NEWS FROM INSIDE IRAN (3) PERIOD 7 NOVEMBER 2018 TO 10 NOVEMBER 2018

NEWS FROM INSIDE IRAN (3)

PERIOD

7 NOVEMBER 2018 TO 10 NOVEMBER 2018

Stes de Necker

(PLEASE NOTE THAT INFORMATION SOURCES ARE NOT PUBLISHED IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE IDENTITY OF OUR INFORMANTS. UNDER SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES CERTAIN INFORMATION CAN BE MADE AVAILABLE ON RECEIPT OF A DULY MOTIVATED REQUEST)

10 September 2018

Suicide Tsunami In Iran, Beyond Disaster

A glance at the increasing trend of suicide in Iran

Iran’s increasing trend of suicide among different social classes, including group suicides, carried out by people of all ages, has turned into a humanitarian catastrophe. The victims of most of these suicides are in the country’s deprived western and southern provinces, such as Ilam, Kermanshah, Lorestan, Hamedan, and Khuzistan. Women and young people, and even children have become the victims of this cruel phenomenon.

According to the state-run Khabar Online website, “suicide rates in Iran are increasing in an astonishing way.”

“From 2011 to 2015, suicide rates increased 66% amongst women and 71% amongst men”, Khabar online wrote.

“For years now, the media have not been given stats when it comes to suicide rates as relevant organizations refuse to publish them”, the website added.

The report also says that suicide rates are also very high among young people.

Although relevant authorities do not publish accurate reports of suicide rates or deaths from it, the spread of this catastrophe is such that government officials call it an “epidemic”.

Our reports indicate that the current suicide rates in Iran are the outcome of extreme socioeconomic problems which have put severe pressure on Iranians.

According to an expert in the Iranian regime, the increased number of public suicide attempts among teens, young people and women stems from the fact that they want to protest the current situation which is driving the society towards depression meaning that it’s a form of public outcry.

He also acknowledged the many contradictions in society, which has led to a social identity crisis.

Last December, the Head of the Medical Sciences Burn Research Center at Iran University noted the rise in self-immolation in Iran saying that “the number of people who attempted to commit self-immolation has increased.”

Meanwhile, Hadi Ayazi, the Social Deputy Minister of Health, cited the increase in aluminium phosphate consumption as a means for suicide.

“The Ministry has urged the Judiciary to take more serious control measures for the purchase of aluminium phosphate.”

According to Ayazi, the Ministry also provided a report on the suicide outbreak, but details of the report have not been disclosed.

What has made this phenomenon more catastrophic in Iran is that suicide is no longer a personal issue. In some social sectors, particularly among the low-income strata, suicide has turned into an ongoing trend.

Isfahan’s Chamran Bridge has turned into a site for this tragedy, dubbed “the serial suicides” by Iran media.

In an August 15 piece, the state-run ISNA News Agency acknowledged the increase in suicide among the people of Isfahan saying that “several suicides have been committed on this bridge over a year”.

“A shopkeeper who owns a shop close to the bridge told ISNA on the condition of anonymity that people suspect anyone standing on the bridge of wanting to commit suicide”, the report said.

On the occasion of September 10, World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD), Iran Human Rights Monitor briefly studies the alarming dimensions of suicide among all social sectors in Iran.

Poverty and unemployment driving Iranians to suicide

The main causes of suicide in Iran are poverty and unemployment. Reports indicate that 11 out of 15 suicide cases were due to financial reasons.

State media also state that suicide rates are heavily affected by economic issues.

The state-run Khabar Online on August 28, stipulated that economic problems were the main reason for increasing suicide numbers, saying that “elements that have aggravated (suicide numbers) have increased especially in recent years in 2017-2018.”

“The most important of these is the condition of the economy which has left the society with severe abnormalities.”

“As such, a higher rate of suicide and special forms of it are to be expected”, the website added.

On September 12, a man who set himself ablaze outside Tehran municipality was pronounced dead at Tehran’s Motahhari Hospital. He has set himself ablaze a week before, outside the Tehran’s municipality building after his store was closed down by agents of Tehran’s District 2 municipality.

