Iran

It also highlights how states, and state-sponsored social media, incite hatred and publish propaganda against Christians, especially in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.

In 2020, Mary Mohammadi was taken to a detention center near Iran’s capital Tehran. Officials told her that her hair was visible. In the basement of the all-female detention center, Mary was forced to strip. “If my hair is a problem, is it not a problem to force me to take off all my clothes? Is this Islamic?,” Mary told Firstpost in an exclusive conversation. The incident was part of the sexual violence that the regime has been using to suppress female protesters and activists, Mary said. “During protests, security personnel touch female demonstrators inappropriately. They want to make women fearful of stepping out,” she said. 24-year-old Mary has been on the radar of Iranian officials for several reasons. Born to a Muslim family, she converted to Christianity in 2017. Christian converts and other religious minorities like the Bahais are not recognised in Iran. Over the last few years, Mary has faced persecution from the authorities in the form of arrests and interrogations due to her faith as well as activism. The personnel who transferred her to the detention center in 2020 belonged to the morality police which is currently in the eye of the storm due to the death of Mahsa Amini which has triggered nationwide protests in Iran. But it’s not just the morality police who target women for not wearing the mandatory hijab or a head scarf or wearing it improperly. According to Mary “radical Muslims do it too.” In 2019, Mary was on a bus in Tehran. It was a hot day and she had taken off her hijab. Suddenly a fully veiled woman approached Mary and asked her to cover her hair. “When I refused, an argument ensued during which the woman attacked me & my face was left bloodied,” Mary said. The activist somehow managed to take the woman to the police station. According to Mary, the officers dissuaded her from filing a complaint and even threatened her with arrest. “They (police) were very kind to that woman. They let her go at 10 pm but kept me in custody till 3 am,” she added. “Radical Muslims can even attack minorities in public because the regime is behind them, “Islamic hijab is mandatory in Iran even for non-Muslims. I am a Christian but I must wear hijab,” she said. Mary’s activism and faith also took a personal toll. Without giving any reason, her university barred her from appearing in exams. But what was more hurtful for Mary was the treatment meted out to her by a former employer who was also a close friend. “The gymnast training center where I worked was shut down during the COVID lockdown. I kept asking my employers when I can return and they told me and they are still closed,” Mary said. One day, the activist turned up at the center unannounced and saw that it was fully operational. Mary was not given her job back and believes that her employer and the university faced pressure from the authorities.

Constant threats that Mary said were from the authorities forced her to flee Iran in February 2022. The activist who is currently living in the US told Firstpost that in her home country security forces “continue to use sexual violence in the ongoing protests.”…

Also speaking at the general session, prominent Lebanese scholar Walid Muhammad Ali said: I am of the opinion that Islamic Revolution in Iran led to a strategic development in the Palestinian issue.

Source: Al-Alam Network (Iran)

Interviewer: Are you referring to the doubts over the extent of what occurred?

Walid Muhammad Ali: Indeed, this is a matter of research, yet it is considered taboo in the West, because, obviously, the figures are inflated...

Two years ago Salman Rushdie joined prominent cultural figures signing an open letter decrying an increasingly "intolerant climate" and warning that the "free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted." It was a declaration of principles Mr. Rushdie had embodied since 1989, when a fatwa by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, calling for his murder, made him a reluctant symbol of free speech…. In the West, the defense of Mr. Rushdie was hardly universally robust. Former president Jimmy Carter, writing in The New York Times in 1989, denounced the fatwa but charged Rushdie with "vilifying" the Prophet Muhammad and "defaming" the Quran.

"While Rushdie’s First Amendment freedoms are important," he wrote, "we have tended to promote him and his book with little acknowledgment that it is a direct insult to those millions of Moslems whose sacred beliefs have been violated and are suffering in restrained silence the added embarrassment of the Ayatollah's irresponsibility."… Some who weighed in said the stakes are simply too high — and too personal. After the attack, Roya Hakakian, an Iranian American writer who in 2019 was warned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that she had been targeted by Iran, took to Twitter on Saturday to assail what she said was a lack of swift condemnation from U.S. government officials…. In an interview on Sunday, Ms. Hakakian, who came to the United States as a refugee in 1984, said that the heart of the Rushdie case is "being able to say that we, as writers, as novelists, as thinkers, can absolutely take on any issue we want in our works — and that includes Islam." But "nobody is saying that," she said. Instead, "people are paying lip service to free speech." In his recent autobiographical novel "Homeland Elegies," the American writer Ayad Akhtar reflects on the complex meanings of the “Satanic Verses” controversy for Muslim readers and writers, including himself. In an email on Sunday, Mr. Akhtar, who is PEN America’s current president, said the attack on Mr. Rushdie is "a reminder that ‘harms’ of speech and the freedom of speech do not, cannot, hold equal claims on us." "While we may rightly acknowledge that speech can harm," he said, "it’s in the terrible culmination of Salman's dilemma that we see the paramount value, the absolute centrality of freedom of thought and the freedom to express that thought.” For many, defending Mr. Rushdie and "The Satanic Verses" against his would-be assassins may be easy, Mr. Akhtar said. But the defense also "has to apply where we have less unanimity, where we are more implicated."

"That’s what it means," he said, "for it to be a principle."

Hadi Matar, 24, was arrested after he stormed the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York and allegedly stabbed the author in the neck.

Carl LeVan, an American University politics professor attending the event, told AFP he saw the suspect run onto the stage where Rushdie was seated and "stabbed him repeatedly and viciously."

While the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses" has for some time not been part of daily discourse in Iran, the clerical leadership under his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also did nothing to indicate it no longer stood and on occasions underlined the decree was still valid. The multiple stabbing of Rushdie at an event in New York comes at an intensely sensitive time for Iran, as it considers an offer by world powers to revive the 2015 deal on its nuclear programme which would ease sanctions that have battered the economy. During a period of relative thaw between Tehran and the West under former president Mohammad Khatami, ex-foreign minister Kamal Kharazi had in 1998 pledged that Iran would not take steps to endanger the life of Rushdie, who for years was in hiding.

But an answer posted to a question on Khamenei's website Khamenei.ir in February 2017 said that the fatwa was still valid. "Answer: The decree is as Imam Khomeini issued," it said. The @khamenei_ir Twitter account, which repeats Khamenei's views and activists have repeatedly said should be suspended, in 2019 posted that the fatwa was "solid and irrevocable". Activists also insist that a bounty of over 3 million dollars for Rushdie's life offered by Iran's 15 Khordad Foundation remains on offer.

'Real Islamic republic'

“Whether today's assassination attempt was ordered directly by Tehran or not, it is almost certainly the result of 30 years of the regime's incitement to violence against this celebrated author," said the Washington-based National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI).

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an opposition group outlawed in Iran, said that the attack had taken place at the "instigation" of Khomeini's fatwa.

Intel officials told VICE World News Hadi Matar had been in contact with members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. ..

The 24-year-old man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie had been in direct contact with members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on social media, European and Middle Eastern intelligence officials told VICE World News. Hadi Matar has been charged with attempted murder after Rushdie, 75, was repeatedly stabbed on stage ahead of a speaking event in Chautauqua, New York, on Friday. On Sunday, Rushdie’s son Zafar Rushdie said his father was in a critical condition and had sustained “life-changing” injuries but had been taken off a ventilator and had been able to speak.

