NEWS FROM INSIDE IRAN REPORT 5 PERIOD 14 NOVEMBER 2018 TO 16 NOVEMBER 2018

NEWS FROM INSIDE IRAN

REPORT 5

PERIOD

14 NOVEMBER 2018 TO 16 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)

14 November 2018

Second day of nationwide strikes by Iran’s teachers

On Wednesday, Iranian teachers in numerous cities began the second continuous day of their nationwide strike. The strikes began yesterday in protest to the deteriorating living conditions, suppression of teachers, high inflation rates and declining purchasing power of Iranian consumers.

The teachers are also demanding that the regime stops discrimination against working and retired teachers. 

The Iranian regime has arrested and incarcerated several teachers for standing up to their rights. The strike follows several similar strikes by teachers in the past months and is happening against the backdrop of nationwide protests and strikes by different classes of the Iranian society that have been ongoing since the beginning of the year.

Yesterday, students across Iran expressed their support for their protesting teachers. Iranian opposition leaders Maryam Rajavi also voiced her support for the movement of the teachers,

On Wednesday morning, the cities that had joined the nationwide strikes of teachers included the following:

Eslam Shahr

Saqqez

Divandareh

Babel

Bushehr

Kermanshah

Karaj

Yazd

Isfahan

Tehran

Najaf Abad

Shiraz

Iranshahr

Sardasht

Ravansar

Dehkalan

Mahabad

Sanandaj

Urumiyeh

Northern Khorasan

14 November 2018

Rights Group Voices Concern Over ‘Secret Executions’ Of Arabs In Iran

An international rights group voiced concern over secret executions of Ahwazi Arabs in Iran.

Amnesty International made the call on November 13 urging Iranian authorities to immediately provide information about hundreds of members of the Arab ethnic minority who have reportedly being held incommunicado following a deadly attack in the south-western city of Ahwaz in September.

Amnesty said it had learned that in the last few days, 22 men, including civil society activist Mohammad Momeni Timas, have been killed in secret.

Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa said, “If confirmed, the secret executions of these men would be not only a crime under international law but also an abhorrent violation of their right to life and a complete mockery of justice, even by the shocking standards of Iran’s judicial system.”

Up to 600 Ahwazi Arabs have been detained incommunicado since September 24, according to Amnesty International, in a wave of arrests following a deadly armed attack that took place in Ahwaz, Khuzestan province, two days earlier.

One of those reported to have been secretly executed is Ahmad Heydari, a 30-year-old ceramics shopkeeper who was arrested within a few days of the armed attack in Ahwaz.

His family heard no news of his fate or whereabouts until 11 November, when they received a telephone call summoning them to the information center of the Ministry of Intelligence in Ahwaz. There, they were given his death certificate and told he had been executed on 8 November.

Khuzestan Province’s governor told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency on November 12 that reports of 22 detainees being executed were “complete lies,” and said that those arrested in connection with the Ahwaz attack had been charged.

Amnesty International called on the Iranian authorities to reveal the whereabouts of all the detainees without further delay and provide information about what legal procedures have taken place to date.

“In the absence of any information about the whereabouts of the detainees feared killed, the governor’s blanket denial will provide little comfort to families who have been unable to see or hear from their relatives since their arrests,” Luther said.

The international rights group also called on the authorities to release immediately and unconditionally any Ahwazi Arabs held solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly or solely on account of their ethnic identity.

“While the Iranian authorities have a duty to bring to justice anyone suspected of criminal responsibility for the attack in Ahwaz in fair trials, they must not use this as an excuse to carry out a purge against members of Iran’s persecuted Ahwazi Arab ethnic minority,” said Philip Luther.

14 November 2018

A look at Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

The name Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has been intertwined and synonymous with the current clerical regime of Iran for the past few decades. From the Iran-Iraq War to several regional conflicts, to economic activities and internal crackdown of unrests across the country, the IRGC has had a major role in shaping the Iranian regime’s domestic and foreign policy. 

Establishing The IRGC

Following the 1979 revolution, Islamic Republic founder Ruhollah Khomeini realized the need to have an advantage and apparatus to quell any domestic threats and unrest.

Considering the fact that they could not trust the Iranian military, police and other state forces for this purpose, the ruling mullahs began the process of launching their own parallel forces.

The IRGC was established on May 5, 1979, less than three months after the revolution.

What started as a paramilitary group of ideologically trained units loyal to the supreme leader has now grown to be the sole protector and backbone of the ruling mullahs in Iran.

The IRGC answers directly to the supreme leader, now Ali Khamenei, and is given unconstrained jurisdiction and authorities. The IRGC is actually above Iran’s classic army in the hierarchy, and provided with enormous economic and political power. The IRGC has now evolved to be a “parallel” or shadow government of Iran, accountable to Khamenei only. 

IRGC Role in Domestic Crackdown

From day one, the IRGC spearheaded a campaign aiming to purge dissidents, intellectuals, journalists, writers, opposition figures and organized labour unions. The principal target has consistently been Iran’s main opposition entity, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), highlighted in a gruesome manner during the summer 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners, mostly PMOI/MEK members and supporters.

“The orders for the systematic execution of dissidents came from Khomeini himself in the form of a fatwa (religious edict). His intention was to purge the country of any opposition, notable the main dissident organization, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK),” said Hamid Yazdan Panah, an Iranian human rights activist and lawyer, in a piece published by The Hill.

Throughout the 1980s, the IRGC carried out numerous campaigns targeting dissidents abroad. These efforts included groups across the spectrum, including Kurdish and Baluchi groups, members of the Iranian opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), among others.

The infamous “chain murders” of the 1990s targeting political opponents and dissident writers inside Iran was carried out by the notorious Ministry of Intelligence & Security (MOIS) and IRGC units without any individual ever facing justice for their murderous roles.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the IRGC and its paramilitary Basij militia to crush the 1999 student uprisings, enjoying the blessing of Hassan Rouhani, who was then the regime’s secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and later became the president of the Iranian regime.

The IRGC was once again unleashed during the 2009 uprisings to quell any pro-democracy demands.

 The Guards went on a spree of arresting thousands, torturing hundreds and secretly executing dozens.

The IRGC has relentlessly targeted the main Iranian opposition PMOI/MEK through the years, following both the 1979 revolution and afterwards when the organization went into exile, mainly in Iraq. MEK members were kidnapped and/or assassinated also in Europe. 