On September 4, a married couple with two children, Reza Sahrayi and Vida Rostami, committed suicide together as a result of unemployment and financial difficulties in Ilam, western Iran. Notably, one of their children suffers from diabetes.

On September 7, a worker from Urmia, northwest Iran, committed suicide early in the morning before his children woke up.

On the morning of February 27, the dead body of Ali Naghadi, a young employee of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Compaدy, was found afloat in a canal. It is said that Naghadi committed suicide due to his debts as the company refused to pay his wages. 

Women suicides soar

According to officially announce reports, more than 3,300 women committed suicide in Iran last year. The shocking new figures on suicides in Iran were revealed for the first time by one of the deputies of Iran’s Ministry of Sports and Youth.

In light of the Iranian regime’s lack of transparency and government agencies’ failure to accurately register data, actual figures are much higher.

Mohammad Mehdi Tondgooyan, the Deputy for Youth Affairs at the Ministry of Sports and Youth, announced on August 19, that the suicide rate in Iran was estimated at 4,992 suicides in the (Persian) year ending in March 2018.

On women’s suicides, Tondgooyan said that the “rate of attempted suicides in women was about two thirds, and one third in men,” implying that nearly 3,300 women committed suicide in Iran in the period of only one year, which amounts to 9 women per day.

Women commit suicide twice as much as men according to state-run media outlets. Furthermore, 40% of all suicides involve self-emulation. Currently, women in Iran have the highest number of self-emulations in the Middle East. (Jahan-e San’at daily – January 17, 2016).

Pointing to an increase in suicide rates among women, Amir Mahmoud Harirchi, an expert in this field who spoke to the state-run ILNA News Agency, said that “suicide is turning feminine.” (ILNA news agency, October 27, 2017) 

Suicide prevalence in children

“On average, the country has a high suicide rate in two age ranges. Between 25 to 34 years, as well as among those above 35 years of age. Most suicides occur in these two age ranges, but it has been a few years that children under the age of 17 also commit suicide”, Mohammad Mehdi Tondgooyan said.  (The state-run Etemad Online news agency – August 20, 2018)

“According to the latest figures, 212 children under the age of 17 have committed suicide in the country”, he added.

In a shocking case, a 12-year-old boy committed suicide recently by hanging himself after his mother was forced to sell his bike to pay for rent.

Over the past five months alone, 14 girls under 18 have committed suicide in Iran’s Kurdistan Province and have ended their lives. 

Depression, mental disorders and suicide

Iran is among the top 10 in the world in terms of depression.

The Director of the Welfare Organization’s Performance Management Office said that people turned to suicide due to the critical social conditions in Iran adding that the society was “not promising” in this regard.

“Our country suffers from a low level of social satisfaction, happiness, and trust. Sadness and a large number of mental disorders in a society show that there’s a lack of social happiness. Under such conditions, it’s no surprise that it bears social consequences, and suicide is one of them”, Mousavi Chalek added.

According to the Ministry of Health’s spokesman, on average, 23.4% of the adult population in the country has suffered from some kind of a mental disorder over the course of a year. In Tehran, this rate was 30.2%, meaning that out of every three people, one suffers from a mental disorder. (Eghtesad News, April 17, 2018)

According to our reports, a young man who recently took his own life posted a video of himself prior to his suicide, saying, he is tired of life.

7 November 2018

9 Women Activists Summoned In Fresh Crackdown On Human Rights Activists

Nine women activists were summoned to Evin public prosecutor’s office this week, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Amir Raisian, attorney for the nine activists was quoted by the state media as saying, “This week, a number of women’s rights activists have been summoned by Evin public prosecutor’s office, the number of whom is currently 9, and may be higher.”

“The reason for the summons has been mentioned as “Presence for some explanations” and we have no further information at this time,” he added.

Human rights monitors have detected a surge of crackdown targeting human rights and women’s rights activists in recent months, as part of an ‘escalating crackdown to quash Iran’s civil society completely’ and ‘leave human rights defenders in a suffocating climate of fear,’ according to Amnesty International.

“The arrests are happening within the context of the numerous protests that have been taking place in Iran since the beginning of this year,” said Mansoureh Mills, an Iran researcher at Amnesty International. “The authorities do this as a way to weaken the foundations of civil society which would otherwise provide support for people who want to take to the streets peacefully to voice their grievances.”