A NATO counterterrorism official from a European country said the stabbing had all the hallmarks of a “guided” attack, where an intelligence service talks a supporter into action, without direct support or involvement in the attack itself.

“Close scrutiny needs to be paid to his communications,” said the NATO official, who was not authorised to speak on the record. “More investigation will reveal more information on the exact nature of the links.”... Security officials who confirmed the social media contact would not elaborate on the nature of the communications because investigations are ongoing. They would not disclose who initiated the contact, when it took place, or what was discussed.

A Middle Eastern intelligence official said it was “clear” that at some point prior to the attack, Matar had been in contact with “people either directly involved with or adjacent to the Quds Force,” referring to the Revolutionary Guard’s external operations force...

The embassy's cultural affairs officer, Imam Mohsen Rabbani, rose. "Israel," he intoned in accented Spanish, "must disappear from the face of the Earth." He and a dozen speakers who followed quoted Iran's late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and called for unity in the fight against Zionism and the satanism of the West

Mohsen Rabbani, who in 1991 stood before a group of Shi'ite Muslims and radical right-wing Argentine activists and stated openly, “Israel must disappear from the face of the Earth,” to universal applause.

One of Iran’s most influential ruling clerics called on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only". The speech by former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani failed to catch the attention of the western press but made waves in the Middle East. "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in its possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran. In Washington Sunday, administration officials said the United States does not plan to target Iran in the war against terrorism.  "Iran is a situation where there are clearly some pressures from young people, there are pressures from women in that country," U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "Iran had a different history than Iraq.  I don't know, if nothing else happened and one looked at those two countries, I would say the likelihood of Iraq reforming itself is zero.  The possibility, the remote possibility of Iran reforming itself is considerably above zero." Dr. Assad Homayou, president of the Azadegan Foundation in Washington, D.C. agreed.   "To me the issue is not nuclear weapons but the responsibility of the regime," he said. "This regime is not responsible and that is why I have always emphasized that the removal of this regime is imperative. As the U.S. secretary of defense said the situation with Iran is different from that of Iraq. People only need the moral support of the United States." Analysts told the Iranian Press Service that  Rafsanjani's speech marks the first time a prominent leader of the Islamic Republic had openly suggested the use of nuclear weapon against the Jewish State. Rafsanjani advised Western states not to pin their hopes on Israel's violence because it will be "very dangerous". "We are not willing to see security in the world is harmed", he said, warning that a war "of the pious and martyrdom seeking forces against peaks of colonialism will be highly dangerous and might fan flames of World War III." Rafsanjani, who, as the Chairman of the Assembly to Discern the Interests of the State, is the Islamic Republic’s number two man after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He was speaking on "International Qods (Jerusalem) Day" which is celebrated in Iran only.      The Pentagon, which has pressed for a second stage in the U.S. war against terrorism, does not support any military campaign against Iran. Instead, officials have urged that Washington target the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.        On Monday, Iranian President Mohammed Khatami said the stifling of dissent in the country could spark a new wave of student protests, Middle East Newsline reported. Over the last 20 months, officials said, 56 publications have been closed. This includes 24 daily newspapers.

    U.S. officials acknowledge that Iran is more advanced than Iraq in both missile development and weapons of mass destruction. They said that Iran, with Russian help, has succeeded in advancing its nuclear project and they could arrive at weapons capability as early as 2005.

An even more ominous threat was anuttered on January 31, 2002, by Ahmadinejad's superior, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who called for continued terrorism against the “cancerous tumor of Zionism . .,” a biological metaphor often used by political leaders to express genocidal intend.

“The Iranian nation is standing for its cause and that is the full annihilation of Israel,” Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi said in a speech...

Commander of Revolutionary Guard Mohammad Ali Jafari claims Iran will ‘destroy the Jewish state’

In claim prominently reported in Iran, Major General Hossein Salami declares Tehran able to annihilate 'the impostor Zionist regime'

By AFP and TOI STAFF, 30 September, 2019.

“Khamenei's threats to carry out ‘The Final Solution’ against Israel bring to mind the Nazi 'Final Solution' plan to annihilate the Jewish People,” the Israeli prime minister's office wrote on Twitter.

"We will not back off from the annihilation of Israel, even one millimeter..."

Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, a top-level spokesperson for Iran's armed forces, called for the destruction of Israel on Saturday.

Iran threatens retaliation for killing IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) men in attack on Syria ...

The Iranian leader's mouthpiece, 'Kayhan', wrote in its editorial (March 10) that "the time has come to teach an unforgettable lesson to the Zionist entity during the few years left until its eventual eradication from Palestinian land. Israel is wrong if it thinks it has nuclear weapons, from which the International Atomic Energy Agency has hidden an eye, will save it from destruction." At the funeral, the words of the Iranian leader in 2015 were mentioned, according to which Israel will cease to exist for another 25 years, and it was emphasized that the action in Syria is approaching this date.

The suspect in the assassination attempt is a member of the Revolutionary Guards. • He was arrested and taken for questioning in a European country.

The Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has invited one of its agents to assassinate an employee of the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, according to a report by a US general and French diplomatic sources.

According to the report, the agent is currently under arrest in Europe. He belongs to Unit 840 of the Quds Force, which deals with opponents of the Islamic Republic. He admitted that he received $ 150,000 for the preparations for the assassination, and was supposed to receive $ 1 million after he managed to eliminate the 3 targets. Yesterday marked "Jerusalem Day" in Iran, during which masses took to the streets and there were a series of demonstrations of rage and aggressive speeches. The head of the Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, said: "Israel is creating the conditions for its destruction..."

Last February, an attempt to assassinate Israeli businessman Yair Geller in Turkey was thwarted. Israeli and Turkish intelligence forces worked together to thwart the assassination attempt, which came as revenge and in response to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Muhsin Fakhrizada in 2020.

“Khamenei's threats to carry out ‘The Final Solution’ against Israel bring to mind the Nazi 'Final Solution' plan to annihilate the Jewish People,” the Israeli prime minister's office wrote on Twitter.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei uses his social media accounts to spread hatred, violence, and dangerous disinformation.

DUBAI: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is notorious for using his Twitter accounts to incite hate, violence and disinformation.

A top Twitter executive who took part in a Knesset hearing on Wednesday declined to say why her company had not taken action against genocidal incitement by Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei...

Arsen Ostrovsky @Ostrov_A:

I kid you not! At Knesset hearing on Antisemitism, @Twitter rep tells me they flag @realDonaldTrump because it serves ‘public conversation’, but not Iran's @khamenei_ir call for GENOCIDE, which passes for acceptable 'commentary on political issues of the day'.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day & QudsDay2022 eve, Iran paper KAYHAN affiliated to Khamenei attacks Jews in a very Antisemitic article: "Jews killed [sic] the Shiite leaders" & praises Hitler "because he was wise [sic] so he tried to get rid of them"!

Yesterday, in an interview with the Khabar Sports newspaper, Mohammad Ali Geraei, the world wrestling champion, talked about his love for Zlatan, Muhammad Ali, the legend of boxing and Esteghlal Club, and in a part of his speech, he mentioned "Hitler" as his legend among all the people in the world. He introduced the title of someone who had "great thoughts" in his head!

But the question is, how is the education system in Iran that Adolf #Hitler, as one of the biggest criminals in history and the initiator of World War II, becomes a legend of a national hero?