Political Interference & Terrorism

The Iranian regime proclaims to have a divine mission of establishing a universally just government across the globe. It therefore considers meddling in other countries’ internal affairs as justified and necessary measures. As a result, the use of terrorism and spreading fundamentalist viewpoints are not policies of mere marginal importance.

Alongside the brutal repression of all domestic protests, Tehran’s very survival fully depends on remaining loyal to this practice.

Tehran’s notorious activities have expanded to 13 countries and the IRGC is also known to have launched spying cells or networks in at least 12 different countries, while most have seen authorities apprehend members of such groups. 

IRGC Fomenting Sectarian Tension and Violence

One very deadly method explored by the Iranian regime has been aggravating sectarian rifts across the Middle East, especially in its western neighbour of Iraq that continues to remain a very fragile state. A cruel irony, however, is witnessed in the reality that while the IRGC is known to recruit Shiites for militia groups, it has also fuelled support for Sunni terrorist groups.

“Indeed, the bipartisan 9/11 commission report, which investigated the Sept. 11, 2001 al Qaeda terror attacks — the largest mass casualty terrorist attack in U.S. history — pointed out that there was ‘strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers,’” The Washington Times reported.

This is aimed at fulfilling Tehran’s ultimate objective: overwhelming the entire region with chaos, and utilizing such a situation to expand their field of influence. Iran is “securing an arc of influence across Iraq and Syria that would end at the Mediterranean Sea,” according to The Guardian.

The IRGC can be described as the Iranian regime’s arm to establish the first “Islamic Caliphate” by taking first measures in this outline in 1979, long before Daesh (ISIS/ISIL). 

In fact, the violence promoted by the Iranian regime across the region under the flag of Shiite Islam, parallel to the atrocious crackdown imposed on Sunni communities in various countries, have encouraged the rise of Daesh. 

Hidden Occupation and Expansion of IRGC Abroad

The IRGC Quds Force, the unit’s extraterritorial entity currently commanded by Qassem Suleimani, is tasked to carry out foreign missions across the Middle East and beyond.

In the broader picture, the IRGC has never limited its expansion and terrorists to the region.

“The world should rest assured the IRGC will soon establish branches in the US and Europe,” IRGC Brigadier General Salar Anoush said recently.

The IRGC has also launched a massive network of training camps inside Iran and abroad to gain new recruits for its proxy militia groups. Hundreds of future soldiers arrive from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen each month to undergo such training courses.

The IRGC’s broad meddling makes its involvement in covertly occupying four regional countries undeniable: Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

Scenes in Syria during the past several years have made the IRGC’s deadly role crystal clear.

Reports indicate up to 70,000 IRGC foot soldiers and cannon fodders were roaming the Levant, involved in launching killing sprees.

“The Iranian regime’s military incursion in Syria came at a great cost to Tehran. According to reports obtained by the NCRI from within the regime’s own ranks, Iran’s death toll in the Syrian war are estimated to be over 12,000,” according to a research report.

The IRGC has allocated both its human and financial resources to make good on its security threats, in tandem with military attacks. The IRGC has also been establishing cultural centers across the Middle East and throughout Europe and North America, aiming to expand its influence. They have monopolized control of more than 90 ports and loading docks in the Persian Gulf for shipping supplies, weapons and explosives to their preferred destinations. To this day, 14 different countries are known to have been targets of such covert activities. 

IRGC Influence in Iran’s Foreign Policy

With Khamenei’s approval, the IRGC enjoys special and powerful dominance over the regime’s foreign policy and agenda.

For example, the Guards have taken full control over Iran’s embassies in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. While having prominence in the affairs related to Armenia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

In view of the significance to IRGC operations, the Iranian regime’s ambassadors and diplomatic missions to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are appointed directly by the IRGC and not the Foreign Ministry of Iran.

It is worth noting that Iran’s current ambassador to Iraq, Brigadier Iraj Masjedi, was formerly in charge of the IRGC’s Iraq desk, as its chairman and a senior Quds Force advisor. The Quds Force is overseeing the Iranian regime’s operations in Syria and Iraq.

Masjedi himself supervised and coordinated attacks against U.S.-led Coalition forces in Iraq, leaving scores killed and wounded. 

Growing Grip of IRGC Over Iran’s Economy

The IRGC quest to gain full control over Iran’s economy began following the Iran-Iraq war. This grip grew significantly during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself a former IRGC commander, from 2005 to 2013.

The IRGC has gained increasing influence in major sectors of Iran’s economy, such as oil and gas, and the construction industry. The exact number of IRGC-affiliated front companies remains unknown, simply due to the fact that they seek to evade sanctions through the use of various front companies and institutions in different countries.

Ironically, the IRGC benefited enormously from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) the regime signed with the world powers.

Of nearly 110 agreements signed since the JCPOA’s signing, worth at least $80 billion, 90 counts of these deals have been with companies owned or controlled by Iranian state entities, according a Reuters analysis. 

IRGC Controlling Iran’s Nuclear & Ballistic Missile Programs

The IRGC is now considered a huge conglomerate of different companies and assets. Parts of its holdings include controlling Iran’s missile drive and the controversial nuclear program.

The IRGC owns and controls dozens of companies, involved in procuring the technology needed to develop ballistic missiles and sensitive nuclear products. The IRGC has been entrusted to develop and pursue the ballistic missile program and all its aspects. A senior Iranian official once boasted about Iran having a sixth missile production line, including the Shahab-3/3B, with a range of over 2,100 kilometres. 

Terror Designations

The U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted the IRGC Quds Force back in 2007 for “Proliferation Activities and Support for Terrorism.”

The Quds Force is known to provide material support to terrorist groups such as the Taliban, the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other such entities.

In 2017, the Treasury designated the Iranian regime’s IRGC as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” for the “activities it undertakes to assist in, sponsor, or provide financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to or in support of the IRGC Quds Force.”

As the U.S. State Department has designated the IRGC Quds Force as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization,” there are growing calls in Washington calling for similar damning measures against the mother IRGC entity to deliver a crippling blow to the mullahs’ regime.

The Iranian regime considers this a declaration of war. 

Final Words

The mullahs’ regime of Iran is a dictatorship on a mission to agitate and expand its influence throughout the region and beyond. The IRGC is the main apparatus and the leverage for this regime to continue its aspirations and existence through domestic crackdown and export of terrorism abroad, whether through proxy wars, terror attacks or spreading its extremist ideology.

The IRGC is dedicated to protecting the Islamic Revolution, not the state of Iran.