Two women activists Hoda Amid and Najmeh Vahedi, were released on bail yesterday. 

Human rights lawyer and women’s rights activist Hoda Amid was arrested at her home on September 1, just a day after the arrests of human rights lawyers Payam Derafshan and Farokh Forouzan. Payam Derafshan and Farokh Forouzan were arrested on 31 August while visiting the home of another recently jailed lawyer, Arash Keykhosravi, in the city of Karaj, north-west of Tehran.

Also, on the same day, women’s rights activist Najmeh Vahedi was arrested by the Intelligence Unit of the Revolutionary Guards at her home in Tehran.

8 November 2018

Imprisoned Baha’i Woman Negin Ghadamian Denied Medical Care

Baha’i woman Negin Ghadamian is being denied access to required dental treatment outside Evin Prison, where she is serving a five-year sentence for teaching Persian literature to Baha’i students.

Prison authorities namely the head of prison clinic Mr. Khani, did not authorize her transfer to a hospital while the prosecutor’s office had issued the required permission for her transfer.

The Baha’i woman Negin Ghadamian, a teacher for the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), was arrested on December 16, 2017, at the airport as she and her husband Pouya Oladi were about to board a plane for Europe. She was taken to prison to serve a five-year sentence that authorities had originally handed down against her in 2013. Ghadamian had not received a summons to present herself at the prison to start her sentence.

Ghadamian was first arrested in 2011 after Intelligence Ministry agents raided the homes of 39 staff and faculty members of the BIHE.

The agents confiscated her computer, scientific and religious books and some other personal items and took her to an unknown location for interrogation. She was released a few days later.

On March 12, 2013, Ghadamian and nine other Baha’i teachers were summoned to the Revolutionary Court at Evin Prison. 

They were told that in exchange for their freedom, they had to sign a pledge that they would stop working with the BIHE and teaching Baha’i students.

Ghadamian and six others refused to sign the pledge and were arrested on the spot. The judge ordered them to pay 50 million tomans, as bail for release pending their trials.

In 2013, the Revolutionary Court tried and sentenced Ghadamian to five years in prison on charges of “acting against national security through membership to the Baha’i deviant sect” and working with the “illegal” BIHE.

She appealed, but in early 2015, before the court of appeals had issued its verdict, agents of the Intelligence Ministry arrived at her workplace and took her to Evin Prison to serve her sentence.

Her lawyer, however, managed to secure her release on bail pending a decision by the appeals court.

In early 2017, the Revolutionary Court of appeals upheld the lower court’s sentence of five years in prison for Ghadamian.

8 November 2018

Reporters Without Borders Condemns Wave Of Arrests Of Iranian Journalists

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the latest crackdown on journalists in Iran, in which, according to RSF several have been questioned in the past month or so and three have been arrested in the past week in connection with social network posts.

“We call for the immediate release of journalists held arbitrarily and urge the regime to stop suppressing the freedom to inform,” said Reza Moini, the head of RSF’s Iran/Afghanistan desk.

“Obstructing press freedom and arresting journalists do not in any help to combat corruption.”

Journalists recently arrested by the regime include Saba Azarpeyk, a former reporter with the pro-reformist daily Etemad, freelance journalist Ejlal Ghavami, and Massoud Kazemi a reporter with the pro-reformist daily Sharq. 

Hivanews website editor Kazem Imanzadeh was summoned for questioning by judicial officials in Sanandaj on 6 October.

Iranian security authorities arrested Saba Azarpeyk, a journalist in Iran’s reformist Etemad newspaper, after she uncovered that a minister, who recently retired, was involved in a corruption case.

Only one day before being arrested she had revealed a document proving the corruption of former Iranian Minister of Industry Mohammad Shariatmadari.

“She was arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence agents during a raid on her home October 29 and her accounts on Twitter and the encrypted messaging app Telegram were shut down shortly thereafter,” RSF’s statement read.

Azarpeyk, according to RSF, “Had just accused newly appointed Labor Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari—a former Mines, Industry, and Commerce minister with a murky intelligence agency background—of corruption and favouritism. Posted on social networks with supporting documents, her accusations came just before a vote of confidence in parliament October 27 and caused a major stir online and within Iran’s political class.”