A week before the International Holocaust Day, the UN rally adopted in consensus and despite Iran resistance, decision against Holocaust denial. The decision sets for the first time and gives practical tools - but it is only symbolic. Ambassador at UN Erdan: "The Internet becomes an increase of forgery and fraud. No one will distort our history."

Gilad Erdan at the General Rally of the United Nations Before the decision against Holocaust Holocaust President Historical Achievement to Israel a week before the International Holocaust Day and the 80th day to the conference The decision joined 112 countries. Iran opposed the offer ... But there was no voting, since the understanding that would lose in most overwhelming and the proposal would pass.

In the end the proposal went through a full consensus without voting. This is the second time in history that the UN efforts to decide that Israel initiated. The previous decision received 17 years ago, the international Holocaust stipulated today. The decision presents the definition for the Holocaust denial and assimilates responsibility for Internet companies to operate to remove contaminants or distort the Holocaust and reading to the United Nations Companies and the UN institutions to act against Holocaust denial and maintain programs The decision to first give practical tools to war in denial of the Holocaust and distorted.

... "When Adolf Eichmann, the "final solution" architect, was on trial in Israel, the Attorney General Open the prosecution in these moving words: 'At this place, where I stand before you - I do not stand alone; with me are here at this time six million prosecutors. But they can not get up on their feet or point a finger.' I'm here too with six million prosecutors today. But while this decision preserves the memory of six million victims of the past, its purpose is to protect the countless victims of the future."

Following the decision, Arden met with the UN Secretary-General, along with the German Ambassador and Holocaust survivors invited to the UN by the Ambassador. Arden said at the meeting that "this is a historic day and the decision we made today on our own initiative is of great importance.

The fact that over 100 countries have joined us that have determined that Holocaust deniers and perversions must be fought - will give us real tools to act against them and also demand responsibility from Internet companies. I thank the UN Secretary-General for his commitment to the fight against anti-Semitism and the war on Holocaust denial, and I thank the German ambassador for joining our initiative and helping to pass it on."

Holocaust denial in which the Iranian regime is involved up to the neck is also related to the vision of the destruction of Israel, since the Holocaust provides legitimacy for its establishment and existence. Tehran supports Holocaust deniers (the best known of whom was Roger Garaudy) and organizes "academic" conferences on the subject. In January this year, Iran was the only country to oppose the UN resolution against Holocaust denial.

The UN General Assembly on Thursday agreed on a definition of denial of the Holocaust and urged social media companies "to take active measures" to combat antisemitism.

"The General Assembly is sending a strong and unambiguous message against the denial or the distortion of these historical facts," said Germany's UN Ambassador Antje Leendertse. "Ignoring historical facts increases the risk that they will be repeated."

While the 193-member General Assembly adopted the resolution - drafted by Israel and Germany - without a vote, Iran disassociated itself from the text over Israel's "occupation of Palestine and parts of Syria and Lebanon."

Israel's UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran's statement.

The General Assembly resolution spelled out that distortion and denial of the Holocaust refers to Intentional efforts to excuse or minimize the impact of the Holocaust, gross minimization of the number of the victims in contradiction to reliable sources and attempts to blame the Jews for causing their own genocide.

The resolution also said statements that cast the Holocaust as a positive historical event constitute denial, and "urges member states and social media companies to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion by means of information and communications technologies and to facilitate reporting of such content."

This piece originally appeared in El País [3]. This year marks 25 years of impunity following the terrible terrorist attack against the headquarters of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in Buenos Aires. On July 18, 1994, following multiple warnings about the possibility of a new attack at the hands of Iran and its Hezbollah henchmen, and after the bombing in 1992 of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, a van loaded with explosives detonated in front of the building that represented the institutional heart of Judaism in Argentina. The attack left 85 civilians dead and over 300 injured of multiple nationalities. The attack is considered the worst antisemitic attack in the world since World War II. It shook Argentine society to its core and created a deep sense of vulnerability in the Jewish world at large. Beyond the many surprising twists and turns in a case that is yet to be deciphered, and despite continuous declarations of commitment from governments that pledge to carry the investigation to its final conclusion, the Argentine government still comes up short. There have been low points, such as the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran by president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, which resulted in condemnation by the Jewish communities in Argentina and around the world, and more importantly, by the relatives of the victims. However, from the outset, evidence tampering, the slow pace with which evidence was processed, and extreme politicization have been obstacles to bringing the culprits to justice. There have been, however, some glimmers of light on a road marked mostly by darkness. One of the few concrete steps toward explaining the motives behind the attack,which singled out the international perpetrators of what is now known as a crime against humanity, was the investigation by Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman. Nisman’s premature and regrettable death remains a mystery.

Nisman concluded for the first time and beyond doubt that Iranian authorities at the highest levels were the masterminds behind the attack. In 2007, during an Interpol meeting in Morocco, Nisman presented his report. After months of debate and repeated attempts by the Iranian government to sabotage the process, “red notices” were issued against five Iranian government officials.

It has been 25 years since the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Eighty-five people were killed and hundreds wounded. Despite evidence of Iran and Hezbollah's roles in the attack, to date, no one has been held accountable. The Latin American Program's Argentina Project, in partnership with The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), hosted a public seminar discussing the anniversary of the bombing and implications for counterterrorism challenges globally.

July 19, 1994, Panama.

Ali Hawa Jamal. He is suspected of carrying the bomb aboard the aircraft.  

According to reports, an unidentified Middle Eastern male used the stolen credit card of a US citizen to rent a Mazda 4x4 at a Vantage Rent-a-Car located in Panama City, Panama, on May 27, 1994...

Sources tell Lebanese paper that Iran-backed Ansar Allah is cultivating ties with al-Qaida affiliates.

Ansar Allah was unknown until July 1994, when it issued a statement expressing support for the deadly bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Hezbollah and Iran are widely suspected to have been behind that attack, which killed 85 people.

Ansar Allah and Hezbollah are also suspected of involvement in another terror attack, the bombing of a commuter aircraft, Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901, in Panama on the night of July 19, 1994 – a day after the AMIA bombing. A semtex plastic explosive charge, carried by a man calling himself Lya Jamal, went off killing 21 passengers, 12 of them Jewish.

Panama

On 19 July a bomb aboard a commuter plane flying between Colon and Panama City detonated, killing all 21 persons aboard, including three American citizens. Twelve of the passengers were Jews. According to media reports, an organization using the name Ansar Allah, or Followers of God, issued a statement expressing support for the bombing, which appeared to be a suicide operation by a person with a Middle Eastern name. Panama has made no arrests in connection with the bombing, but it is cooperating closely with a US law enforcement investigation.

[Image caption, The bombing of the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (Amia) Jewish community in Buenos Aires shocked the world].

A plane crash in Panama in 1994 that killed 21 people, many of them Jews, was the result of a terrorist incident, Panama's president has said.

Juan Carlos Varela said the evidence came from Israeli intelligence and he had asked for the case to be reopened.

Prominent Jewish businessmen were among those on board the plane that crashed shortly after take off on 19 July 1994.

The crash happened the day after a bombing at a Jewish centre in the Argentine capital, killing 85 people.

Speaking to reporters in Panama on Monday, President Varela said he would ask local and international authorities to reopen the investigation into the plane crash, "given intelligence reports that clearly show it was a terrorist attack".