“As guardians of the Islamic Revolution, it supports terrorist activities by the Quds Force and its other military divisions. The IRGC finances these terrorist activities through its business activities, making the overall o simply the paymaster for terrorist activities by its constituent elements,” wrote Raymond Tanter and Ed Stafford in The Hill.

The cancerous and unchecked growth of the IRGC throughout the region is a threat to not only the Middle East but also Europe. A dangerous fundamentalist ideology drives this armed (military) entity.

The world needs to take this threat seriously before it is too late.

15 November 2018

Guardian of Freedom of Speech or Guardian of Religious Fascism Ruling Iran

The following statement was published by the Committee of Anglo- Iranian Lawyers amid The Guardian’s recent suspicious campaign of demonization against the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) to satisfy the terrorist regime ruling Iran:

Iran’s religious terrorist dictatorship has launched an unprecedented campaign against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) in recent months in a bid to contain the nationwide uprising in Iran. Ali Khamenei, Hassan Rouhani and other leading officials have repeatedly spoken about the PMOI’s role in protests.

That campaign entails arrests inside Iran, recurring terrorist plots in Europe and the US, deployment of some “friendly journalists” to demonize the PMOI and preparations for further terrorism. The latest example is an article by Reza Merat, published in The Guardian on 9 November 2018 and titled, “Terrorists, cultists – or champions of Iranian democracy?”

The assigned article relays the slanders of the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) against the PMOI which has been repeated on and on in the past four decades. The persistence of these lies cannot be attributed to lack of knowledge of the facts, especially given that the press spokesman of the PMOI addressed most of the despicable allegations on the 2nd of October and 1st of November in letters addressed to senior editors of The Guardian.

https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/iran-resistance/25463-2-letters-to-the-guardian- warning-against-

The people of Iran are quite familiar with the nature of the clerical regime and its slander machinery. 

It is also reminiscent of the old colonialist policies of the early 1950s, when the corrupt Pahlavi dynasty disseminated similar slander against Dr. Mohammad Mosadeq and the oil nationalization movement, in collaboration with some British media. The fall of the clerical regime is within reach.

Civil society is exploding and the regime is exhausted and helpless. Meanwhile, the PMOI demonstrates a growing presence in protests and uprisings, while Western policies of appeasement are falling apart.

Missile and mortar attacks failed to impede the downfall process. The regime’s foreign outreach has failed to bear fruit, including Rouhani’s disgraceful call to the French President urging him to prevent the activities of the PMOI on 2 January 2018. Thus, the demonization campaign has returned to full force. Toward that end, Reza Aron Merat conveyed an unwritten conclusion to The Guardian that clearly seeks to legitimize a crackdown and massacre of the PMOI.

We have seen efforts by the regime’s agents in the UK to infiltrate British media. AliFallahian, the regime’s terrifying Minister of Intelligence said in a TV interview on 9 July 2017: “The Intelligence Ministry needs cover for its efforts to gather intelligence inside and outside the country. We would not dispatch an intelligence agent to Germany or the United States who would say I am from the Intelligence Ministry. A trader or journalist cover is required.”

The task of the “friendly journalist” and the Guardian article is to give the impression that the PMOI has no popular support in Iran, that it is undemocratic, and that there is no viable alternative in Iran, so it would be only wise for the international community to hold onto the current barbaric regime. 

But the people of Iran have supported the PMOI for the past 53 years and their children, brothers and sisters have joined its ranks, their loved ones martyred for the cause. The Iranian people have also generously shared their wealth with the PMOI, while the article claims, without evidence, that Saudi Arabia funds it.

Reza Merat is a known advocate of the regime in general and Hassan Rouhani in particular, and he appeases the regime by expressing hysterical opposition to the PMOI. His previous articles and tweets make this clear, but of course, confessing to this reality is tantamount to political suicide. Thus, he has no choice but to distort the most basic facts and to repeat the lies that the PMOI had repeatedly revealed with documents.

Every school pupil can do a one minute search on the internet to find out that Merat’s narrative of the terrorist plot against the grand gathering of the Iranians in Paris with the presence of hundreds of political dignitaries from North America, Europe and the Middle East, in which we were also participating, is an attempt to cover up the role the mullahs’ regime in this terrorist plot.

Merat wrote, “One day after the conference, the MEK accused Tehran of plotting a bomb attack against the event, following the arrest of four suspects – including an unnamed Iranian diplomat – in Belgium, Germany and France. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, rejected claims of Iran’s involvement and described the accusations as a “sinister false flag ploy.”

The reality is that it was not the PMOI/MEK who initially disclosed the terror plot.

The Belgium General prosecutor and the Federal Police did so in an official statement on Monday, July 2, two days after the gathering. The statement announced the arrest of the two would-be bombers and an Iranian diplomat. Subsequently, the German Federal Prosecutor announced in a statement on July 11 that the diplomat had personally handed the bomb to the terrorists. Merat had worked on his article for months, so excluding this information could only have been a deliberate attempt to whitewash a crime as big as bombing a meeting attended by 100,000 people and preparing the stage for further attacks. This is criminal.

Another case in point is the story of Ms. Somayeh Mohammadi (38 years-old). The article begins and ends with her tale. She has explained her ordeal in her book, “An end to a conspiracy”,

She went to Iraq from Canada to join the PMOI. A copy of the written consent of her father and mother is published in her book. Subsequently her father, Mostafa Mohammadi, came to the service of the mullahs’ Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS), and traveled to Iran from Canada on several occasions, after he had obtained asylum and citizenship as a supporter of the PMOI. Mostafa Mohamamdi had obtained a visa from the embassy of Iraq in Tehran on several occasions and had travelled to Iraq. Accompanied with a number of the MOIS agents, he went to the border of Camp Ashraf on several occasions in 2010 and 2011, where they used 320 loud speakers to engage in psychological warfare and threaten a massacre of the Ashraf residents. The clips of him shouting and threatening the residents with murder and burning has been repeatedly broadcast by INTV and is available on the internet. The Justice departments of Canada, Iraq, and Albania, have repeatedly rejected the claims of Mostafa Mohamamdi, who is a torturer, against the PMOI. The rulings are available.

Ms. Mohamamdi took part in a press conference in Rogner Hotel, which is adjacent to the Prime Minister’s office, in Tirana on 3rd of September. Prior to that, in an interview with the Washington Times on 25th of August, Ms. Mohamamdi underscored that she has no interest in seeing an individual who was implicated in seven massacres in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, even if it is her father.