She had previously been arrested on May 28, 2014, and spent more than 80 days in solitary confinement, until freed pending trial on 20 August 2014 on bail of 200 million toman (190,000 euros).

Azarpeik was freed on bail on October 31.

Masoud Kazemi the editor-in-chief of the monthly political magazine, Sedaye Parsi (Persian Voice)

Plainclothesmen detained Masoud Kazemi the editor-in-chief of the monthly political magazine, Sedaye Parsi (Persian Voice) on November 5, 2018.

His family has not yet been told why he was arrested or where he is being held. He often posts tweets criticizing the situation in Iran and the policies of the different government factions. His Twitter account has been inaccessible since her arrest.

“Bail has been set at 250 million tomans [approximately $59,340 USD], which I hope his family will be able to come up with,” his attorney, Ali Mojtahedzadeh, tweeted on November 6.

“Detention without prior warning is only permissible in very limited cases for people accused of serious or dangerous crimes but unfortunately, it is repeatedly happening to journalists and becoming a normal pattern,” he added.

In Sanandaj, in the province of Kurdistan, freelance journalist Ejlal Ghavami was sentenced to eight months in prison on 16 September on a charge of “publishing false information designed to trouble public opinion.” He had been tried on 20 August after posting three articles on social networks about the situation of prisoners of conscience in Kurdistan province.

Hivanews website editor Kazem Imanzadeh was summoned for questioning by judicial officials in Sanandaj on 6 October after Revolutionary Guards filed a complaint against him making the same accusation, namely, “publishing false information designed to trouble public opinion.” He was released pending a decision by the court.

8 November 2018

Iran: Man Arrested As A Teenager Sentenced To Death

Shayan Saeedpour, a juvenile offender was sentenced to death on October 23, by the first branch of Provincial Criminal Court of Kurdistan, headed by judge Vafaian.

Born in 1997, Shayan Saeedpour is convicted of killing a man during a fight on August 16, 2015, while under the age of 18. He has been in jail since. 

Evidences suggest that Saeedpur suffered was under the supervision of a psychiatrist before committing the crime.

A source close to Saeedpour family said that Shayan was under the age of 18 and was affected by alcohol drinks at the time of committing the crime. Since then, he has been detained in the Central Prison of Sanandaj. The source emphasized that Shayan Saeedpour has been under psychiatric care and attempted suicide on numerous occasions.

Iran is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child both of which expressly prohibit the use of the death penalty against anyone convicted of a crime committed when they were under 18.

Yet the authorities have shown no sign of stopping horrific practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to death.

Amnesty International says it has details of 49 people on Iran’s death row who were under 18 at the time of the crime they are alleged to have committed. The UN says there are at least 160 such people facing execution in the country. In fact, there are likely to be many more young offenders on Iranian death rows, as use of capital punishment in Iran is often shrouded in secrecy.

8 November 2018

Iran Hangs Inmate In Ardekan Prison Of Yazd

A prisoner was hanged on Saturday, November 3, at Ardakan Prison of Yazd, central Iran.

Samei Mohtarami, 45, was taken to solitary confinement on November 1.

He was found guilty of murder.

He was granted a chance to obtain the required diyeh (financial compensation) for the victim’s family. Being poor, the Mohtarami family could not raise the money.

In Iran a convicted murderer has no right to seek pardon or commutation from the state, though this right is protected by Article 6(4) of the ICCPR. The family of a murder victim has the right either to insist on execution or to pardon the killer and receive diyeh.

The Iranian authorities contend that qesas – the sentence for convicted murderers – is not execution, despite the fact that people sentenced to qesas are put to death by the state.

This contention is not accepted in international law.

8 November 2018

Arrests Continue In Vicious Crackdown On Ahwazi Arabs

Iran’s intelligence and security forces arrested dozens of Iranian Arabs following home raids during the late evening on Monday and early morning hours on Tuesday.

Two activists, Saleh Namwali Tarafi, Abdullah Jaldawi are among those arrested.

