Milad Zahrevand, 21, a protester executed by the Iran regime in November 2023
Iran’s Security Forces Raped and Tortured Women’s Rights Protesters — Amnesty
Iran Updates: Nobel Prize Laureate Mohammadi on Regime’s “Execution Machine”
UPDATE 1322 GMT:
Iran President Ebrahim Raisi has reportedly cancelled a trip to Geneva after a legal complaint called on Swiss authorities to arrest him for “crimes against humanity”.
The complaint, filed by three surviving detainees, is based on Raisi’s role in the mass killing of thousands of political prisoners — claims are as high as 30,000 — in Iran in 1988. It asks Federal Public Prosecutor Andreas Muller to ensure Raisi’s arrest and prosecution “over his participation in acts of genocide, torture, extrajudicial executions, and other crimes against humanity”.
Raisi was expected to participate in the UN Global Refugee Forum, which begins Wednesday. The UN said Monday evening that Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian will now lead the Iranian delegation.
UPDATE, DEC 12:
Actor Mohammad Sadeghi has been sentenced to five years in prison over his support of women’s rights and the “Woman. Life. Freedom” Protests
Sadeghi posted on Instagram that he was convicted by a Revolutionary Court of “inciting people to war and slaughter against national security”.
The actor was arrested on July 16 in a raid on his home, days after he uploaded a video Instagram criticizing compulsory hijab.
Sadeghi’s family said on August 14 that he was denied access to legal representation after his arrest.
UPDATE, DEC 8:
A Revolutionary Court in Sari in northern Iran has sentenced three Baha’i citizens to prison, fines, and bans on educational activities.
Their “crime” was establishment of a kindergarten that used the Montessori educational method.
The method, developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori in the early 20th century, emphasizes hands-on learning and self-directed exploration in early childhood education.
The court said the Montessori method is an instrument of Baha’i indoctrination”.
Defendent Saha Sabeti received the harshest sentence, with 33 months in prison, a 13-year ban on working in education, and a fine of 37.5 million tomans ($750).
Her husband Behrouz Rahmani and their colleague Sanaz Alizadeh were each sentenced to 10-year bans on working in education and fines of 25 million tomans ($500).
The Iranian regime has subjected approximately 300,000 Baha’is to persecution, including executions, detentions, seizure of property, and bans on higher education and employment.
UPDATE 1511 GMT:
Supporters of detained rapper Toomaj Salehi say he was brutally re-arrested (see Original Entry) because of a video outlining his torture in prison.
Salehi was seized last Thursday by plainclothes agents on a street in Babol in northern Iran, 12 days after he was freed on bail when Iran’s Supreme Court found “flaws in the original sentence”.
The rap artist — well-known for his lyrics over corruption, widespread poverty, state executions, and the killing of protesters — was initially seized in October 2022, weeks after the start of nationwide “Woman. Life. Freedom” protests over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
After he was freed on bail, Salehi posted a video where he described the filing of a lawsuit over torture in prison. He described 12 hours of abuse by almost 60 agents, leaving him unconscious.
The video has been viewed almost 620,000 times.
Under brutal conditions, he suffered multiple strikes to his head and face, resulting in a broken leg and severe finger injuries. Despite these grave injuries, Toomaj endured solitary confinement for 20 days without any medical attention.
UPDATE, DEC 3:
Iran’s regime has executed at least 127 people, including women and juveniles, since 7 October, according to the Norway-based organizations Iran Human Rights and Hengaw.
The Observer cross-checked the lists, and Human Rights Activists in Iran confirmed the sharp increase in executions since the start of mass killings in Israel and Gaza.
The activists say that in many cases, Iran’s authorities have suddenly carried out executions in secret, without legal representation for the victims and notification of their families.
Those who have been abruptly hanged included Milad Zohrevand, 21, the eighth participant in the “Woman. Life. Freedom” protests to be killed, and Hossein Ali Dil Baluch, 27, condemned for drug offenses.
Baluch’s family say his sentence was reduced due to lack of evidence but then he was suddenly hanged in secret on October 19. Relative were not told in advance.
Moein Khazaeli, a human rights lawyer at Dadban, a center for counselling and legal education of activists, says:
In the majority of these cases, at least 95%, the defendants lacked legal representation and didn’t have a lawyer to support them.
“In most of the cases in the hands of the revolutionary court, the defendants didn’t even have access to the case files and didn’t even know what the accusations were.”
UPDATE, DEC 2:
The Iran regime’s surge in executions has continued with the killing of a political prisoner from the 1980s and a man detained during nationwide protests in 2019.
The Norway-based group Iran Human Rights said Geda Ali Saber Motlaq, 62, was initially arrested in the 1980s over links with the Mujahedin Organization of Iran and the alleged murder of an Iranian official. He was subsequently released due to insufficient evidence but was rearrested and sentenced to death after returning to Iran in 2020.
Kamran Rezaei was hanged on Thursday in Shiraz Central Prison over alleged involvement in the 2019 protests sparked by soaring fuel prices. He was accused of murder of a Basij militiaman. His supporters say he was coerced under torture to confess.
Iran’s authorities have reportedly executed more than 700 people this year, with a 30% rise in the first seven months of 2023 compared with the same period a year earlier. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said information “consistently indicated that [Iran’s] judicial proceedings did not fulfil the requirements for due process and a fair trial under international human rights law”.
Last Thursday, Milad Zohrevand, 21, was hanged at dawn in a prison in Hamadan in western Iran. He is the eighth participant in the “Woman. Life. Freedom” protests put to death.