He has just returned from Israel, where he met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At a joint news conference there, he referred to a letter he received from Mr Netanyahu last November "confirming that I lost my roommate and a senior member of the Panamanian Jewish community to a terrorist attack conducted by Hezbollah in Panama some years ago".

Nineteen passengers and three crew members were on board Alas Chiricanas Airlines Flight 901 to Panama City when it exploded shortly after take off from Enrique Jimenez airport in Colon. Twelve of the passengers were Jews.

At the time, the country's President-elect Ernesto Perez Balladares said it appeared that a bomb had exploded inside the cabin, but this was never confirmed.

The FBI has previously said that a man named Ali Hawa Jamal was believed to have carried the bomb on to the plane and died in the explosion. He was described as being around 25-28 years old, of Middle Eastern appearance, and had previously travelled to Lebanon, Venezuela and Colombia.

... In Panama, investigations have centered on a passenger named Ali Hawa Jamal, who is believed to have detonated a bomb concealed in a radio. An FBI statement said Jamal was the only person aboard whose body was never claimed.

The FBI suspects Jamal belonged to the same Shiite Hezbollah group that, one day earlier, had detonated a car-bomb that killed 85 people and injured hundreds of people at the headquarters of a Jewish charity in Buenos Aires, the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association.

‘Aduk’ group, masquerading as a nationalist and ultra-Orthodox news outlet, redistributed extremist and anti-Muslim material to encourage attacks on Arab Israelis, BBC says.

Iran is suspected of setting up a social media network targeting Israeli nationalist and ultra-Orthodox Jews in order to encourage violence against Arab Israelis and stoke tensions in the country, according to a Thursday report by the BBC. According to the Israeli disinformation watchdog FakeReporter, which uncovered the group’s suspected Iranian origin, its goal was to help fuel “religious war” by amplifying “fear, hatred and chaos.”

According to the report, the “Aduk” or “strictly religious” group presented itself as a “virtual religious union for the religious public.”

According to watchdog group FakeReporter, the on-line ultra-Orthodox group "Aduk" was, in fact, an Iranian unit that sought to amplify "fear, hatred, and chaos" in Israeli society.

According to York University's Farhad Rezaei, what distinguishes Iran when it comes to persecution of Christians is that it is pursuing a "strategy of eliminationism" – an organized, unrelenting, Nazi-like campaign to reduce the Christian presence in the Middle East.

The West is missing a critical component of the story when it comes to the persecution of Middle East Christians, said Farhad Rezaei, a visiting lecturer at Toronto-based York University, during a Zoom presentation on Feb. 22. And that missing element is Iran.

In the presentation – sponsored by The Philos Project, a Christian group advocating for pluralism in the Near East – Rezaei explained that Iran plays a central role in the destruction of Christian communities, specifically in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. The mainstream Western media narrative is that "only jihadists," such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, are behind the persecution of Christians in the region, said Rezaei, who is also a senior fellow at the Philos Project.

"The reality is much more complex than the simple image that jihadists came around and killed Christians," he said.

According to Rezaei, what distinguishes Iran when it comes to persecution of Christians is that it is pursuing a "strategy of eliminationism" – an organized, unrelenting, Nazi-like campaign to reduce the Christian presence in the Middle East. "Eliminationism" means shrinking the Christian communities by making life for them unbearable, including through confiscation of private property, arbitrary detention, torture, public incitement, abduction and killing, explained Rezaei, who spent seven months researching this subject and will be releasing a report with his findings in the coming weeks. Rezaei provided an overview of the dramatic decline in the Christian population in the aforementioned countries. In Iraq, before 2003, the Christian population stood at 1.5 million. It is currently between 141,000-171,000, or 0.3% of the population. He noted that most of the Christians were pushed out by Shi'ite militias. He described the Christians in Iraq as "the undisputed losers of the sectarian conflict."

In Syria, before 2011, the Christian population was 2.3 million. It's now 677,000. Before Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was forced to rely on Iranian help during the Syrian Civil War, he left his Christian minorities alone. Rezaei said it was the Iranians acting as military advisors to the Syrian army who introduced the eliminationist strategy into Syria. "In some cases, the Iranians and the Lebanese Hezbollah wore the uniform of the Assad regime army [to hide their identity], but the local people understood that they were from Hezbollah and Iranians by their accent," he said.

Rezaei noted that in Yemen, where the Iranian-supported Shi'ite Houthis have taken over large swaths of the country, the Christian population has dropped from 40,000 to 3,000. In Lebanon, where the Iranian-supported Hezbollah dominate, the Christian population has been reduced from 54% to 34% of the total population.

Rezaei cites two main reasons why the Iranians are implementing their eliminationist plan. One is strategic. Iran wants to build a land bridge to the Mediterranean, and Christian communities sit squarely along that route. The second is ideological – Khomeinism or "new Shi'ism" views Christians and Jews as "pollution," Rezaei said. While he said it is true that Shi'ism contains anti-Christian and anti-Jewish elements, it was "quietist" and minorities were largely left alone if they paid a jizyah tax, a yearly per capita levy on non-Muslims. This changed with Khomeini's rise. Khomeini and another important cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, were strongly influenced by Egypt's Sayyid Qutb, the leading member of the Muslim brotherhood and "father of Salafi Jihadism, or global terrorism," Rezaei said.

Mesbah-Yazdi opened the Haghani seminary. "Most of the senior members of the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) are disciples of Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazidi. They are all graduates of the Haghani school," he said. Mesbah-Yazdi rejected the concept of universal human rights, considering it a product of the Judeo-Christian tradition. "He developed his own version of Islamic human rights and obligations. And according to this version of human rights, Muslims basically have the right to kill their religious enemies," Rezaei said. He said the Iranians learned from the Nazis. "Although they deny the Holocaust, they have learned a lot from the Holocaust. However, they understood that they cannot destroy Christians and Jews by the same methods that the Nazis implemented in Germany, like using gas chambers and genocide, so they came up with a different scheme. And that was the strategy of eliminationism."

Raymond Ibrahim, a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and author of Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, agreed that "we shouldn't focus too much on ISIS and the radical groups because they're just the tip of the iceberg," and that Iran is one of the worst actors. But he noted that when looking at the global picture, the lion's share of Muslim persecution goes on in Sunni countries, if for no other reason than that there are more of them.

Citing the recently released report "2022 World Watch List," by the pro-Christian NGO Open Doors, which ranks the top 50 worst countries for Christian persecution, Ibrahim noted that Iran ranks ninth. Most of those ranking higher are either Sunni countries or countries with large Sunni populations. Rezaei said the purpose of his report isn't to deny the persecution committed in Sunni countries. "What I'm trying to say is that the Iranians persecute Christian minorities in an organized way, just like the Nazi Germans persecuted Jews," he said, noting that in Sunni countries like Pakistan, for example, the persecution may be intense, but it's not a top-down, nationally organized effort.

Both Ibrahim and Rezaei agree that the larger, mainstream human rights groups fail to address the problem. Ibrahim suggested that one possible reason for this failure is that they're eager to prove that they're not "tribalistic," leading them to shy away from helping fellow Christians. "Also, I think a lot of it is their internal animosity for their own heritage, upon which has been heaped all sorts of sins, both real and imagined. There's an animosity for Christianity amongst descendants of Christians," Ibrahim said.