The intelligence agents also arrested Hottab Zaheri Sari, 57 along with his son and daughter, Amin, 22, and Ameneh, 23. The agents confiscated all Sari family mobile phones.

The agents confiscated all Sari family mobile phones.

Human rights activists are reporting that intelligence agents arrested at least 100 Ahwazi Arab during Monday and Tuesday raids, bringing the number of those arrested to 700.

Sources say more than 200 detainees have been taken to Sheiban Prison and a number of others have been taken to Sepidar prison. But most of the detainees are detained at the secret detention facilities of the Intelligence Department or IRGC.

The Iranian authorities have waged a sweeping crackdown against the Ahwazi Arab ethnic minority, arresting hundreds of people in Khuzestan province, southern Iran, in recent weeks, according to Amnesty International.

The wave of detentions follows a deadly armed attack on a military parade in the city of Ahwaz in September, during which at least 24 people, including spectators, were killed and more than 60 injured.

“The scale of arrests in recent weeks is deeply alarming. The timing suggests that the Iranian authorities are using the attack in Ahwaz as an excuse to lash out against members of the Ahwazi Arab ethnic minority, including civil society and political activists, in order to crush dissent in Khuzestan province,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Among those detained is Sahba (Lamya) Hammadi, a civil society activist who is pregnant. She was arrested on 6 October at her home in the city of Susangerd (known to Ahwazi Arabs as Khafajiyeh) in Khuzestan province.

She has contacted her family only once since the time of her arrest when she did not even know where she had been jailed. The family of Lamya Hammadi is extremely concerned about her situation.

In addition to Lamya Hammadi, two other women Zoudiyeh Afrawi, 55, and Ghaisiyeh Afrawi, 60, residents of Albou Afri village in Susangerd, have also been arrested along with their sons.

They both telephoned relatives a week after their arrests and told them they were being held by the Ministry of Intelligence.

Their relatives have not heard from them since.

9 November 2018

Iranian Environmentalists Arrested, Whereabouts Unknown

The whereabouts of three environment activists, arrested by intelligence agents is still unknown. 

Iran’s Intelligence and security forces in Sanandaj, arrested Shugerd and Zaniar Gulabi on October 16, transferring them to an unknown location.

The whereabouts of Kaveh Babamoradi, arrested on June 20, are also still unclear. Iranian authorities have so far refused to acknowledge they are holding the activists.

Five imprisoned Iranian environmentalists are now facing the death penalty after the ridiculous charges against them were changed from “espionage” to “Corruption on Earth”, according to one of the former lawyers of the accused.

The activists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation were arrested in January alongside at least four other people, and face allegations of spying, which human rights campaigners and Iran’s own government say are unfounded.

In January, at least nine activists were detained in mass arrests of environmentalists carried out by the Revolutionary Guards.

One of the detainees, Kavous Seyed-Emami, a renowned Canadian-Iranian environmentalist, died in a prison in Tehran under mysterious circumstances. The authorities said he killed himself, but that claim has been met with widespread scepticism.

At around the same time, Kaveh Madani, deputy head of Iran’s environmental protection organisation, was detained for 72 hours before eventually leaving the country to live in exile.

The U.S.-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) cited an Iranian lawyer as saying that five of them have had their initial charge of espionage elevated to “corruption on earth” – the maximum penalty for which is execution.

The detainees charged with “corruption on earth” are Houman Jowkar, Taher Ghadirian, Morad Tahbaz, Sepideh Kashani and Niloufar Bayani.

Three others—Amir Hossein Khaleghi, Sam Rajabi and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh—have still not been charged. All eight of them are being held in Evin Prison’s Ward 2-A which is under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In another development, an attorney and environmental activist, Farshid Hakki, was suspiciously killed on October 17 near his house in Tehran’s Faiz Garden, and his body was burnt down.

Dr. Farshid Hakki was a member of the “Sedaye Paye Ab” environmental campaign in support of Zagros Mountain and was the author of a number of books including “Human Rights for All”, and “The Political Economy of Human Rights.”

A few days after the widespread posting of this news on social networks, IRGC media such as Tasnim quoted coroner’s office that the cause of his death was self-immolation. Attorney General Dowlatabadi announced on October 23 in Tehran that given the transfer of the corpse to the coroner and performing autopsy, no signs of beating or suspicious signs were found.

