What Happens when Security Forces are Fighting for Freedom: A Case Study in the Zahedan Resident Center in Iran, Revisited

One of the latest examples surfaced online Friday, from protests in the southeastern city of Zahedan. A number of injured and bleeding men are being tended to outside, as a result of gunshots that can be heard at a nearby mosque.

The families of those killed by the security forces have been kept quiet in the past. The videos of the funeral services uploaded online show shows of public mourning, such as a woman cutting her hair.

Narges Bajoghli was an assistant professor of Middle East Studies at the university and noted that the public mourning rituals for those killed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution were key to the revolution’s success. Now, spreading widely online, these scenes help boost antigovernment sentiment, she said.

“We are protesting for freedom in Iran. For the people of Iran calling on the regime to go for the prisoners and condemned. Everyone wants this regime to go.”

Long before protests started spreading across Iran last month, the hijab — the Islamic head scarf that Iranian law requires women to wear in public, along with loose-fitting modest clothing — had been at the center of conflicts over national identity, religious authority and political power for decades.

As she recovered, she said that the security forces are putting adolescent boys from Iraq into their jobs because their ranks are divided and unwilling, and that the intelligence agents are watching people who show up at night to buy first aid supplies. They all agreed the turnout at the counter protest was a flop because it was only a show of support for the protesters.

Iran has seen protests in the last month focused on the economic and political nerve centers of the regime. The people were throwing rocks at the police. Security forces ran away from demonstrators in the capital’s bazaar. Even in the conservative cities of Mashhad and Qom – the heart of the regime’s powerbase – demonstrators crop up frequently.

Protesters beyond the right to dress freely may have different reasons for fighting state-enabled patriarchal norm or discrimination. There are a long list of injustices, including: the lack of important protections under new domestic and gender-based violence statutes, the lack of equal access to sports stadiums, employment discrimination, and workplace sexual harassment. I asked my friend what matters most to her as she tries to save up for a trip to Sweden. “I’d like to live in a society where when I submit a résumé for a job, I’m not asked to submit a full-length picture of myself and probably expected to sleep with my boss,” she said. To the same question, a 22-year-old told me she wanted to be able to move about in public without any fear or stress.

Empirical Video of a TV Hacking Event and the Emergence of Battle Zones in the Kurdish-majority City of Iran

The IranWire outlet shared a clip of an incident in which an Iranian state broadcasters nightly news program was allegedly hacked.

The incident that took place in Bushehr, during which a segment on Iran’s Supreme Leader was being aired, has now been viewed thousands of times on the internet.

A screen behind the video of the mask showed a photo of the leader of the Islamic Republic, with a target superimposed on his face, and photos of several young women who have died in Iran.

Amini, 22, died after being detained by morality police. The protest movement that broke out after Amini’s death claimed the lives of three more people, two of them teenagers.

Alongside the photos on screen was a message that read, “Join us and rise up” and “The blood of our youth is dripping from your grip,” along with the social media handles for the hacker group Edaalat-e Ali, which translates to Ali’s Justice.

Edaalat-e Ali posted a clip on their social media account that claimed to be from the hacking, and said they fulfilled their promise and did the unthinkable to free Iran.

Nearly a month after the start of nationwide protests, parts of Iran now bear the hallmarks of battle zones, with flares lighting up skies, gunfire ringing out and bloody scenes recorded in video footage.

“I am recording this video about the situation in Sanandaj,” said one demonstrator, his face covered with a black scarf and dark glasses, in a message to CNN from the Kurdish-majority city in western Iran, where some of the most dramatic images have emerged from the protests, despite a near total internet shutdown in the area.

Instability in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards: The Crime against Minority Black Holes and Other Minority Spectacles

“Last night, the security forces were firing in the direction of houses. They were using military-grade bullets,” he said. I hadn’t heard those bullets until now. People were afraid.

At street level, other videos showed protesters throwing rocks at police, with the officers sometimes traveling in a procession of motorcycles, who appeared to be shooting at the crowd.

Large numbers of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have been participating in the crackdown in addition to local police, say activists in Sanandaj, who accuse authorities of lashing back indiscriminately. A Kurdish rights group says a 7-year-old boy died in his mother’s arms on Sunday after security forces opened fire on protesters.

While it is impossible to independently verify death toll from such clashes, gruesome images and testimony collected by CNN as well as rights groups show the bloodshed. The driver who was shot in the city was dead in front of a crowd of protesters, while activists said he was driving with a horn on.

