth noting that these dire conditions are not summarized in working-class families. In the 2017 Presidential debate, the current Speaker of the Parliament (Majlis) Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf implicitly declared that only four percent of the society benefit from proper economic conditions.
In other words, in 2017, 96 percent of Iran’s population faced economic dilemmas based on Ghalibaf’s remarks. Given official stats, this population has tolerated severe pressures during the past three years due to the rial’s devaluation, dropping oil prices in international markets, and the government squandering billions of national resources on terrorism, warmongering advancing ballistic missiles, and expanding nuclear projects.
In such circumstances, high-ranking officials and their relatives are ordering shark fin soup in Tehran’s luxury restaurants. The government gives them multi-billion-rial loans to import exotic fruits with special refrigerators. Chief of the Orchardists Union mocked the government’s counter-smuggling and contradictory policies says, “Certainly, expensive fruits are not imported by Kolbars [poor porters in Kurdistan province],” according to Channel Six TV on October 5, 2019.
This is while state security forces annually target hundreds of Kolbars, killing or injuring them mercilessly. Some of them are educated people who have been forced to make ends meet through excruciating jobs due to the government’s imprudence in recruiting their talents and capacity.
A significant number of citizens are also selling their body organs and even their newborn babies to pay their backbreaking expenditures. On the other hand, families face a growing rate of skyrocketing prices for essential necessities. These enormous financial pressures, along with systematic corruption and discrimination, have created severe distrust among the people.
“Let off Syria, think about us,” was frequently chanted by fed-up people in the latest round of nationwide protests. Now, Iranians seem to grasp that the government, neither “reformists” not “principalists,” are actually thinking about them. Therefore, they continuously launch rallies protesting the government and state-backed CEOs who merely line their pockets with the impoverished people’s meager savings. However, these protests will not remain small forever and the Iranian people’s “Nitrate of Disappointment depot” will explode soon.
Iranian officials brag about remote and semi-remote education while many citizens, particularly working-class people, cannot afford online-classes’ expenditures
By Pooya Stone
An Iranian government official has admitted that many workers can’t afford to keep their children in education.
The most substantial problem right now is that workers cannot afford things like mobile phones or laptops, which would allow their children to access online learning made essential because of the coronavirus pandemic, but that’s far from the only barrier between Iranian children and education.
Hamidreza Imam Gholi Tabar, Inspector of the Supreme Assembly of Workers’ Representatives, told the state-run Tasnim news agency on Friday: “In recent years, the people, especially the workers, have been affected by the most severe economic pressures such as rampant inflation, declining incomes, and declining purchasing power, increasing poverty, and recently, coronavirus, an uninvited guest has been added to this list. These problems have overshadowed the management and normal life of the workers and have led them to a dead-end in covering their daily expenses.”
Indeed, the cost of tuition fees, registration fees, uniforms, accessories, and stationery, all adds up, even in normal times, and the people can barely afford to pay for food and bills, let alone schooling when 80% of the population live below the poverty line.
Imam Gholi Tabar said: “If no practical solution is found to solve the above challenge, workers will certainly prevent their children from continuing their education due to lack of sufficient income. Because in the shadow of discrimination and the lack of any support for the working class and the vulnerable sectors of the society, survival will be their first priority and the education of their children will be at a much lower priority.”
This will no doubt lead to a whole generation of children forced to work as working children and lacking the needed education for many careers, thus limiting whatever social progression there may have been so far.
On Wednesday, parliament discussed the people’s living conditions, with Hossein Khosravi asking “Do not you hear the cries of different classes of workers and employees, such as preschool teachers, contract teachers, the disabled, the workers of telecommunication company, and the children of the martyrs, many of people who are drowning in problems, outside the parliament?”
On Tuesday in Parliament, MP Shiva Ghassemipour said: “The way things are going, in the next few months, the bread will disappear from the people’s tables, as has happened with meat and eggs… Our officials don’t do anything to help the impoverished segments of society, whose numbers are increasing every day. When did we promise to create havens for the rich, give shelter to the corrupt, and deprive the poor of the power to buy eggs?”
Given the Iranian prisons’ dire conditions, around 20 prisoners committed suicide in the past two weeks
By Jubin Katiraie
Some 20 inmates at Urmia Central Prison, northwestern Iran, have attempted suicide in just two weeks due to the horrific conditions they are subjected to in prison.
An informed source said: “[Inmates] cannot tolerate prison conditions. In response to the prisoners’ protests, prison authorities give out psychedelic pills. After a few days of using these pills, the inmates lose mental control and try to commit suicide. The latest case was a prisoner from the minors’ section who broke a window and tried to eat the shattered glass to kill himself. He is in critical condition.”
They said that most of the inmates who are in an unstable mental state are in Section 14 and the “Consultation” section.
Prior to this recent spate of attempted suicides, Farzin Nouri and Hadi Rostami attempted suicide with poison on June 30, and in May, Mohammad Ghaderi attempted suicide to escape torture by the Intelligence agents.
The conditions are awful, unhygienic, and with no separation of prisoners based on crime.
