Reports are emerging of the death of another teenage girl at the hands of security forces in Iran, as protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini looked set to enter their third week.
Sarina Esmailzadeh, a 16-year-old who posted popular vlogs on YouTube, was killed when the security forces beat her with batons at a protest in Gohardasht in Alborz province on 23 September, according to Amnesty International.
OTTAWA—The Canadian government will further penalize leaders of Iran’s theocratic regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for human rights abuses, but stopped short of designating the military branch of Iran’s armed forces a terrorist entity.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new economic and immigration sanctions, more money for enforcement and more targeted individual sanctions. He also said Canada will list the Iranian regime under a provision of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a move he said will target more than half of the IRGC leadership, by permanently banning “more than 10,000 officers and senior members” from Canada.
US President Joe Biden and his administration have, it appears, decided to sacrifice not only the brave people of Iran now risking their lives in a bid for decent governance, but also the Arabs. This betrayal of longtime allies is taking place, it seems, to appease Russia, ever eager to keep the price of oil at a premium, and its new close ally, Iran.
Russia has been the chief negotiator for the US in the “Iranian nuclear deal” talks; the Americans are not even allowed in the room.
The view that the Biden administration is sacrificing its longtime allies, the Arabs, expressed by Sayed Zahra, deputy editor of the Gulf’s Akhbar Al-Khaleej newspaper, is shared by many prominent Arab political analysts; they say they are extremely worried about the possibility that the US and other Western powers may sign a new nuclear agreement with Iran’s ruling mullahs.
OTTAWA – Relatives of those killed when Iran’s military shot down Flight PS752 in January 2020 say Canada has become a safe haven for regime officials.
“Canada has become a safe haven for the criminals of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Hamed Esmaeilion testified Thursday afternoon to the House justice committee.
Esmaeilion leads a group representing grieving families, many of whom are aware of numerous people who have worked for the regime, or are related to senior officials, moving freely in Canada.
McGill University says it is investigating one of its instructors who allegedly called for the death of people participating in anti-government protests in the streets of Iran in recent weeks.
Members inside and outside the McGill community are accusing the staff member, Soroosh Shahriari, of promoting hate speech and inciting violence. They also say the university is acting too slowly in holding him accountable and plan to hold a protest on campus Thursday evening.
Soroosh Shahriari – an instructor in the Jewish Studies program. That’s some exotic Diversity Kool-Aid they must drink there.
OTTAWA—The Canadian government has not yet designated Iran’s revolutionary guard corps as a terrorist entity over concerns the action would be overbroad, difficult to enforce and unfairly target potentially thousands of Iranians in Canada who may have been conscripted by Iran’s military, sources tell the Star.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday his government will hold the “bloodthirsty regime to account,” and that Canada will continue to sanction the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but he stopped short of answering yes or no to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s demand he recognize the IRGC as a terrorist group.
They won’t do it because the LPC sucks Mullah dick.
OTTAWA—Government officials were heckled after hundreds of people marched to Parliament Hill on Tuesday to mark 1,000 days since the downing of Flight PS752 near Tehran and to demand Ottawa take action against Iran.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down Jan. 8, 2020, by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), killing 176 people, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.
Demonstrator yelled at deputy PM Chrystia Freeland "You are supporting the Islamic brutal regime in Iran. What we need is just not words, what we need is action now." pic.twitter.com/jCmVFjvIpR
— Ashley Burke (@AshleyBurkeCBC) October 5, 2022
High school girls have become the latest Iranians to join anti-government protests in large numbers, as the country mourned a teenager killed in the first days of protests.
Nika Shahkarami, who lived in Tehran and would have turned 17 on Sunday, vanished in September. Her family found her body in a detention centre’s morgue 10 days later, BBC Persian reported.
On Tuesday, President Ebrahim Raisi called for unity against the protests even as they continued to grow, bringing together Iranians across ethnic and class divides, despite the government crackdown.
The nationwide anti-government protests sweeping Russia and Iran demonstrate that, despite the efforts of these two rogue regimes to increase the level of military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, the overwhelming demand of the majority of ordinary Russians and Iranians is freedom from dictatorial rule.
One of the more alarming global developments in recent months has been the deepening cooperation between Moscow and Tehran as they seek to challenge the West on a number of fronts.
Russia has played a key role in supporting Iran’s efforts to thwart the negotiating process aimed at reviving the controversial nuclear deal with Tehran since the start of the negotiations in Vienna last year.
Iran’s supreme leader has blamed the US and Israel for the anti-government protests sweeping the country, in his first public comments on the unrest.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “riots” had been “engineered” by Iran’s arch-enemies and their allies, and alleged that Qurans had been burned.
He also called on security forces to be ready to deal with further unrest.
The protests – the biggest challenge to his rule for a decade – were sparked by the death in custody of a woman.
A hacker group known as 3ackd0or published the photos and personal information on Sunday of Iranians they claim were the morality police officers who arrested and beat Mahsa Amini, leading to her death.
The officers involved in Amini’s death were named as morality police patrol officers Fatameh Gurban Hosseini and Parastu Safari, Ali Khushnamond and Enayatullah Rafiei. The information shared by 3ackd0or included addresses, birth certificate numbers, birthdays, parents’ names and city of origin.
With the cooperation of the @LabDookhtegan2 group, the first part of the Tehran Basij list. @NarimanGharib @IranIntl @IranIntlbrk @FBI @RFJ_USA pic.twitter.com/4Lou4O7IaX
— 3ackd0or (@3ackd0or) September 30, 2022
Solidarity means more in Tehran than Washington
Is this it? Could this, finally, be the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran? As huge crowds of women and men surge through the Iranian streets, burning hijabs and calling for “Death to Khamenei!”, is an impossible dream finally about to come true?
What’s happening in Iran is the biggest women’s rights protest ever in the Islamic world. Yet the response from some of the leading feminists in the United States, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib, has been strikingly muted. Each one has made what can be characterized at best as a tepid, pro forma response, one that contrasts sharply with their statements and actions during the Trump administration. It looks as if each one of these women regards Donald Trump as a far greater threat to women than the Islamic Republic of Iran is.
“The white giant in chains!” This is how Bahar, one of Iran’s greatest contemporary poets, describes Mount Damvand, the towering volcano that looms over the horizon in the Tehran region.
At the end of his qasida (ode) Bahar pleads with the volcano to end its silence with an explosion of fire and lava to “cleanse the world of tyranny and corruption”.
For the past two weeks, the nationwide uprising across Iran has reminded many Iranians of Bahar’s poem with the question: Has the volcano begun its final eruption?
Iran is awaiting the release of about $7bn (£6.3bn) in funds frozen abroad, state media said on Sunday, after it allowed an Iranian-American to leave the country and released his son from detention.
Baquer Namazi, 85, was permitted to leave Iran for medical treatment abroad, and his son Siamak, 50, was released from detention in Tehran, the UN said on Saturday.
“With the finalisation of negotiations between Iran and the United States to release the prisoners of both countries, $7bn of Iran’s blocked resources will be released,” said the state news agency, IRNA.