Rezaei said there's still hope for the Christian communities plagued by Iran and its proxies, but a united effort by Western nations is essential. He expects that little headway can be made in the current climate, in which the Biden administration seeks to appease Iran, but "that said, it doesn't mean we should stay silent."

Some 12 missiles were fired from Iranian territory and fell near the US consulate in Erbil in northwestern Iraq on Saturday night.

The Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism Service announced that 12 ballistic missiles were fired from "outside the borders of Iraq and the Kurdistan region, specifically from the east," according to the Iraqi News Agency (INA).

Independent open-source intelligence (OSINT) accounts shared videos reportedly shared by Iranian civilians showing missiles being fired from Iran at the time of the attack, with at least one of the videos being geolocated to a site in Khasabad in the East Azerbaijan province of Iran.

Indeed, I have not seen a united Iraq around anything for a long time. Condemnations all-over-the-map [in Iraq] against Iran following the missile attack, from Erbil to Baghdad, including the "crowner" of kings Shiite preacher Muqtada al-Sadr. Why is this interesting? Because the shooting of the Iranians takes place on days when there is some breakthrough in the contacts for the formation of the government with the participation of factions affiliated with Iran.

Update from @EricSchmittNYT: A senior Biden administration official refuted the earlier comment by a US official, saying the administration believes that the building that was hit was a civilian residence only and did not also serve as an Israeli training site.

@farnazfassihi @EricSchmittNYT Seriously? This is extremely unprofessional and dangerous reporting. Your previous claims have only fuelled Iranian propaganda & will enable further attacks on Iraq.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Saturday night that “Israel extends its hand back in peace” in response to a Friday meeting of over 300 prominent Iraqis calling for their country to normalize ties with the Jewish state.

“Hundreds of Iraqi public figures, Sunnis and Shiites, gathered yesterday to call for peace with Israel,” Bennett said in a tweet.

“This is a call that comes from below and not from above, from the people and not from the government, and the recognition of the historical injustice done to the Jews of Iraq is especially important.”

“The State of Israel extends its hand back in peace,” the prime minister added...

At Friday’s conference in the Kurdistan region, Iraqi participants called on their country’s leaders to end the state of war and join the so-called Abraham Accords.

The agreements, formulated by the administration of former United States president Donald Trump, were signed on the White House lawn in September 2020 between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Morocco and Sudan signed normalization agreements with Israel in the ensuing months.

“We demand full diplomatic relations with the State of Israel… and a new policy of normalization based on people-to-people relations with the citizens of that country,” said Wisam al-Hardan, who commanded Sunni tribal militias that aligned with the US to fight al-Qaeda in 2005, in response to the power vacuum that followed the 2003 American invasion...

The gathering, which included Sunni and Shiite Muslim tribal leaders, social activists and former military commanders, took place in Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital of Erbil. It was organized by the Center for Peace Communications, a New York-based nonprofit that seeks to advance closer ties between Israelis and the Arab world.

Other attendees from around the region spoke virtually to the participants, including former UAE official Ali al-Na’imi and Chemi Peres, the son of former Israeli president Shimon Peres.

Calling the expulsion of Iraq’s Jews “the most infamous act” in the country’s decline, al-Hardan said that Iraq “must reconnect with the whole of our diaspora, including these Jews.”

Other Iraqis who participated in the conference urged their country to rebuild ties with those who arrived in Israel fleeing persecution, as well as their descendants..

A flourishing Iraqi Jewish community lived in the country for centuries, mostly in the central city of Baghdad. But as British colonial rule ended in Iraq and the State of Israel was born in Mandatory Palestine, everything began to change.

A vicious 1941 pogrom, known in Arabic as the Farhud, saw the deaths of hundreds of Iraqi Jews at the hands of their compatriots in Baghdad. The attacks were sparked by rumors that Jews had helped the British retake power in Iraq following a coup by pro-Nazi Iraqi generals.

After Israel was founded in 1948, Iraq began persecuting those Jews who remained. The government made Zionism a criminal offense and began firing Iraqi Jews from the civil service en masse. Other Jewish Iraqis were arrested and executed as suspected spies.

Between 1950 and 1952, over 100,000 Iraqi Jews emigrated to Israel as part of Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. With others driven to emigrate by further decades of repression and war, only a handful of Jews remain.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi addresses the nation following a drone strike that targeted his residence in Baghdad on November 7. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi addresses the nation following a drone strike that targeted his residence in Baghdad on November 7.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an attack by an armed drone on his residence on November 7 amid escalating tensions over the refusal of Iran-backed militias to accept last month's parliamentary election results.

The Baghdad residence inside the city's fortified Green Zone was hit by a rocket attack early on November 7, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Kadhimi was unharmed in the attack, which the statement said was a “failed assassination attempt.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau thwarted an Iranian government-backed cyberattack against Boston Children’s Hospital in 2021.

Two fake Homeland agents - one 'with ties to Pakistani intelligence and multiple Iranian visas' - spent 18 months 'infiltrating and buying gifts for Jill Biden's Secret Service detail' in luxury DC building where they all lived and partied.

WASHINGTON — One of two men accused of impersonating federal agents and giving actual Secret Service agents gifts and free apartments in Washington has claimed to have ties to Pakistani intelligence and had visas showing travel to Pakistan and Iran, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

The men, Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, were arrested Wednesday. The FBI raided a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington, where the men were staying and had been offering free apartments and other gifts to U.S. Secret Service agents and officers.

During a court appearance Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Rothstein said Ali had told witnesses that he was affiliated with the Inter-Services Intelligence agency in Pakistan and that he had multiple visas from Pakistan and Iran in the months before prosecutors believe the men began impersonating U.S. law enforcement officials. Rothstein said the U.S. has not yet been able to verify the veracity of Ali’s claims to the witnesses.

Iran's Quds Force reportedly also planned to assassinate a senior American military general in Germany and a journalist in France.

The Mossad – operating in Iran – apprehended and interrogated an Iranian national who was leading a plot to kill an Israeli diplomat and a US general, sources have confirmed.

No less interesting than the operation of the Mossad that arrested and released a few months ago after an investigation in Iran the Quds Force man Mansour Rassouli in connection with the planning of the assassination of one of the employees of the Israeli consulate in Turkey, is the decision to reveal the information and video. It is no coincidence that the guy probably survived. The battle for consciousness against the Iranians is part of the event.

Georgia’s security officials said Tuesday they have foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate an Israeli citizen on their soil.

The murder had been planned by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Quds Force which conducts overseas operations of the IRGC.

First publication on @kann_news: It was Israel that passed intelligence information to the British intelligence agencies to thwart an Iranian attack on London soil. Last week, Iranian journalists (or of Iranian origin) stationed in the UK received warnings from the police regarding the danger to their lives .

The Iran International channel reported in an official statement on its behalf that two of its journalists received a notification on the subject from the local authorities that they feared for their lives. The ones who passed on the information that led to the thwarting were the Israeli intelligence agencies. This is not the first time (and probably not the last) that Israel helps thwart an Iranian attack on foreign soil, in Europe and in general.

(Nov 21, 2022).

Iran boasts about its nuke program: 'When Will Iran’s Sleeping Warheads Awaken'.

The Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Saturday said that it can develop a nuclear weapon within a rapid-fire amount of time and obliterate New York with ballistic missiles.  