Subsequently, the coroner dismissed the claims and said that there was no comment on this case, and … ‘any kind of finding and the cause of death would be announced by the judge of the case.’ (ILNA News Agency – October 23).

9 November 2018

Iranian resistance units set fire on Khamenei’s banner 

These days, Iranian resistance units continue their activities across the country, keeping the fire of resistance and uprising alit and spreading fear among the ranks of the regime’s suppressive forces. In Urumiyeh, the members of one of the resistance units set fire on a large banner picturing Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Iranian regime. 

The Iranian regime considers the supreme leader as its ultimate red line. Even when quarreling among themselves, regime officials take care not to raise the ire of the supreme leader. It also considers the PMOI/MEK as a red line and treats anyone who supports them harshly. In the past decades, the regime has executed tens of thousands of Iranians for being members or supporters of the MEK.

At great risk to their lives, the resistance units are continuing the nationwide protests and the struggles of the Iranian people for regime change.

Since protests erupted across Iran in December, the mullahs’ regime has become weakened in its entirety. The past months have shown that for the regime of Tehran, there’s no turning back and returning to the state of affairs before the protests. The national uprising will not be stifled.

If the regime wants to respond to the demands of the people in any way, it will embark on a journey that will result in its own undoing. Therefore it has no way to escape from its current deadlock. For the regime, it is either capitulating to the demands of the people, which will cause the unravelling of the suppressive and tyrannical rule it has established in the past four decades, of the intensification of its suppressive measures, which will result in the intensification of the rage of the people and trigger more protests and confrontations between the people and the regime.

Members of resistance units associated to the Iranian opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) are expanding their activities in cities across Iran following a recent message delivered by Iranian opposition leader Massoud Rajavi. 

Furthermore, following years of the Iranian regime taking advantage of the appeasement policy, recent sanctions imposed by the United States shows this lifeline is reaching its end for the mullahs’ rule. 

Members of Resistance Unit 881 in Qazvin, northwest Iran, set fire to a poster of Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.  

Back in June at the Iranian opposition convention in Paris, Iranian opposition President Maryam Rajavi delivered remarks regarding PMOI/MEK resistance units.

“These days, an industry of concocting phony alternatives has become prevalent in the political arena, of course copying and pasting aspects from others. And this in itself is another sign of the phase of the regime’s overthrow. But the crux of the matter is how they are going to actually bring down this regime in practice. This question is especially relevant as the blood of the martyrs has permanently and historically blocked the path to reform within the clerical regime and the return of the monarchy.

“Now, if one can topple this regime without an organization and leadership, without overcoming thorny trials, and without paying the price and making sacrifices, we say: Please, go ahead, don’t delay.

“If one can restore the people’s sovereignty without a history of fighting against two regimes, without drawing boundaries against dictatorship, subordination and dependency, without waging a nationwide resistance and offering a galaxy of martyrs, without challenging the principle of the velayat-e faqih and phony regime “moderates,” we say: Please, go ahead, don’t delay.

“If one can topple the mullahs without challenging Khomeini over the unpatriotic Iran-Iraq war, forcing an end to the inferno of that war, and discrediting the regime’s slogan of ‘Liberating Quds via Karbala” without compelling Khomeini to accept the ceasefire by launching 100 military operations by the National Liberation Army of Iran, which captured the city of Mehran and marched to the gates of Kermanshah; and without exposing the regime’s nuclear weapons, missile, chemical and microbiological programs and facilities, yes, go ahead and don’t delay. 

“The overthrow of this regime inevitably requires a willingness to pay the necessary price, it requires the practice of honesty and sacrifice, it requires an organization and a sturdy political alternative, and it requires the organization of resistance units and an army of liberation.”

10 November 2018

Iranian regime officials express their fear of MEK’s role in nationwide uprisings 

As the Iranian regime’s finds itself increasingly hard pressed to contain the waves of protests that are erupting across the country, its officials are voicing their fears of how the MEK and its network of activists are playing a key role in preventing the regime from re-establishing its tyrannical control in cities and streets. And while different factions within the regime might quarrel over their share of political and economic power, they agree on one thing: The MEK is the main threat to their religious dictatorship.