“In Sanandaj, they shoot the people honking their horns with bullets. And they shoot young and old alike,” said another protester in a video message to CNN. “The injured don’t go to hospitals because if they go there plain-clothes police will arrest them.

Meanwhile, the crackdown continues to intensify in various parts of Iran, most notably in the Kurdish-majority north and northwest, where allegations of the mistreatment of the ethnic minority was already widespread.

Iranian people are pouring into streets across the country. The protests began after a young woman named Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by the country’s morality police, and demonstrators have since coalesced around a range of grievances. Activists and experts are getting ready to call the protests a national uprising.

The answer of the Islamic Republic has always been oppression and violence and I hope for a miracle that this situation will end for the benefit of the people.

Around the country, protesters have pushing for economic strikes with some success. In Kurdishmajority areas where the protests are more organized, the lines of shops were closed on social media videos. In Tehran’s bazaar, a number of stores have closed in recent days, though many merchants say they did so to protect their shops from the protests and the crackdowns that follow. Iranian activists have been calling for a general strike, but it has yet to happen.

The petroleum industry is the lifeline of Iran’s economy, which has been buckling under the strain of US sanctions unleashed by the Trump administration in 2018 and sustained by the Biden administration. US officials have been in indirect negotiations with Iran for a year and a half in a bid to restore a landmark 2015 nuclear deal – which former President Donald Trump withdrew from four years ago – that would see Iran curb its uranium enrichment program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Video shows that the protests at the refinery began as a dispute over wages but evolved into anti-regime protests, with workers shouting “death to the dictator”

Labor strikes are loaded with historic meaning in Iran. In 1979, oil and gas refineries played a critical role in the popular movement that overthrew the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and paved the way for the Islamic Republic.

“If there is a nationwide general strike, what can the government do really,” said Alvandi. In the face of the movement, that would show the powerlessness of the state.

The Kurdish rights group thinks that the violence against protesters in the region is just a drop in the ocean, and that only partial information about the situation has been released.

A “major disruption” to internet access has occurred since 9:30 a.m. in Iran (2 a.m. ET) on Wednesday, according to NetBlocks. Kurdish activists say that authorities have also shut the area’s landline network, arguing that the bloodshed seen in the videos could just be the tip of the iceberg.

A Human Rights Matters: The Fate of the Missing 16-year-old Mahsa Amini and the Rise of Women, Life and Freedom in Iran

It was the last time their relatives would see them. One family searched frantically for their daughter for 10 days, posting desperate appeals for information on social media; the other found out the fate of their daughter within hours of her disappearance.

But the grim result was the same. According to the human rights groups, the missing teenagers had been killed by the security forces. One girl’s skull was smashed, and the other girl’s head was cracked by baton blows. Their bodies were badly damaged when they were returned to their families. They were 16 years old.

One of the teenagers whose bravery and death has become a rallying cry is Nika Shahkarami, a 16-year-old who disappeared last month after waving her hijab in the air at a protest in Tehran, and then setting fire to another headscarf in front of a small crowd.

WASHINGTON — Chanting crowds marched in the streets of Berlin, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles on Saturday in a show of international support for demonstrators facing a violent government crackdown in Iran, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of that country’s morality police.

On the U.S. National Mall, thousands of women and men of all ages — wearing green, white and red, the colors of the Iran flag — shouted in rhythm. “Be afraid.” Be afraid. We are one in this,” demonstrators yelled, before marching to the White House. “Say her name!” Mahsa!”

The Iranians from across the United States were drawn to the demonstration, which was organized by grassroots organizers from around the United States.

A lawyer who was born in the U.S. after her parents fled the Iranian revolution was wearing a T-shirt that said ” Women, Life, Freedom.” In Iran “women are like a second-class citizen and they are sick of it,” Scharm said.

Evin Prison: The Scared Times of the 2009 Iranian Anti-Democracy Protest and the Case of a Family Member

Iran’s security forces have dispersed gatherings in that country with live ammunition and tear gas, killing over 200 people, including teenage girls, according to rights groups.

The United States and other Western powers have always worried about backing Iranian protesters, because the regime already dismisses those who oppose them as tools of the West. The Obama administration allowed such concerns to muzzle its response during the 2009 protests. The Biden administration is trying to avoid making the same mistake. Already, Washington has spoken out repeatedly in support of the protest movement. On Wednesday, the State Department announced new sanctions against Iranians involved in repressing demonstrations.