The London-based Iran International news organization reported that the Bisimchi Media (Radioman Media) Telegram Channel aired a short video titled, "When Will Iran’s Sleeping Warheads Awaken." The video said the Islamic Republic of Iran is capable of building nuclear bombs in a compressed period of time "if the US or the Zionist regime make any stupid mistakes."

On January 22, 2022, videos were uploaded to several YouTube channels of demonstrations in Gaza in support of the Houthis in Yemen. The demonstrators waved Palestinian and Yemeni flags and posters with the images of IRGC Qods Force Commander General Qasem Soleimani, of Hizbullah Chief of Staff Imad Mughniyah, and Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. The demonstrators chanted: "Death to the Saud clan!... America is the Great Satan!" Leader: "Salutations from Gaza!"

Crowd: "Salutations from Gaza!"

Turkey was aware that a team of Iranian agents had entered the country in June to assassinate Israelis, before they were arrested...

The  Contemporary Islamic Threat

Two centuries later, history has come full circle. In 2017, Senator Marco Rubio spoke to the U.S. Senate about the threat to national and regional security posed by the extra–hemispheric power called the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). According to Rubio, between 2008 and 2012, fraudulent passports, national IDs and birth certificates were issued by the Venezuelan Embassy in Baghdad to foreign nationals with ties to terrorist group, including 173 people from Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. The individual who uncovered this information was Misael López Soto (lawyer and legal attaché in the Venezuelan Embassy in Baghdad), a Venezuelan national assigned to the Venezuelan Embassy in Iraq in 2015. Soto became a whistleblower and revealed the identity of several of these potential terrorists. He also discovered that Venezuelan Vice–President Tareck El Aissami, a strong candidate to be the future leader of his country, facilitated the issue of hundreds of Venezuelan passports to suspected Hezbollah members.

Despite the fact that these activities were revealed in a CNN documentary and a handful of Iranians using the fraudulent passports were arrested, there is no substantial evidence that the Venezuelan government intended to stop its Baghdad embassy’s wrongdoing. Senator Rubio’s exposure of how a Latin American country could facilitate the movement of terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and Latin America, and how these groups have allegedly interfered in Venezuela’s democratic process by influencing its elections, show how effectively Iran and its proxy forces have gained the cooperation of some Latin America governments.

Although the Middle East presence in Latin America dates back to the early 1900s, the 1979 Iranian revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power firmly established the Islamic Republic’s presence in the region. Since then, Iran has used every agency within its borders to help extend Iranian tentacles into the political, cultural, economic, and military life of Latin America. Iranian operatives have even infiltrated existing Latin American criminal networks and now operate freely within them. All of this activity follows the “Pattern of Penetration” model put forth by Ilan Berman and Joseph M. Humire.

• Too often, Hezbollah in Venezuela is characterized as only a potential terrorist threat. In reality, the Lebanese terrorist group has helped to turn Venezuela into a hub for the convergence of transnational organized crime and international terrorism.
• Hezbollah's crime-terror network in Venezuela has facilitated Iran's cooperation with the Maduro regime.

• The United States, allies, and international institutions must ramp up regional counterterrorism collaboration, crack down on illicit financial networks, and build stronger ties with Lebanese and other Arab communities in Latin America.

A Venezuelan cargo plane bought from Iran is the latest piece in the IRGC's smuggling enterprise. The recent detainment of a Venezuelan cargo plane in Argentina could be linked to attempts by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to attack Israelis abroad...

Despite what the U.S. State Dept. appears to believe, history has demonstrated that the Iranian leopard will not change its spots, only its tactics...

Iran’s ayatollahs closely collaborate with Hezbollah, the proxy of Iran’s Quds Force, which is the arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for exporting the Islamic revolution. They have intensified their surge into South and Central America, from Chile (especially with the December election of President Gabriel Boric) to Mexico. They consider Latin America to be the soft underbelly of the United States.

On the run since 1997, Iranian cleric Mohsen Rabbani remains on Interpol's most-wanted list for his role in two Iranian bomb plots targeting Israeli and Jewish sites in Buenos Aires. The 1992 Israeli embassy and 1994 Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) bombings killed 115 people. Nonetheless, the cleric's influence in the region is back in full force thanks to a new local network and an Iranian university that Canada targeted for sanctions last month. Rabbani has been called "Iran's principal proselytizer in Latin America." His networks serve several purposes, including amplifying Iran's propaganda in friendly countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and facilitating travel for Iranian agents posing as meat inspectors, airline crews, and clerics...

[5].

(CNN) ISIS operatives killed two people and injured six in a shooting attack Sunday in the Israeli city of Hadera, some 31 miles north of Tel Aviv, Israeli officials said. The attack — the second of its kind in a week — coincided with a landmark regional summit in Israel's Negev desert, where top diplomats from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, Israel and the United States are meeting to discuss security issues.

"We condemn today's terrorist attack in Hadera, Israel," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted on Sunday from Israel. "Such senseless acts of violence and murder have no place in society. We stand with our Israeli partners and send our condolences to the families of the victims."

ISIS also issued an official proclamation accepting responsibility for the attack in Hadera: "The "infidel" Jews must know that the promises (to harm them) will come to them sooner or later. With the help of Allah."

Hezbollah welcomes the attack in Hadera yesterday. A statement from the organization said that the attack underscores the desire of the Palestinian people to fight ...and that it is a practical response to the normalization meetings held by some Arab regimes with the enemy entity.

The statement called this a heroic “confrontation” with Israel. The article noted that the perpetrators were from Umm el-Fahm, a large Arab-Israeli city.

Iran’s Fars News Agency also highlighted the attack. Fars is considered close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC and Iran generally back Hezbollah. The statement at Fars called this a “martyrdom operation” and said Hezbollah had congratulated the perpetrators...

The context here is that the operation appears to be linked to ISIS, which is a jihadist group that generally is opposed to Shi’ites and Iran. That means that in this case, even though the perpetrators are apparently Islamist extremists, pro-Iranian groups nevertheless back the attack...

Iran backs Hamas, which is a Sunni group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

This complexity of Sunni, Shi’ite, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran and other countries sometimes being against each other, and sometimes on the same side, is one of the features of the region. In general, ISIS has not targeted Israel in recent years, and jihadist groups have focused their energies elsewhere. But Iranian-backed groups have focused their energies on fighting Israel.

Sources in Cairo here News: Islamic Jihad, backed by Iran, is key to escalation - Jihad spokesman in Gaza: 'If Israeli "aggression" [sic] continues - all fronts will explode."'

Iranian forces continue to expand their military presence in parts of eastern Syria, a move, analysts say, that could undermine U.S.-led efforts in the fight against the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) terror group. 

Iran, a major backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, controls parts of the eastern Syrian province of Deir el-Zour, particularly areas along the border with Iraq. With the help of thousands of foreign and local militiamen, Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has consolidated its hold over a large territory in Syria since the beginning of the country's civil war in 2011. 

The United States in 2019 designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization for its destabilizing role in the Middle East.

Seif al-Adel, the apparent new leader of al Qaeda is in Iran, a United Nations report has said and the United States confirmed the information on Wednesday.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price was asked during his daily press briefing to comment on the UN report. He said: “Our assessment aligns with that of the UN…offering safe haven to al Qaeda is another example of Iran’s wide-ranging support for terrorism, its destabilizing activities in the Middle East and beyond.”