During the seven massacres, between 2009 and 2015, one hundred forty-one compatriots of Ms. Mohammadi were murdered. During the same period, 27 residents died due to a medical siege and six women were taken hostage whose fates are still unknown. Some 1,500 residents were wounded. No one can force a girl to visit a man who is engaged in a holocaust, even if that man is her father, unless one is intent on degrading that women and trampling her under the feet of the murderers.

Reza Merat has charged the PMOI with complicity in murdering Iraqi Kurds. This is a big lie uttered by the mullahs. Hoshyar Zebari, was the Foreign Minister of Iraq for 12 years after the overthrow of the former government in 1999, and prior to that he was the head of foreign affairs for the Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party, the main party in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In an official affidavit to a court in the Netherlands, he explicitly stated that the PMOI was never involved in Iraqi domestic affairs and never played a role in suppression of the Kurds.

Col. Wesley Martin, the coordinator for counter-terrorism of the coalition forces in Iraq, testified under oath before the US Congress on 7th of July 7th, 2011 and said that he had made an extensive investigation confirming the PMOI played no role in suppression of the Kurds. The documents of Hoshyar Zebari’s affidavit and Col. Martin’s testimony have been available on the internet for years.

Killing of the Kurds in Iraq, assassinating nuclear scientists in Iran, murder and torture of its members for bogus reasons, forced divorces, forcible separation of children from their parents in Iraq and sending them to Europe in the middle of the Kuwaiti war without permission of their parents, forcing women to receive surgery and threatening them to be handed over to the Iraqi generals if they refuse, and other similar disgraceful lies, are nothing but kissing the bloody hands of the mullahs and then drying them with the pages of The Guardian newspaper.

False claims made by female mercenaries are only a disgraceful stain on the history of The Guardian, and they demonstrate its ethical and professional fall.

One of such woman is Batoul Sultani, who left Camp Ashraf in 2006 and went to the adjacent camp run by the Americans (TIPF). She went to the mullahs in Iran in January 2008, and returned to Iraq three weeks later to implement her mission.

Lt. Col. Leo McCloskey, then commander of the American Forces protecting Camp Ashraf, provided damning testimony in a speech in Paris on 24 March 2012. He said, “Within a month or two after she left, I got a frantic call in the middle of the night from one of our police stations outside of Ashraf saying that Ms. Sultani is back in Iraq with an Iranian Passport.”

Her mission to spread maximum lies to undermine the Iranian Resistance and its leader was not hidden to anyone. Disgraceful lies that have been relayed by Merat are the very false allegations the mullahs’ regime has made against the PMOI and its leader, which started early in the aftermath of the anti-monarchist revolution and reached their peak in the presidential election of 1980. This is reminiscent of the royal court using disgraced women such as Malakeh Etezadi to tarnish Dr. Mossadegh’s image.

Reza Merat’s sources and his debunked chain lies are all known to us. Using an old tactic of the mullahs’ regime, he introduces his sources as “former members” of the MEK, when in fact they are current members of the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the terrorist Quds Force.

Merat’s sources are of the same brand as the Gestapo and are similarly detested. We are ready to prove this in any court of law. Their lies have already been published over a thousand times in media and websites controlled by the MOIS and the Islamic Republic Guard Corps (IRGC).

Not even a single one of these lies is new to us Iranians.

15 November 2018

Pressure on Regime Is Maintained

The latest sanctions on Iran came into effect last week in the midst of the U.S. midterm elections.

Iran was hoping that the elections would create a distraction in which the sanctions would be brushed to the side; at least temporarily. It was also hoping that the Democrats would be able to occupy most of Congress leaving little room for the Republicans and guaranteeing that the president is not re-elected when his term is up in 2020.

However, the Trump administration is making it very clear that no matter what is happening on the domestic front, it has not forgotten about Iran and that the maximum pressure campaign is still being pursued.

The Iranian regime is concerned about its future and its potential to survive.

Kayan Daily, a media outlet that is considered to be Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s mouthpiece, revealed as much at the end of last week. In an editorial it recognised that the divide between Republicans and Democrats in the United States does not affect their joint “enmity” towards the clerical regime in Iran. The author said that the Democrats have actually shown more support for the sanctions than the Republicans.

Even the Europeans that have expressed their opposition to Trump’s approach support the sanctions. It read: “European countries and some Middle East countries are supporting the sanctions. Even the three European countries remaining loyal to the [2015 Iran nuclear deal] are supporting the sanctions.”

Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, said last week that there is a possibility that more sanctions could be imposed on Iran. He said that the sanctions that are currently in place are having the intended effect and that they would be more tightly enforced.

The Trump administration wants the crippling economic sanctions to cut the Iranian regime off from the funding that it uses to finance terrorist and belligerent activities in the Middle East. Bolton said: “We've seen indications that it has affected their belligerent activity in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Not enough yet, but it's beginning to have that effect.”

Domestic discontent in Iran is continuing to grow as the people maintain the momentum of pressure on the regime. They are making it very clear that the December 2017 / January 2018 uprising is still going strong and there are a number of nationwide strikes that show just that.

Even the smallest of protests which may seem insignificant on the surface have the potential of becoming a huge nationwide protest. The people have no tolerance for the clerical regime’s lies, violence, corruption and malign activities.

Instead of dealing with the pressing issues, the Iranian regime is passing the blame off. It is saying that the PMOI / MEK is to blame for the dissent. Someone close to the Supreme Leader said: “Who is behind all this! The PMOI/MEK… and in the middle of all this mayhem, it just needs two people to chant one or two slogans.”

If the regime listened to the people they would soon understand that the people want regime change.

15 November 2018

Iranian Threat Rises in Europe

The Iranian regime was once known as a state that carried out assassinations of its citizens abroad. However, its reputation had been forgotten for a long time and it seemed like the Iranian regime had abandoned this practice that was a common occurrence during the eighties and nineties.

Yet, recent incidents show us that the Iranian regime has gone back to its old tricks. In three separate cities across Europe, we have proof that Iran is still plotting.

The regime’s activities in Europe show how much of a threat the opposition is to the survival of the regime. On 30th June this year, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) held its annual gathering just outside Paris. Every year, tens of thousands of Iranians from around the world gather to hear politicians, lawmakers, members of parliament, human rights activists, and so on, speak at the opposition’s rally for a free Iran.

Belgian authorities arrested a Belgian-Iranian couple who were on their way to the event. They were caught with 500 grams of TAPT (an explosive often used by terrorists) as well as a detonator.

The day after their arrest, Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat based in Austria, was arrested in Germany while he was on his way home to Vienna where he has diplomatic immunity. He was the one that ordered the terrorist attack near Paris.