The protesters in D.C. took a break between chants to sing traditional Persian music about life and freedom, written after the revolution in 1979 brought religious fundamentalists to power in Iran. The “Baraye,” meaning because of, is the unofficial anthem of the Iran protests and they sang it in unison. The artist of that song was arrested after he posted the song to his IG. It had 40 million views.

The two years I was in Evin were some of the scariest time of my life. After a three week visit to attend an academic conference and being arrested at Tehran airport, I was subsequently convicted of espionage in a sham trial. I was freed from prison in a prisoner swap deal with the Australian government after serving two years and three months.

Among us was a collective sense of shock and amazement, tempered with fear and concern for those trapped inside Evin prison. There were people in my cell who became like sisters because of the effects of tear gas.

I could barely imagine what they were going to go through when they were locked up in a crowded ward with no chance of escape as the police and fire raged around them.

According to a family member, at one point “anti-riot shooters were trying to get inside (the women’s ward) and were violently shooting at random. The head of the Prison Authority himself stood in the doorway and prevented the shooters from entering.”

The notoriously brutal facility housed political prisoners for decades and most recently, activists arrested during protests after the death of a young woman in police custody.

Former foreign hostages and other victims ofIran’s prison system as well as family members of current detainers rushed to check up on one another in the aftermath of the fire.

The Iranian human rights lawyer Amirsalar Davoudi got word out that he and his cellmates in Ward 4 had survived — likewise the recently arrested activist Arash Sadeghi. The group of people connected to the prison were relieved to have received every welfare check.

I spent most of my time in Evin prison, which is located in the foothills of the Alborz Mountains. Ringed by high concrete walls topped with razor wire, the prison is guarded by a contingent of armed soldiers whose noisy patrols could often be heard from within the cells.

Entering via the prison’s imposing front gates involves passing an elaborate series of checkpoints while blindfolded, handcuffed and crammed into the back seat of a vehicle, alongside prison transfer guards. A prisoner could count how many checkpoints had been passed by how many times the vehicle’s trunk was opened and inspected.

There are roughly a dozen prison wards built into the sharp slope of the mountain on top of administrative buildings and judiciary offices.

These “black sites” are excluded from the oversight of Iran’s Prison Authority, an institution that is supposed to safeguard prisoner rights. Various competing groups would often fight over everything from the granting of prisoner layoffs to medical treatment for inmates.

I was only able to get more news of my friends a few days ago. As chaos reigned supreme and security forces used deadly force on the inmates trying to escape, the female political prisoners came perilously close to attack.

I knew that the lawyer was back in prison, along with several other activists, such as Golrokh Iraee.

Evin, a criminal lying inside a prison, discovered by his family and beaten by the police, and buried in the streets of Iran

As the situation became stable, crowds massed on the streets outside Evin and family members desperately tried to learn about their loved ones inside.

I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to hear gunfire just meters outside the locked doors of their unit. I know that he is part of a cruel and repressive system that detains innocent prisoners, but I am happy that he discovered a conscience that day. It was possible that the lives of my friends depended on it.

It’s logical to assume that many of the Iranian prisoners are innocent and want to show their solidarity with their counterparts who are protesting.

If the regime is unable to control its maximum security prison, it will probably lose its grip on the country as a whole. There will be a day in which there won’t be an Evin prison.

CNN.com/French Affairs Editor’s Note: Nika’s Last Seven Days of Protests against the Iran-Ciprotide Nuclear Deal

Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. Her views are those of her own. View more opinion on CNN.

Nhika died after turning up dead. The CNN investigation found video and witness testimony that proved she was hunted down by plain clothes Basiji militias following her protest, even though Iran claimed her death had nothing to do with the uprising. CNN reported that Eye witnesses saw Nika among protesters who were later taken into custody. That was the last time she was seen, days before her battered body was returned to her grieving family. The mother is also helping protesters.

The protests are still going on. They have been in force for 7 weeks and are the longest uprising since the revolution of 1979. There have been previous protests that are different from this one. In 2009, the Green Movement supported a reformist candidate. In 2019, demonstrators called out harsh economic conditions.

This time, women, and the men who have joined them, are crying out, “Death to the dictator.” This is not about changing the world. This is about fundamental change.