Hassan Abbasi, a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and one of the staunch theorists of the Iranian regime from the so-called hardliner faction, recently interviewed with a state-run online TV station, in which he warned against the outlook of the nationwide uprisings.

“The problem is, in the next few years, our currency will become so worthless that people will pour into the streets because of the hardships to their livelihoods,” Abbasi said. “Clashes will ensue, people will distance themselves from the government and confront the government. The government will confront the people. A few people will be killed, and then the people will rise in revenge.”

Abbasi warned that as the tensions between the people and the regime rise, the MEK will become more prominent in shaping the protests. While he tried to enrobe the entire argument in conspiracy theories, he admitted that the people have some very real demands that the regime has not been able to respond to. “The people are protesting for their rights, their rights to water, their rights to the security of their financial assets, their unpaid wages,” Abbasi said.

Fears are not limited to the hardliners or principalist factions of the regime. In an interview with the same TV station, Mohammad Reza Khatami, another regime theorist and the brother of the so-called “reformist” former president Mohammad Khatami, warned against the collapse of the regime and confessed to the widespread dissatisfaction with the regime.

“Possibly the majority of the people have grievances and criticism,” Khatami said. “Ordinary people might say that we are fed up with this system and we want another system. But how? With whom?”

Khatami then revealed the true source of his fear and said that any kind of regime change will inevitably involve the MEK. “Why am I opposed to regime change? We want the MEK to come and change our regime? Under the current circumstance, I see a very dark future,” Khatami lamented.

In the same interview, Khatami admitted that the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution was a ploy to paint the regime as anti-imperialist and play on the public sentiment to garner support for the outdated thoughts of the mullahs and undermine the influence of revolutionary forces such as the MEK.

Every day, the fear of the Iranian regime from the Iranian people and MEK manifests itself in new ways. It’s no wonder that the regime is frantically trying to stage terrorist attacks against MEK members abroad and sets heavy punishments for anyone who supports them inside the country. But despite the regime’s efforts, protests continue to expand inside the country and Iranian resistance units are becoming increasingly organized and coordinated in their activities to support the uprisings and foiling the mullahs’ attempts at keeping their regime on life support.

10 November 2018

Conditions inside Karaj Central Prison – West of Teheran

Inmates of Karaj Central Prison, located west of Tehran, are held in the worst conditions possible, sources say. These prisoners face numerous issues of concern. Prison officials could literally care less about the inmates and are treating them like animals, sources add.

Karaj Central Prison was built for 2,000 inmates. Currently, 8,300 inmates are in extremely inadequate conditions at this facility. A 20 square meter room is home to 45 inmates using three-level bunk beds.

There is no medical care for the inmates. One prisoner, suffering from an infected tooth and in critical condition was told he must provide for his medical care at his own expense.

Another inmate, suffering from a severely wounded eye after being beaten by prison guards, is currently left without any medical care.

Food quality is very low and the inmates say they literally cannot eat what is provided. In response to their claims, the ward chief says they are given 37,000 rials (around 25 cents) for each inmate and they don’t have enough money to provide food.

Prison time with hard labour may not be specifically mentioned in the Iranian regime’s laws, yet these prisoners are placed are under such harsh conditions. Some prisoners are forced to provide documents permitting authorities to use them for any physical labour outside of the prison. The inmates work from morning until the afternoon. The money provided on a monthly basis for the work of these inmates is deposited into the prison’s account. If the inmate seeks to enjoy any leave, they must agree to do physical labour.

300 to 350 of these inmates are currently working on a highway stretching north of Tehran, and none of them are receiving any money. These inmates are only allowed a monthly leave of two or three nights. This is just one example of the harsh labour authorities are forcing these inmates into.

As authorities have refused to see into the inmates’ dossiers, many have launched hunger strikes and even sewn their lips. The judiciary system claims the numbers of prisoners are too many. There are inmates who have served their terms and authorities are refusing to release them.

Any protests to such conditions are met by prison guards attacking and beating the protesting inmate. One inmate suffered a broken hand and nose, and still denied any family visits. His telephone card was also confiscated and he was not permitted to contact his family or file a complaint.