Danish intelligence officials also recently revealed that they foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate opposition members.

Authorities in Denmark said that Iran was plotting to carry out an attack in the country and that the targets were three activists. Denmark’s intelligence agency said that an individual was spotted photographing the house in which a spokesperson for the separatist Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA) group lived. The authorities also said that the photos would have then been sent back to Iran where an attack would have been planned and prepared.

The Foreign Minister of Denmark, Anders Samuelsen, has described the situation as “totally unacceptable”. British Prime Minister Theresa May was in Oslo at the time of the news breaking and she confirmed that Britain supports Denmark in this fight against terrorism. Denmark has been discussing potential action with other European leaders.

The Danish police realised that the individual living in the house, Yaqoub al-Tostari, would have been kidnapped or assassinated very soon after had they not intervened. 

Tostari had recently spoken about the attack on the Iranian military parade that took place in September, publicly defending it.

So all this points to the Iranian regime going back to previous tactics of eliminating opposition members abroad. It is not enough for the regime to brutally suppress the Iranians at home.

Since the end of last year, the people of Iran have been making it very clear that they want regime change. They are fed up with the intolerable acts of oppression that they face on a daily basis and the cruelty that so many political prisoners face.

15 November 2018

Amnesty International Calls on Iran Regime to Release Members of Minority That Are Being Unlawfully Held

Human rights organisation Amnesty International has called on Iran to release information about the status of hundreds of individuals that are being held by the Iranian regime.

These individuals are part of the Ahvazi Arab ethnic minority and have been denied access to lawyers. They have also been unable to contact their families.

There are great concerns that some of the individuals have already been executed.

Amnesty International has been in contact with Ahvazi Arab activists that live abroad and in the past few days they have said that the Iranian regime has secretly killed 22 men, one of whom is Mohammad Momeni Timas, a civil society activist.

The organisation previously reported that hundreds of members of the Ahvazi Arab community had been arrested in the southern province of Khuzestan.

The arrests came just after the attack on a military parade in September in the city of Ahvaz. More than 60 people were injured in the armed attack and at least 24 people were killed.

Amnesty International said that the timing of the arrests is worrying because it appears that authorities in Iran are using the attack on the military parade to justify its unfair treatment of Ahvazi Arabs. The organisation suggested that the arrests are to quash dissent in the province.

Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther, said: “If confirmed, the secret executions of these men would be not only a crime under international law but also an abhorrent violation of their right to life and a complete mockery of justice, even by the shocking standards of Iran’s judicial system.”

Luther also questioned the treatment of these people since their arrest, pointing out that they have almost certainly not received a fair trial in the weeks since their arrest. Furthermore, they have clearly not had the opportunity to appeal their sentences.

The organisation gave details about one of the individuals – Mr. Ahmad Heydari – who seems to have been executed already. He was a 30-year-old ceramics shopkeeper and was arrested just a few days after the military parade attack.

His family had been trying to get information about his condition and they had no idea where he even was until 11th November. On Sunday, his family were called and told to come to the Ministry of Intelligence’s information centre in Ahvaz. On their arrival there, they were told that Mr. Heydari had been executed three days previously.

The family were given a death certificate and told that they could not hold a memorial service for him. The family were also informed that his body would not be released.

The governor of the province has denied that 22 people have been executed but confirmed that the people arrested with regards to the military parade attack have been charged.

In its statement, the organisation said: “Amnesty International calls on the Iranian authorities to reveal the whereabouts of all the detainees without further delay and provide information about what legal procedures have taken place to date. The authorities must give the families and their lawyers access to the detainees and ensure they are protected from torture and other ill-treatment.”

It also said that the Iranian authorities have a duty to release those that have been arrested for their human rights activities. “Amnesty International is also calling on the authorities to release immediately and unconditionally any Ahvazi Arabs held solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly or solely on account of their ethnic identity.”

 15 November 2018

Top U.S. Official: We Will Make Iran Regime Pay Price for Support of Terrorism

The Washington Institute hosted a Policy Forum with Ambassador Nathan Sales, the State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism, as part of its long-running Stein Counterterrorism Lecture Series. The following is a report of that event.

Top Trump Administration Official: “We Will Make Tehran Regime Pay the Price for Support of Terrorism”

The Tehran regime provides terrorist groups throughout the Middle East nearly one billion dollars a year, a top Trump administration official said on Tuesday.

“Who ultimately pays the price of this support?” Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism Nathan Sales asked during a lecture at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank. “The Iranian people. The resources Iran uses to fund its global terrorist campaign come directly out of the pockets of ordinary Iranians. The regime robs its own citizens to pay its proxies abroad.”

“Tehran’s priorities are clear,” he continued. “It doesn’t seek to boost economic growth at home, or to improve Iranian living standards. It doesn’t seek to reduce Iran’s growing unemployment. What the regime prioritizes, despite the country’s increasing economic distress, is buying guns and bombs for foreign terrorists.”

According to Sales, Iran gives its Lebanon-based Shi’a proxy Hezbollah $700 million annually, while Palestinian terror organizations get around $100 million from the mullahs in Tehran.

“Thanks to Iran’s backing, Hezbollah has built a fearsome arsenal,” Sales warned. “The group now has more than 100,000 rockets in Lebanon, a massive and destabilizing build-up. Indifferent to the people it purports to defend, Hezbollah hides its missile factories in population centers — effectively using innocent civilians as human shields.”

“And while Hezbollah likes to tout its political role and social services in Lebanon, that’s an ill-fitting fig leaf for its true and more nefarious agenda,” he added. “Let’s be clear: Hezbollah is not an NGO; it is not just another political party. Hezbollah is a terrorist group with a bloody record of perpetrating violence and destruction in Lebanon and Syria, throughout the Middle East, and around the world.”

Iranian leaders do not exhibit the behaviour of a “normal government,” but rather that of “a lawless regime that uses terrorism as a basic tool of statecraft,” Sales said.

“We cannot let this threat go unanswered,” he declared. “And so the Trump administration is responding. We’re going after Iranian support for terrorism in a variety of ways to get at the people and organizations Iran uses to spread terror.”

“We will make clear to Iran-backed terrorists and to their masters in Tehran that there are costs — increasingly heavy ones — to their support for terrorist barbarism,” Sales stated. “We are prepared to impose those costs on the regime and its proxies wherever they may be.”

The Trump administration, Sales vowed, “will continue to ratchet up the pressure until Iran comes to its senses, joins the community of civilized nations, and ends its support for murder and mayhem across the globe.”