Asked by a reporter what the United States is ready to do if Adel is in Iran, Price said that the Biden administration is determined not to allow threats to emerge. “We have taken action against Iran for its support for terrorist group throughout the region,” he said and added that Washington will closely coordinate with European allies to confront “all the challenges Iran poses.”

Seif al-Adel, a former Egyptian special forces officer who is a high-ranking member of al Qaeda with a $10 million US bounty on his head, is now the "uncontested" leader of the militant group, according to a new U.N. report on the organization.

 The United States has confirmed a news report citing unnamed Iranian officials as saying about 1,500 people were killed in a crackdown...

"She was tortured in the van after her arrest, then tortured at the police station for half an hour, then hit on her head and she collapsed."

A 22-year-old Kurdish woman from Saqqez named Zhina Mahsa Amini died on ... The Iranian regime has had the same racist attitude as its predecessors towards its Kurdish population. There is little information about the regime’s harsh policies toward minorities. Why is that?  I think someone needs to take the time to look more closely to understand this point, because the official rhetoric of the regime starting in 1979 was that there is no place for ethnicity or nations and Islam, these are foreign impositions from this was Ayatollah Khomeini’s’ rhetoric. These are foreign inventions from those who would like to divide Muslims, and we are all one, but this was really his excuse for not letting the Azeri region, the Kurdish region, the Baluchis, Khuzestan, all have some measures of self-determination and autonomy within Iran. That was just an excuse to install a very oppressive, not only Islamist, but Persian nationalist regime where the government in the center controlled everything. So, he said there’s no place for divisions and nationalism, but then why do they enforce rules where only Persian is permitted? They’re choosing one ethnicity’s language and imposing it on all of them, where really, if you take his rhetoric at face value, everyone should just be able to speak their own language. Since they’re all brothers and sisters and so forth. As soon as you start to peel back the layers of the onion, you start to recognize the hypocrisy that occurs in this regime, but a lot of outside observers don’t have the time or the inclination to understand this complexity.

Dozens have reportedly been killed by security forces as demonstrations continue to spread across Iran. Protests began after Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the morality police.

Summary

Calls for execution of rioters. Death of woman sparks mass protests. Army issues tough warning.

DUBAI, Sept 23 (Reuters) - State-organised rallies took place in several Iranian cities on Friday to counter nationwide anti-government unrest triggered by the death of a woman in police custody, with marchers calling for the execution of "rioters".

The pro-government marches followed the strongest warning yet from authorities when the army said it would confront "the enemies" behind the unrest - a move that could signal the kind of crackdown that has crushed protests in the past.

Saudi News Network: "Hezbollah is sending 4,000 soldiers to Iran to help suppress the Iranian people and in stopping the protests."

The Islamic Republic use of children in the interest of suppressing people.

After the death of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa "Zhina" Amini, on September 16, 2022, after Iran's morality police beat her because she was not wearing a head covering correctly, Iranian protestors took to the streets throughout the country. Footage showing thousands of protestors clashing with security forces have quickly made it to social media platforms under multiple hashtags. As the protests expanded and gained momentum, Arab intellectuals on social media expressed their disappointment in coverage of the protest by the Qatar-based and funded TV channel Al-Jazeera, which they accused of ignoring the protests, abandoning the protesters, and focusing on promoting the Iranian government's official narrative.

History will record that the official account of the United Nations in Iran—and Stefan Priesner, UN Resident Coordinator for Iran—have tweeted NOTHING since #Mahsa_Amini was killed on September 16. They were silent about the Iran regime's slaughtering of women's rights heroes.

Demonstrations in string of major cities in solidarity with protests sparked by death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Students of Sharif University of Technology (most prestigious university in #Iran) are under attack by military forces. Hundreds have been arrested and injured. BE THEIR VOICE!!! #مهسا_امینی #MahsaAmini

UPDATE on Sharif University - Crowds hearing the news about students being surrounded and in danger on campus gathered outside the main gate of the university at around 22:00 local time. But reports say that security forces or vigilantes began attacking the dormitories. They were firing guns at the windows while students were in the dorms.

Iran Intl., Oct 2, 2022.

As of this writing, heartbreakingly brave Iranian women have been protesting for 10 days and nights in the streets of at least 80 cities [now 90]. They are risking death for the right not to wear the hijab. Women have been burning their hijabs and cutting their hair. They’ve been heard chanting “Women, Life, and Freedom,” and “Death to the dictator.” The Iranian mullahs have unleashed the Revolutionary Guard and paramilitary (Basij) forces against the protestors. They have been dragging women by their hair, banging their heads on the ground, tear-gassing, beating, shooting, arresting, and murdering them. Fatality estimates range from 50-400 protesters and bystanders.

These protests were sparked by the Sept. 16 death — in morality police custody — of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman. She was apprehended while in a car with her family because she was, allegedly, wearing her hijab incorrectly. While the police denied beating or torturing her to death, a photo of Amini in a hospital bed reveals her bloodied face. She was in a coma.

Here is #Iran They use an ambulance to move repression forces. Protesters are taken in ambulances to unnamed prisons and tortured! #Mahsa_Amini‌ #مهسا_امینی

Protests began in Iran on September 16, prompted by the death of a 22-year-old woman who was dragged away and allegedly beaten by the morality police for wearing her hijab improperly. Now, a new horror is being forced on the protesters of Iran who've spent weeks continuing their fight amidst brutal oppression by Islamic forces.  More than 14,000 Iranians have been arrested in connection with the demonstrations being held around the country, with the country's parliament voting overwhelmingly last week in favour of the death penalty.

Lawmakers think it'll teach those arrested a "good lesson" and deter others from joining. The protests have included women ditching their mandated headscarves and publicly burning them, cutting their hair, and holding signs demanding their human rights.

Among those arrested are hundreds of children - young girls fighting for their futures. Iran is one of the world's last countries to execute "juvenile offenders," with nine the age of criminal responsibility for girls, compared to 15 for boys.  But under Iranian law, you can't execute a minor if they're a virgin. 

That roadblock has been solved in the past by marrying the girls off to prison guards to be raped the night before their murders - a practice that's been documented over the decades by journalists, families, activists and even a former leader. In 2014 Justice For Iran published a report on the organised rape of virgin girls awaiting execution in the country's prisons, specifically focusing on the 1980s. It detailed that the practice was systemic, and likely approved of by higher officials within the government.

Islamic Republic leader, Hussein-Ali Montazeri, tried to speak out against the executions, conversations he detailed in his 2000 memoir.

"I told judges not to write death sentences for girls. This is what I said. But they perverted my words and quoted me as saying: 'Don’t execute girls. First married them for one night and then execute them,'" he wrote. 

In 2009, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia told The Jerusalem Post, he was forced to take part in such rapes.

"At 18, I was given the 'honour' to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death... I regret that, even though the marriages were legal. I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their wedding night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning," he said. "By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die."

Activists and family members are reporting that it's happening now, in 2022, alongside torture, beatings and horrific sexual abuse.

In-depth: The death of Jina 'Mahsa' Amini at the hands of the Islamic Republic's morality police sparked nationwide protests and has put a spotlight on the plight of Iran's long-oppressed Kurdish minority...

With the protest movement following the lead of Kurdistan, the Kurdish cause has rapidly become intertwined with that of other oppressed communities in Iran.

Iran, with a population of 87 million, is home to seven ethnic minorities alongside majority Persians. Rights groups say minorities have long faced discrimination...