In related news, an increased number of inmates and a severe lack of hygienic conditions at Sheiban prison of Ahvaz, southwest Iran, had led to a jump in the number of prisoners contracting the coronavirus over recent months.
After riots at Sheiban and fellow Ahvaz prison, Sepidar, in March over the lack of response by prison authorities to the coronavirus, which should have seen lower prisoner numbers and increased hygiene, the regime transferred most of the inmates at Sepidar – including all political prisoners, death row inmates, and those sentenced to less than five years – to Sheiban prison.
One source said that the number of political prisoners on ward 5 tripled from 100 to 300 in just one month with the numbers rising daily, even though the ward has just 100 beds, which means that the majority of prisoners are forced to sleep on the dirty floor, in corridors, and in front of toilets and showers.
Additionally, due to limited space, over 60 people are forced to sleep in a 25-square-meter room, which the source said means that the people are forced to sleep in cramped conditions, unable to move until the morning.
All this means that a large number of prisoners are already infected with coronavirus and prison officials are preventing reports from leaking to the outside world.
In July, Amnesty International reported that Iran’s prisons are “catastrophically unequipped for outbreaks” and that the regime has ignored repeated requests from prison officials about resources that are aimed at stopping the spread of the disease or treating prisoners who are sick. This included things like bleach, personal protective equipment, soap, and medical devices, but the regime never even responded to the letters, let alone provided any of the needed equipment.
The Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei oversees a parade of IRGC senior commanders
By Pooya Stone
Questions asked in Iran’s state-run television Channel 5 from Abolfazl Shekarchi, Spokesman and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, about the role of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and Iran’s meddling in the Middle East is just one of the examples of the regime’s miserable situation. His defensive stance in this interview was remarkable. These questions raised skeptics in the regime after the call by Iranian opposition leader Massoud Rajavi for the “Dissolution of the IRGC” and to allocate its budget to counter the coronavirus and support the Iranian people.
Moderator: “The suspicion that every country should have a single armed force, you say that this is true in our ideological debate, now what about the protection of borders?”
Shekarchi: “Protecting the ideological borders of the holy system of the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution, in addition to being with all institutions and devices and even the army, is its inherent mission with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
Moderator: “And do their works not interfere which each other?”
Shekarchi: “No, they are perfectly compatible with each other. This is the difference between our armed forces and the of the other countries in the world.” (State-run TV Channel 5, 21 September)
The Iranian people do not need the Revolutionary Guards. This force was created from the first day with the aim of preserving Velayat-e-Faqih (supreme clerical rule), carrying out assassinations outside of the borders of Iran, as well as suppressing the people and the opposition forces. Its logo does not show any sign of Iran and Iranian nationality.
Organizing a series of failed operations in the eight-year war, after Iraq’s withdrawal from Iran, is another crime committed by the IRGC. Operation Wal-Fajr to occupy Iraqi territory with the tactic of human waves on the northern fronts in Iraqi Kurdistan to the southern fronts in Faw inflicted heavy casualties on the Iranian population.
In Operation Karbala 4, operational plans had already been leaked, but despite this, the regime carried out the operation and thousands of young Iranian men died.
Sending students as ‘disposable soldiers’ is another aspect of the Revolutionary Guards’ crimes. According to former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, nearly 36,000 school children lost their lives on the battlefields. (31 October 1997)
The terrorist IRGC Quds Force, led by the eliminated general Qassem Soleimani, has played a key role in igniting proxy wars in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. The purpose of this force was to export terrorism to neighboring countries and to create strategic depth for the Velayat-e-Faqih system.
The IRGC commander called this, “the Protection of the ideological borders of the Islamic Republic” and added: “Religious sovereignty does not really to any land, practically include all nations and all people. We see today that we are defending the oppressed people of Yemen, with the same thinking, we are defending the oppressed people of Palestine, and now with the same thinking we are protecting Non-Muslim nations, from the Black people in the US who are now dying under the boots of the oppression, we are defending them.” (State-run TV Channel 5, 21 September)
The functions of the Revolutionary Guards for the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, in addition to exporting terrorism, are to play a role in domestic repression. The establishment of the large ‘Sarollah’ base to suppress the uprising in Tehran is another aspect of this role. This is what Shekarchi calls ‘internal security’ in his televised interview.
Questioner: “You said that the IRGC is an ideological border. Where is our ideological border? You mean the ideological border is once Palestine, and once Yemen, does it not interfere with defending our geographical border?”
Shekarchi: “You see, it is not that the IRGC has no mission inside the country, it certainly has a mission. But we must prevent the infiltration of foreigners, deal with the hypocrites [the regime’s derogatory label for the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI)], ensure the internal security of the country. These are all missions of the IRGC.” (State-run TV Channel 5, 21 September)
Shekarchi’s remarks only reaffirmed the contention that the IRGC is an unnecessary force with malign activities and is wasting the people’s resources.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani surprised the world with his ironic comments about freedoms and human rights
By Jubin Katiraie
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday showed once again that he is a pathological liar as he tried desperately to reframe the government’s failures, fights, and felonies.