15 November 2018

Iran’s Morality Police Storm Private Party To Arrest 50 People

Up to 50 people have been detained in Iran after the morality police raided what has been described as a mixed-gender party In Maragheh, East Azerbaijan Province, the local Prosecutor General disclosed Wednesday.

Nader Najed said, “13 men and 9 women have been detained for due process, but the rest have been released on bail.”

Iranian regime has a history of clamping down on parties. With authorities shutting down get-togethers in 2018 and arresting those in attendance, this brutal practice continued throughout the month of November.

During some instances, citizens have also been brutally attacked or punished as well.

at least 406 men and women were arrested in 2018 for attending

Attacking and breaking up parties were quite rife after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Even family parties, including wedding and birthday parties have not been immune from morality police and security forces intrusions.

15 November 2018

Iran Regime terrified of Resistance forces

As protests continue unabated in Iran, Regime officials have begun voicing their fears about how the Iranian Resistance and their network of activists are organising and directing the protests in order to do the most possible damage to the Regime.

The Regime may have its factional squabbling – largely the result of many terrible people clamouring for the ultimate seat of power – but they all agree on one thing: the Iranian Resistance is the biggest threat to their continued rule. However, they rarely acknowledge that fact, so this shows just how scared they are.

Hassan Abbasi, a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), recently gave an interview to a state-run online TV station where he explained just how scared he was about the nationwide uprisings.

He said: “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. 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.”

It’s interesting that he thinks this will happen in a few years when this is arguably what is going on right now, but it just shows that he is aware that the tensions between the people and the regime will only rise. He was even forced to admit that the Iranian people are protesting over some very major things; including human rights, access to water, and financial security.

The same TV station aired an interview with Mohammad Reza Khatami, who is in the so-called reformist faction, who had the same fears about widespread dissatisfaction with the mullahs, leading to the collapse of the regime.

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

The answer to that is, of course, the Iranian Resistance. They are more than capable of running Iran and bringing prosperity to the people.

Later on, in that same interview, Khatami even admitted that the 1979 hostage-taking at the US embassy in Iran was a ploy to paint the newly-established regime as anti-imperialist and garner support for the medieval ideas of the mullahs, whilst undermining the Iranian Resistance.

The Iranian Regime is terrified that the Iranian people and their organised democratic resistance forces will soon rise up and take Iran back, so it’s no surprise that the Regime constantly tries to attack the Resistance at home and abroad.

Still, the Resistance is outsmarting them at every turn and it won’t be long before the Regime falls.

15 November 2018

Teachers' now Nationwide Strike

From Tuesday morning, November 13, noble teachers refused to attend school classes and went to sit-ins in schools. The strike comes at a time when the repressive forces tried to intimidate them after the nationwide sit-in of last month by arresting and summoning teachers and issuing various threats.

Teachers have gone to strike to protest against the suppression and imprisonment of teachers, the deteriorating situation of livelihoods, the uncontrolled inflation and the decline in purchasing power, and are calling for elimination of discrimination against working and retired educators.

This protest movement took place in different cities including Isfahan, Ahvaz, Kermanshah, Karaj, Ilam, Ardebil, Baneh, Saqez, Jolfa, Babol, Sari, Shahriar, Yazd, Karaj, Marivan, Ivan West, Hamedan, Sanandaj, Shahrekord, Chaboksar, Shiraz, Lamerd, Homayounshahr, Saveh, Jam Township, Bushehr and others, in addition to Tehran.

In many cities, such as Marivan, Divandareh, Sanandaj, Shiraz and Esfahan, students joined the teachers' strike. In Sanandaj, parents also supported the teachers' strike.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, saluted the teachers and educators who have gone to sit-ins in order to secure their rights, and called on the frustrated public, especially the youth, to express solidarity with them, saying: "Anti-cultural and anti-Iranian dictatorship of the mullahs has destroyed culture and education. The catastrophic situation of working and retired teachers is a product of the plundering and repressive policies of the anti-cultural clerical regime, and it becomes worse as long as this regime is in power. A regime that has only brought torture and execution, war and terrorism, poverty, unemployment, corruption and plundering for the people of Iran."

15 November 2018

Tabriz stores on strike, protests in other cities

Bazaar storeowners in Tabriz, northwest Iran, went on strike on Wednesday, protesting skyrocketing prices, lack of goods and a decreasing number of customers. Images from this major Iranian city indicate shops closed near “Sa’at Square” and Taleghani Avenue. Reports from other cities also showed shop-owners closing down and joining this nationwide strike movement, parallel to strikes and protests in other cities across the country.

In other reports, employees of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Company in Shush, southwest Iran, continued their rallies on Wednesday, marking this the tenth of their ongoing strike.

“Death to oppressors, hail to workers”

“Shush locals, support us”

These workers were also chanting slogans calling on protesting employees of the Ahvaz Industrial Steel Group – also on strike – to join their ranks in these ongoing protests.

Employees of the Ahvaz Steel Company continued their strike on Wednesday, holding a protest rally outside the Khuzestan Province governor’s office, demanding their delayed pay checks and protesting poor working conditions at their worksite.

The workers were chanting:

“Workers of Khuzestan, unite, unite”

On Tuesday, a group of these workers held a gathering outside the governor’s office and the entrance of the Ahvaz Sports Complex. They were blocking the path for the convoy of Iranian regime vice president Eshagh Jahangiri and voicing their protests. 

Iranian opposition President Maryam Rajavi tweeted her message of support for the various protests and strikes by people from all walks of life across Iran:

“Hail to the deprived workers of Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Factory and Steel Factory of Ahvaz who have risen up to demand their rights, calling for expansion of the protests by the slogan of “Workers of Khuzestan, unite, unite.”

Teachers’ sit-ins, strikes of truckers, and demonstration by defrauded protesters are taking place across the country. Workers vent their anger by marching in the streets. 

In other reports also from Ahvaz, workers of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill continued their strike for the tenth consecutive day on Wednesday, rallying outside the Shush governor’s office and chanting: “Death to oppressors, hail to workers,” and “Shush locals, support us.”

These workers expressed their solidarity with the Ahvaz steel employees by chanting, “Proud steel workers, thank you, thank you.” 

Reports of a variety of protests are coming from cities and towns across Iran.

Truck drivers across Iran are continuing their nationwide strike for the 12th consecutive day on Monday. This movement has now expanded to 75 cities in 25 of Iran’s 31 provinces. 