The US and its Allies should join in isolating Iran diplomatically if they don’t like what they see. Diplomatic relations should continue, but as long as Iran is killing protesters, relations should be downgraded. Iran can’t be in the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Its presence there is a travesty.

Germany this week announced that, given the situation, there can be no “business as usual,” with Iran, launching a wide-ranging diplomatic response that includes a review of bilateral trade and financial relations, support for nongovernmental organizations monitoring crimes against protestors and expanded protections for “particularly vulnerable Iranians,” among other efforts.

The abandoned nuclear deal, called the JCPOA or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which the Biden administration has been working to reestablish, was abandoned in 2015. Currently, negotiations to revive the deal, designed to delay Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon, are stuck because Iran keeps raising the stakes. Secretary of State Anthony Blair does not anticipate a return to the JCPOA in the near term. Such phrasing likely means the goal of reviving it has not died entirely.

Iran will be kept from having a nuclear weapon by the US and its allies. Hundreds of billions of dollars could be brought to the regime by restarting the deal because they are killing peaceful protesters, giving Russiakiller drones to slaughter innocent Ukrainians and continuing to support terrorist groups. At the very least, the wisdom of reviving the nuclear deal must be reevaluated.

Implications of the demonstrations in Tehran for the stability of the Islamic State and for the cleric-led regime: The case of Mohsen Shekari

Iranian officials are defending the trials. In recent days, one Iranian MP said he believes that those involved in the current unrest must be executed within 5 to 10 days after their arrest. CNN received no official response from Iranian officials to its request for comment.

On Dec. 8, Mohsen Shekari, 23, was the first to be put to death. He was hanged for participating in the protests in Tehran. The death sentence was carried out publicly and the man was hanged from a crane in the northeast city of Mashhad. He was also found guilty ofwaging war against God and was sentenced to death.

A pro-government TV channel aired audio that was described as Rahnavard’s confession to police. The authenticity of the audio was not immediately confirmed by NPR.

“Unfortunately, my own arrow hit my brother,” the recording says — seen as a reference to the Basij militia members Rahnavard was convicted of fatally stabbing.

The government continues to try to quell the anti-regime demonstrations, which began as an expression of public outrage at Amini’s killing but quickly transformed into calls for the toppling of Iran’s cleric-led regime.

The deputy head of Allameh University in Tehran told Iran’s Mehr news agency that some 20 students were banned from taking classes after they participated in a Dec. 7 rally.

The university official said that these students are not tolerant of our tolerant behavior and insist on continuing their path.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1144206320/iran-executions-protests-mahsa-amini

The Salesman, Taraneh Alidoosti and anti-regime activists: Iran’s judiciary summones a controversial filmmaker to trial for “unsubstantiated comments about recent events”

The number of prisoners is much larger. At least 39 people are at risk of being executed or receive a death sentence due to the large number of people that have been arrested.

The Salesman, Taraneh Alidoosti’s film in which she won a best foreign-language film Oscar, is one of those being held. A statement from Iran’s judiciary said celebrities including Alidoosti had been summoned for “unsubstantiated comments about recent events” and for publishing provocative material in support of street riots.

One of the people sentenced to death is a doctor. His wife has been sentenced to 25 years in solitary confinement. Both were arrested after they were caught up in a protest.

Hassanlou was tortured and did not have access to his own lawyer, anti-regime activists say. The attorney appointed by the government reportedly mounted no defense, instead advising his client to accept the charges of crimes against God.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1144206320/iran-executions-protests-mahsa-amini

Nasr-Azadani in Isfahan: Evidence for a rushed judicial process in Iran, and further evidence from inside the country

“No, no violence at all, quite the opposite,” he says. On the level of personality, very outspoken. And on something he believed in, he could be as stubborn as hell.”

“I’m proud of you,” he says. “Because I’m pretty sure I am.” I really miss him, but at the same time, I’m so proud of him. I never asked why he did it. Of course, the implication was huge for him, for his family, for all the people around him. But I’m still proud of him.”

The Shahid Alikhani square is an obscure part of the historic Iranian city. The entrance to the main metro station is the sole claim to prominence.

It has become a place of pilgrimage for fans of the Iranian footballer who fear he could be executed in the square, where an execution platform has been installed, according to a witness.

The documents, video, witness testimony and statements from inside the country that CNN has obtained suggest that at least 43 people, including Nasr-Azadani, could face imminent execution.