A day later, Hamidreza Azari, 17, was hanged after he allegedly carried out an “honor” killing and was forced to “confess” under torture.
UPDATE 0919 GMT:
A coalition of civil society organizations, activists, writers, and artists, have signed a joint letter calling for the release of political prisoner Narges Mohammadi before she is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10.
Mohammadi, the Vice President of the Center for Defenders of Human Rights, was announced as the Nobel laureate on October 6 i “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”.
Detained for most of the period since 2011 and sentenced to 31 years and 154 lashes, she responded, “I will never stop striving for the realization of democracy, freedom and equality. Surely, the Nobel Peace Prize will make me more resilient, determined, hopeful, and enthusiastic on this path, and it will accelerate my pace.”
Joining the signatories on the letter organized by PEN America, Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert — a political prisoner in Iran from September 2018 to November 2020 — wrote of Mohammadi, “Your courage is exemplary, and your voice has a mighty resonance well beyond your prison walls. We hear you, and we are with you.”
ORIGINAL ENTRY, DEC 1: Prominent rapper Toomaj Salehi has been beaten and re-arrested over his support of Iran’s “Woman. Life. Freedom” protests.
Salehi was accosted on Thursday by plainclothes agents on a street in Babol in northern Iran.
The rap artist is well-known for his lyrics over corruption, widespread poverty, state executions, and the killing of protesters. His songs depict the widening gap between ordinary Iranians and the country’s leadership, accusing authorities of “suffocating” the people without regard for their well-being.
Soon after the death of Masha Amini —- detained and reportedly beaten by “morality police” —- in police custody in September 2022, Salehi supported nationwide demonstrations.
He commented, “We live somewhere horrific. You are dealing with a mafia that is ready to kill the nation…to keep its money, power, and weapons.”
Authorities acted quickly, seizing Salehi in October and detaining him in solitary confinement. He was condemned in July to six years and three months in prison on a charge of “corruption on Earth”.
He was released on bail on November 18 after Iran’s Supreme Court found “flaws in the original sentence” and returned the case to the lower court.
Oberlin College Strips Iran’s Ex-UN Envoy Of Teaching Position
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202312062038
Rape, Sexual Abuse Used Against Iranian Protesters, Says Amnesty International
https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-rape-sexual-abuse-protesters-amnesty/32716676.html
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/11/03/six-books-you-didnt-know-were-propaganda
“Azar Nafisi, an Iranian émigrée and professor of English, became famous in 2003 when she published her memoir of the Islamic revolution. “Reading Lolita in Tehran” was an instant hit in America, spending 117 weeks on the New York Times’s bestseller list. It’s the riveting story of eight Iranian women who meet secretly to study the novels of Nabokov, Gustave Flaubert and Henry James. Ms Nafisi’s students are children of the Islamic Republic who rebel against its book bans and the “putrid and deceptive hyperbole” of its rhetoric. That description does not apply to “Reading Lolita”, which deserves the admiration it gets. Yet it owes a debt to institutions that are not typical of literary memoirs. Ms Nafisi thanks the Smith Richardson Foundation, which seeks to “advance US interests and values abroad”, for a grant that helped her write the book. It is only through “literature that one can put oneself in someone else’s shoes”, Ms Nafisi writes. For Western readers, “Reading Lolita” is enlightening in the way that literature was for her students. It also supports a harsh judgment of Iran’s theocracy that America continues to hope will be influential.”
Alarm Raised Over Health of Political Prisoner on Hunger Strike
https://iranwire.com/en/prisoners/123196-alarm-raised-over-health-of-political-prisoner-on-hunger-strike/
Iranian Political Prisoner’s Phone Call Cut Off After He Mentioned “Torture”
https://iranwire.com/en/prisoners/123144-iranian-political-prisoners-phone-call-cut-off-after-he-mentioned-torture/
Reminder that Mahsa Amini, the woman whose death sparked the unrest, was on a cocktail of medicines to assist with post-operative surgery for a brain tumour: https://iranwire.com/en/politics/108499-mahsa-aminis-family-lawyers-sue-authorities-as-pressures-mount/
“The forensic report into Mahsa’s death also revealed that she had been prescribed three separate medicines for a thyroid condition related to her surgery. Nikbakht agreed that Mahsa was taking levothyroxine but only needed to take hydrocortisone and desmopressin occasionally. Her father said she had been taking her thyroid medicine as required. “The latest test that was taken from Mahsa was on August 11 of this year, and after seeing the results, the doctor did not change the dosage of the medicine and declared that Mahsa did not have any particular problem.”
Family lawyers accept she had been operated on as a child, but deny it played a role in her death: ” “According to the inquiries that we, as the lawyers in this case, have made by talking to neurosurgeons, surgery for a brain tumour that was performed on Mahsa 15 years ago did not have any part to play in her death, which occurred about 100 minutes after her arrest.”
I see, so medications caused her skull to fracture not the beating
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202209195410
Iranian agents plotting to stoke tensions during pro-Gaza protests, UK police sources say: https://www.businessinsider.com/iran-agents-plotting-to-stoke-tensions-at-gaza-protests-uk-police-2023-10?r=US&IR=T
This is old news now, but it it is interesting that the British authorities claim that Iran is fomenting pro-Palestinian protests in the UK, and it is believed by the media.
Thousands of workers at Esfehan smelters complex go on strike for their conditions
https://www.radiofarda.com/a/workers-strike-iran/32711010.html
At least 118 Kolbars Killed or Wounded in Western Iran Last Month
https://iranwire.com/en/news/123084-at-least-118-kolbars-killed-or-wounded-in-western-iran-last-month/