In Saravan, southeast Iran, drivers were rallying near a gas station, protesting the authorities’ refusal to provide diesel fuel for their trucks.

In Ahvaz, southeast Iran, employees of the National Steel Group continued their strike for the third consecutive day. 

Holding their rally outside the provincial governor’s office in this city, the protesting workers were chanting slogans to have authorities respond to their demands, protesting their current working conditions and not receiving their pay checks for the past several months.

 The Iranian opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) issued a statement saying:

“Workers of the Ahvaz National Steel Group also protested on Saturday, gathering in front of the governor's office in the city. They chanted: No nation has seen this much injustice; Hossein Hossein, is their slogan, theft is their pride; what did behind the scene hands have done with the factory?”

“Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, hailed the determination of the truck drivers, the deprived farmers of Isfahan, the oppressed hard-working workers of Haft Tapeh sugarcane factory and Ahvaz steel, and other strikers across the country, and called on fellow citizens, especially the youth, to support them and said: ‘Poverty, inflation, unemployment and corruption were brought to our country by the religious fascism, and will continue as long as this medieval regime is in power.’”

Also in Ahvaz, the hard working employees of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill continued their strike for the eighth consecutive day on Monday, demanding an end to privatization policies that are ruining their jobs and lives; their delayed pay checks to be provided and officials to promise to never delay their pay checks again.

On Saturday, these protesting workers had expanded their movement into the city and locals were hearing their protests and demands. Another group of these workers were continuing their strike at the sugar mill site.

15 November 2018

Why the Chabahar port waivers

On November 6, the U.S. government excluded Iranian Chabahar port from the latest round of sanctions. The Iranian regime called that a retreat on the part of the U.S. and its propaganda machine and highlighted it as a victory.

Iranian state-run Channel One television broadcasted on November 7: “After [other] countries didn’t follow to implement the sanctions, the American government was forced to exempt Chabahar port from the sanctions too. According to the U.S. state department announcement, following the waivers for eight countries that import oil from Iran out of fear that they won’t follow [the sanctions], Washington is now saying that putting a sanction waiver on the development project of Chabahar port is helping the economy of Afghanistan.”

Now, why did the U.S. really exempt Chabahar from sanctions and how much a role does the Iranian regime play in this?

Chabahar is a port city on the south-east end of Iran and has a strategic viewpoint on the Oman sea.

This port connects India to Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. Considering that for India, Chabahar port has the potential of enabling it to remove Pakistan, India’s archrival, from the transport equation of Indian goods to Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries, this port takes an important role for India. Now, creating a modern railway system that connects Chabahar to say Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia takes the whole idea to the next level. This is something that is planned and under way too.

That’s why India has negotiated and successfully received the rights to develop Chabahar port. 

Reports suggest that India has already invested around 500 million USD in Chabahar and has planned a $1.5-billion investment to build a series of roads and railways that connect the port to Central Asia. It’s worth noting that Chabahar port will reduce India’s costs and require time for transporting goods to Central Asia to a third of its current amount.

A spokesperson for the current U.S. administration recently said that its strategy towards Southern Asia builds around to pillars: Supporting the economic development of Afghanistan and creating a climate for a growing and close relationship with India.

On November 10, Entekhab website quoted an Indian newspaper and wrote: “The exemption of Chabahar port from the U.S. sanctions list against Iran is the product of massive efforts and pressure by New Delhi and Kabul on Washington, because [this port] has a strategic importance to the Indian and Afghan economy.”

According to Entekhab, these meetings have taken place in the most senior levels between Afghanistan and the U.S. and Ajit Doval, India’s national security advisor, has also raised the issue of Chabahar with his U.S. counterpart, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo, U.S. secretary of state.

Jahan Sanat newspaper, which focuses on economic issues, also wrote: “Since India considers China its competitor in its trading relationships with the U.S., the U.S. does not want China to weaken India in its own waters. Truth is that the exemption of Chabahar port from the sanctions regime is a response to this very Indian need so that it helps them to move beyond China…”

“It should be noted that this strategic joint venture—although it may bear fruit in the long term due to a cooperative trading approach by Kabul, Tehran and New Delhi—is a hopeless cause in short term because the U.S. with its investigations in Iran’s approach in operating Chabahar will create a situation where Iran can’t use this waiver for circumventing the sanctions regime,” Jahan Sanat adds.

IRNA news agency also writes: “The Chabahar issue has been raised in a number of meetings between Indian and American officials including in the recent two trips of Brian Hook, a senior U.S. official, to India.”

As you can see, even Iranian state-run media acknowledge that the exemption of Chabahar from the sanctions regime is in no way connected to the Iranian regime and is not a sign of U.S. weakness or retreat. It is rather a pragmatic approach in a complicated and broad regime of intelligent sanctions where the U.S. is protecting its own interests in the region while ensuring that the Iranian regime does not receive the economic benefits which it would had used for malevolent purposes anyways.

In order to avoid a positive feedback loop where the Iranian people and the international community are encouraged to keep the current course—one by increasing the sanction regime and the other by popular protests manifested in different ways—the Iranian regime has launched a propaganda campaign claiming that the sanctions have no real impact and will create no political change, it’s the poor and ill that are the primary targets of the sanctions—ignoring completely that there has never been an embargo on humanitarian goods like food, medicaments, etc.—and that the U.S. is isolated and has no help in its current policy.

Scoring the Chabahar waiver as a point for the mullahs’ team is clearly a desperate and pathetic move to cover the real perils the Iranian regime faces.

It’s also interesting how the Iranian regime’s lobbies in the West have taken up this same narrative and effectively legitimize and support a murderous regime that doesn’t shrink back from plotting terrorist attacks in Europe and the U.S.

14 November 2018

News just in: Ten youths executed in Gohardasht Prison and one in Zahdan

According to reports received today (15 November 2018), ten youths were executed in Gohardasht prison and one in Zahdan prison on charges of alleged murder and smuggling.

The names of six of those executed are:

Saman Yemini
Ali Iranshahi
Ali Amin Dukht
Reza Vaez Tehrani
Omid Rostami
Hassan Mangalou

No further news is currently available and will be made known as soon as we receive more information.

Note: See update further on

15 November 2018

12 Teachers Detained In Iran And 30 Others Summoned To Court After Teachers’ Strike

At least 12 teachers have been detained wile 30 activists were summoned and interrogated during a nationwide teachers’ strike on November 13 and 14.