CNN examined witness testimonies and official documents to see if they showed a rushed judicial process in Iran, with the death sentence often handed down in a single sitting.

Nasr-Azadani is accused of involvement in the killing of three security officers, including two volunteer Basij militia members, during protests in Isfahan on November 16, Iranian state media IRNA reported last week.

According to state media, the city’s chief justice, Asadullah Jafari, said Nasr-Azadani had been charged with Baghi – or rioting against authorities. Iran has a Penal Code which provides for the death penalty.

Then the information dried up. The witness said that authorities told them Nasr-Azadani’s death sentence could be carried out at the square.

The court last week said it obtained “video and sufficient documentation that prove he [Nasr-Azadani] is part of an armed group” and that the footballer had confessed to his crimes, state media IRNA reported.

Previous CNN investigations have found prisoners have been subjected to torture and sexual assault. Human rights groups say torture-tainted “confessions” have been used against the defendants in sham trials.

The Islamic Revolution: The Last of Soheil Jahangiri & What Happens When He Walks Inside the Isfahan Regional Court

The Islamic Republic regime will take advantage of the time that the international community is observing holy days to be removed from the eyes of the world.

“The judge that was there told me to say that I do not protest (object) and gave me three pages that I signed, while they didn’t even allow me to read any of them.

“The second time they took me in for interrogation, my charges had completely changed. That second charge levied against me contained the term ‘moharabe.’”

In a hastily photographed document from inside Isfahan regional court obtained and verified by 1500Tasvir and CNN, it is revealed that at least 10 people in Isfahan have also been charged with Moharabe (a war against God), spreading corruption on Earth and other charges – all of which carry the death penalty.

Soheil Jahangiri is one of the Iranians to receive such a sentence. The family told CNN they haven’t heard from him in over a month. Jahangiri wasn’t allowed by officials to be an independent attorney.

There are two charges, Baghi and Moharabe. Soheil could face either of these charges that carry the death penalty,” a family member said.

“We are quite frightened that, with the beginning of the Christmas holidays and a decrease in political pressure on the government, executions will begin anew, and I think that Soheil’s life and the lives of numerous political prisoners are in danger.

They shared a message with CNN that stated that Karami was in good spirits and had suffered little to no physical damage after being tortured.

The wait behind bars can be very difficult for people waiting to be executed. Just this week, 27-year-old Iranian-Kurdish rapper Saman Yasin attempted suicide while in detention.

In his last music video, Yasin rapped about inequality and oppression in Iran, singing “they closed my throat violently. They banned beauty. They made me like an animal. I am not satisfied with silence.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/23/middleeast/iran-footballer-amir-nasr-azadani-execution-intl/index.html

What Do You Need to Know to Save Your Sons? An Iranian Activist’s Journey Through the Night to Help a Syrian Uprising

Please listen to my sons yelling for help. My sons are young and have children waiting for them. Please save them. For the love of God, save my sons.”

A woman in Iran puts herself in danger by speaking out against the authorities for her children. Many parents feel they have no choice but to take it.

She says the one thing that keeps her going is the hope that one day she will live in a free Iran.

Since then, she has taken refuge in the homes of other people. An anonymous network of concerned citizens connected by a shared mission to protect protesters who discreetly support the movement from afar by offering their homes to activists in need.

“I came here in the middle of the night. It was dark. She said that her family and she do not know her current location.

“The comments and messages I receive are very encouraging. People are feeling good to see that I am active now and that I am with them [during this uprising].”

Leila’s Last Word: Sharing Information with a Nearly-Family Psychiatric Patient after the Amini Uprising

Third-party services that use code words to help prevent Iran’s security forces from monitoring her conversations, are used to transfer notes to her loved ones.

Before the recent protests sparked by Amini’s death – which many see as the most significant threat the regime has faced to date – Leila was trying to rebuild.

She had set up a local business, enrolled in a university course, and was working with a therapist to acclimate back to normal life and deal with the trauma brought on by years of incarceration.

They wanted to silence me immediately after the uprising happened because they wanted to see me disappear.

She’s also stopped accessing her bank account and went as far as exchanging her life savings for gold, which someone sells for her from time to time, when she urgently needs cash.

“The one thing I fear is that if I get caught and sent back to jail, I will become a faceless name…unable to help the cause and movement, like countless others who were sent to prison and never heard of again.”