However, it did make it clear that Iran was failing to deal with the multitude of crises it’s facing domestically and internationally. It is clear that after four years of crimes against the Iranian people and the world, the government is at an impasse entirely of its own creation and that the only solution is regime change.
Rouhani spoke of the importance of political freedom and democracy without seeing the irony in executing political prisoner Navid Afkari just two weeks ago or Mostafa Salehi in early August for taking part in peaceful protests in 2018 and 2019 respectively. The government has also sentenced a number of other political prisoners to death, while thousands more linger in Iran’s dungeons, and at least 1,500 were shot dead in the November uprising.
He then tried to dismiss protests against Iranian interference in Iraq and Lebanon (and even the anti-establishment protesters in Iran) as “undemocratic” because the government in charge was voted in during an election. Even if the democratic election story were true, it ignores the fact that people are allowed to protest the government in a democracy and they are certainly allowed to call for a change in the government.
Rouhani then claimed that the accusations of the government’s pursuit of nuclear weapons were false, something proved to be a lie by government documents that were leaked by the Iranian Resistance.
In response to the speech, the Iranian Resistance wrote: “We don’t need to reiterate every lie Rouhani said during his UNGA speech to come to the conclusion that he was trying to hide something in plain sight. The truth is that the Iranian government is the perfect example of an authoritarian rule inching toward its end. It had already lost its legitimacy at home, but the threadbare image of democracy and reform it was showing to the world is falling apart.”
They noted that not only are Iran’s suppressive forces losing their ability to actually stop protests but that Iran’s allies are finding it harder to defend a government that kills young people for voicing opposition.
As the Iranian government flagrantly violates the Iranian people’s fundamental human rights, the world is responsible for bringing criminals to trial
By Pooya Stone
On September 12, Iran executed the 27-year-old wrestling champion Navid Afkari despite a massive solidarity campaign to spare his life. This gross violation of human rights prompted the international community to focus on the Iranian government’s record in abusing the minimum rights of its citizens.
Earlier, on September 2, Amnesty International shed light on harrowing torture and ill-treatment exercised against the citizens who were detained during the November 2019 protests.
“Widespread torture including beatings, floggings, electric shocks, stress positions, mock executions, waterboarding, sexual violence, forced administration of chemical substances, and deprivation of medical care. Hundreds subjected to grossly unfair trials on baseless national security charges. Death sentences issued based on torture-tainted ‘confessions,’” AI wrote in its revelation.
On September 5, Aida Younesi, sister of jailed elite student Ali Younesi, exposed the authorities’ attempts to compel his brother to make televised confessions. “[Ali] was told to accept allegations in televised confessions to have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment,” Younesi tweeted.
Also, in August, Iranian authorities hanged Mostafa Salehi, who was detained during anti-establishment protests, in Isfahan Central Prison. The judge and the Supreme Court sentenced and upheld the death penalty against Salehi based on a confession extracted through torture. “I must execute you at all costs. I made an honored word to superiors to hang one person from Kahrizsang city [Salehi’s hometown],” told an interrogator him.
Furthermore, since the beginning of 2020, Iran’s judiciary has executed over 100 persons across the country. In August alone, authorities hanged at least 28 prisoners under different excuses. However, Iranian officials use the death penalty to terrify society and diminish the spirit of protests.
“[The Iranian] government executed a young man – after brutally torturing him – to intimidate Iranian protesters,” tweeted the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on September 16.
On Saturday, @JZarif’s government executed a young man – after brutally torturing him – to intimidate Iranian protesters. Navid Afkari’s execution was a despicable act. Democracies around the world have a moral obligation to stand firm and reject this regime’s brutality.
In this respect, the Iranian opposition argues that it is essential that the international community hold the Iranian government accountable for its numerous crimes against its own people. Turning a blind eye to the ayatollahs’ human rights violation is considered a green light to them to intensify suppression against citizens, particularly protesters.
On September 16, former vice-president of the European Parliament Dr. Alejo Vidal Quadras described the execution of Navid Afkari as a terror act. “These executions in Iran are not a matter of the general death penalty. It’s pure terror, the regime wants to ensure its survival,” Dr. Quadras said in a webinar summit hosted by the Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
In such circumstances, the civilized world, especially rights organizations and activists, bear a profoundly consequential responsibility for the Iranian people. Europeans and the U.S. government must hold the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) accountable for their malign behavior inside Iran and abroad, opposition activists say.
The 41-year appeasement policy toward Iran merely incited the ayatollahs to further embolden their oppressive apparatuses and abuse their citizens’ rights, activists point out. Giving infinite impunity to Iranian officials has also encouraged them to cross geographic boundaries and use terrorism as a means to blackmail other nations.
In this respect, the world must recognize Iranian citizens’ struggle for freedom, justice, equality, and the rule of law. The United States’ recent sanctions against human rights abusers send a strong message to the Iranian people. It obviously addresses Iranian youths and women who seek a free and democratic Iran that you are not alone.
European states must follow the United States’ act, the opposition argues. This is the time for performing effective and practical measures against gross violations of human rights in Iran. It would bring peace and stability to the Middle East region and the world further than sparing the lives of innocent people who are on death row right now.