In a November 15 statement published on Telegram the Teachers’ Trade Organizations’ Coordination Council said that more than 12 teachers were arrested since Sunday while at least 30 activists were summoned and interrogated.

“Activists were summoned to the Intelligence Agency, Revolutionary Guards Corps Intelligence Department, Protection Agencies and Security Police in almost all the provinces that participated in the strikes,” the statement said.

“At least 30 activists including Eskandar Lotfi, a member of the Iran Teachers’ Coordination Council were summoned and interrogated, while more than 50 threatening messages were received by activists.”

The Council said that more than 12 teachers were arrested since Sunday.

“Mohammad Reza Ramezanzadeh, the Secretary of the Iran Teachers’ Trade Association in North Khorasan Province, who was detained after the October strike and was just recently released, was arrested again after intelligence agents raided his home on Monday.

Following his arrest, five other members of the Managing Board of the North Khorasan Teachers’ Association were detained. They have been identified as Saied Hagh Parast, Ali Forotan, Hamidreza Rajaie, and Hossein Ramezanpour and were all taken to an unknown location,” the Teachers’ Trade Organizations’ Coordination Council said in its statement.

The Council reported that Pirouz Nami and Ali Korushat, two other activists were detained in Khuzestan Province. Security forces confiscated Mr. Nami’s phone and sent fake messages to other teachers saying that the strike had been cancelled.

Reports also indicate that another activist Mohammad Robati and Ms. Vaezi were arrested in Shirvan, northeast Iran.

Teachers and activists were also arrested in Fars and Arak. They include Mohammad Ali Zahmatkesh, Mohammad Kord and Fatemeh Bahmani.

While condemning the crackdown and arrests, the Teachers’ Trade Organizations’ Coordination Council warned the authorities against the consequences of arrests. 

The council also urged the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release the detainees, put an end to crackdown on trade unionists and framing up against them.

“It is obvious that if the suppression continues, the Coordination Council deems necessary the right hold legal protests based on the constitution,” the Council said.

Iranian teachers have went on a nationwide strike on November 13 and 14 to demand better working conditions for their poorly paid profession, one month after their last mass protest.

In a statement published on Telegram, the Coordinating Council of Teachers Syndicates in Iran said it was staging its “second round” of strikes since October to pressure the government to carry out educational reforms and end mismanagement. It said teachers also were protesting low wages and perceived violations of the educational rights of students and minorities.

The strikes and sit-ins were held despite various forms of threats and harassments by the regime’s repressive organs and forces and the summoning and arrests of a number of teacher activists.

The second day of the second round of strikes and sit-ins of teachers took place in more than 40 cities including Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Ahvaz, Mashhad, Yazd, Kermanshah, Ilam, Hamedan, Ardebil, Jolfa, Babol, Sari, Noshahr, Langrood, Karaj, Shahriar, Shahr-e Ray, Saveh, Sanandaj, Baneh, Saqqez, Marivan, Ivan-e Gharb, Sirvan, Chaboksar, Kazerun, Lamerd, Homayounshahr, Jam, Asaluyeh, Bushehr, Qazvin, Zanjan, Shahr-e Kord, and Charmahal-e Bakhtiari.

15 November 2018

Update: Ten youths executed in Gohardasht Prison and one in Zahdan:

Further to our report on the 10 youths executed in in Gohardasht Prison and one in Zahdan, we have now received the following confermation:

Iran Hangs 10 Prisoners On A Brutal Execution Binge

10 prisoners were hanged in a group execution on Wednesday, November 14, 2018 at Rajaei Shahr Prison of Karaj (not in Gorhardasht prison as earlier reported), west of the Iranian capital of Tehran.

The victims are include, Omid Rostami, Reza Vaez Tehrani, Hassan Moghanlou, Sam Sogand, Saman Yamini, Ali Iranshahi and Ali Amindokht.

Omid Rostami was sentenced to death for a crime he allegedly committed as a child. He had his execution scheduled then postponed at the last minute in February.

The eight were transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for their execution in a group of 14, six of whom were granted a chance to obtain the required diyeh or satisfaction of the victims’ families.

3 inmates identified as Hassan Moghanlou, Omid Rostami, & Reza Vaez Tehrani, were executed Wednesday at Rajaei Shahr Prison of Karaj.

Iran is responsible for over half of executions world over, according to Amnesty International.

Meanwhile, two other inmates convicted of illegal currency trading were also executed

Vahid Mazloumin a currency trader known as the “Sultan of Coins”, held at ward 8, was executed for amassing some two tonnes of gold coins.

Vahid Mazloumin and another member of his currency trading network received the death penalty for “spreading corruption on earth”.

Rights group Amnesty International described the executions as “horrific” and a violation of international law.

“Use of the death penalty is appalling under any circumstances,” Amnesty said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that under international law “the death penalty is absolutely forbidden for non-lethal crimes, such as financial corruption.”

Amnesty went on to say that the manner in which the trials were “fast-tracked” displayed a “brazen disregard” for due process.

15 November 2018

UN ADOPTS 65TH RESOLUTION CENSURING RIGHTS ABUSES IN IRAN 

“Condemning the systematic and gross violations of human rights by the theocratic regime ruling Iran, the UN resolution once again confirmed that the regime blatantly tramples upon the Iranian people’s most fundamental rights in all political, social and economic spheres,” said Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, in welcoming the 65thUN resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran.

“The Iranian regime is in no way congruous with the 21st century and must be isolated by the world community,” Mrs. Rajavi added.

The UN resolution stresses the “alarmingly high frequency” of the use of the death penalty including against minors, “the widespread and systematic use of arbitrary detention,” poor prison conditions “deliberately denying prisoners access to adequate medical treatment,” and “cases of suspicious deaths in custody.”

Considering the regime’s other crimes and repressive policies which the resolution fails to enumerate, including systematically assassinating opponents abroad, and depriving the people of Iran of their rights to decide their country’s fate, to enjoy the rule of law, to have access to fair trials, to have free access to information, and to form independent syndicates and unions for workers, students and government employees, it is safe to say that the Iranian regime is the most ruthless, aggressive violator of human rights in the world today.

The world community must therefore refer the dossiers of the regime’s crimes to the UN Security Council and recognize the right of the people of Iran to resist against so inhuman a regime.

Mrs. Rajavi reiterated, “The most vivid example of grave violations of human rights in Iran is the 1988 massacre of political prisoners perpetrated by the regime’s key institutions and leaders, who are still in power, still defend this crime, and remain immune from punishment. The world community faces a monumental test in investigating and prosecuting those responsible for this great crime against humanity.”