Here is some background on some of the ethnic groups:

BALUCHIS

Some of the deadliest unrest so far was on Sept. 30 in the Sistan-Baluchistan province of southeastern Iran at the Pakistani border, home to the Baluch minority...

Amnesty International has said security forces killed at least 66 people in a violent crackdown after Friday prayers in Zahedan, the provincial capital...

The  Baluchi minority, estimated to number up to 2 million, follow Sunni Islam rather than the Shi'ite Islam of Iran's clerical rulers. Amnesty said in a report earlier this year that 26% of people executed by the authorities since 2022 were members of the Baluch minority, saying this epitomized "entrenched discrimination and repression they have faced for decades". Jaish al-Adl has said previous attacks it carried out on Iranian forces were in retaliation for oppression of Sunnis in Sistan-Baluchistan. Iranian authorities say the group operates from safe havens in Pakistan and have repeatedly called on the neighbouring country to crack down on them.

KURDS

The unrest has been particularly intense in Kurdish regions where the latest wave of protests first began on Sept. 17 during the funeral of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who died in morality police custody. Rights group Hengaw says it has recorded the deaths of at least 32 civilians killed by government forces during protests. Estimated to number some 10 million, Iranian Kurds are also Sunnis and mostly live in northwestern regions bordering Turkey and Iraq - which also have large Kurdish minorities. Amnesty says Kurds have suffered deep-rooted discrimination in Iran, with their social, political and cultural rights repressed and the region facing economic neglect.

Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw has identified 23 Kurdish people killed in the latest protests. The Revolutionary Guards, which have put down unrest in the Kurdish region for decades, have accused armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents of involvement in the protests. The Guards have mounted drone and missile attacks against what they have described as terrorist targets in Iraq, killing 14 people on Sept. 28 including at least one child - according to Iraqi Kurdish authorities.

ARABS

Iran's Arabs, estimated to number 1.6 million, reside mainly along the border with Iraq in the southwestern, oil-rich province of Khuzestan. They have long complained of inequity in employment and political rights. Protesters have taken to the streets of the provincial capital Ahvaz during the latest demonstrations.

In 2021, protests over water shortages were particularly intense in the Khuzestan region - where drought has been a major problem - and were met by a crackdown by the security forces.

Mahsa Amini, or Jina Amini, the name of a Kurdish woman killed by the Iranian morality police on Sept. 16, has echoed across social media in support of the protest movement that is posing the biggest challenge to the clerical rulers in years. To Iranian law enforcement, Amini was just a nameless member of an ethnic minority that has been oppressed for decades...

Despite supposed constitutional protection and the fact that non-Persian ethnic and linguistic groups make up nearly 40 percent of Iran’s population, minorities have been subjected to mistreatment, from political discrimination to oppression, by means of arbitrary arrest and execution. Kurds are the third-largest ethnic group in Iran, making up approximately 10 percent of the population. Various estimates place their numbers at around 40 million, spread across Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. “The situation is so bad in Kurdistan that I don’t know where to start,” the activist said. “Our people suffer the worst things that are beyond imagination for people from other countries. Kurds are considered third-class citizens in Iran. First, because we are Kurds; second, because we are non-Shiite Muslims or practice other Kurdish religions; and, third, because of our opposition to the central government.” The activist continued: “We are deprived of our very basic rights as human beings. Kurdish language and Kurdish parties are banned from the system. Kurdish cities suffer from extreme poverty and unemployment which is the result of Iran’s discriminatory policies against Kurds. “Kurdistan enjoys the least amount of development, and Kurdish society has paid a high price for the official marginalization.” Iran’s Kurds have suffered since 1979; Kurdish parties in Iran boycotted the March 1979 referendum to create the Islamic Republic of Iran, and have been paying the price for it ever since. Iranian intelligence has persecuted Kurds even outside its jurisdiction. In 1989, a Kurdish politician and leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan was assassinated in Germany. His successor and three other Kurdish opposition figures were also killed three years later, and no fewer than 10 Iranian Kurdish dissidents have been assassinated outside Iran since 1989. Though the current wave of unrest began in Kurdistan with the death of a Kurdish woman, the Iranian regime’s persecution of minority groups has spread beyond the Kurdish minority. In May 2022, a wave of protests against deteriorating economic conditions swept Iran, and a spike in executions came in its wake. However, minority groups were disproportionately targeted by security forces, according to the human rights organization Iran Human Rights, or IHRNGO. The Baloch people, a primarily Sunni Muslim group that inhabits the southern region of Baluchistan in Iran, make up only two percent of the population. It has long suffered from economic underdevelopment, having both the lowest Human Development Index and gross national income per capita of all of Iran’s provinces, according to 2019 statistics from Netherlands-based Global Data Lab. Despite this, they have been subjected to egregious human rights violations. A June report by IHRNGO stated that executions reached their five-year peak in Iran this year. The number has jumped from 110 in all of 2021 to 168 in the first six months of 2022 alone. Arab, Kurdish, and Baloch minorities made up the majority of executions, with Baloch prisoners accounting for 22 percent of executed people. Arabs, too, comprise around two percent of Iran’s people, and have faced oppression and discrimination. Most of them reside in the Khuzestan province, which is rich in oil resources and a major industrial hub. Despite this, the province suffers from widespread poverty and unemployment, according to Arab MP Mohammad Saeed Ansari, who claimed that around half of oil workers are brought in from outside the province and that Arabs are often denied employment opportunities there. The UK-based Minority Rights Group International reported that nearly a quarter of a million Arabs in Khuzestan have been displaced by large government infrastructure projects. The leader of an Arab separatist movement in Iran, Ahmed Molla Nissi, was assassinated in front of his home in The Hague in 2017, adding to the long list of foreign assassinations of minority dissidents by Iran. In July 2021, at least nine people were killed in Khuzestan as they protested, demanding access to clean water, according to Human Rights Watch. Amid the current unrest, protests have broken out in Khuzestan, with many oil and petrochemical facilities on strike and their workers taking to the streets. On Oct. 12, a video shared on Twitter reportedly showed a giant banner depicting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s picture being set ablaze in Ahvaz, the provincial capital. “Arab citizens live as the poorest people on the richest land — Khuzestan. This is the official name that it was given, but this place is Arabistan or Ahwaz,” Youssef Yaseen Azizi, an Arab Iranian former administrator at Tehran University and a member of the Iranian Writers’ Union, told Arab News. “During the time of the Shah and the Islamic Republic, they brought non-Arabs to the region and settled them in the Arab cities and villages.” Azizi believes the regime has deliberately forced Arabs and other minorities out of public life in Iran. “Arabs only occupy around 5 percent of positions in public institutions,” he told Arab News. “The Arabic language is forbidden in schools. Many Arabs cannot find employment in the petrochemical factories simply because their name is Arabic.  “It has reached the level that they can openly say, ‘I will not employ you because you are Arab.’ Ali Khameini’s oil company in Ahwaz has hired 4,000 workers in the last ten years, and only seven of them were Arabs.” Such attitudes might suggest Arab lives in Iran are considered cheap.  “Arabs have rebelled many times, and often ended up in prison, or were killed,” Azizi told Arab News. “We were always oppressed by the brutality of the authorities. Just 10 days ago, Emad Heydari was tortured to death in prison in Ahvaz.” According to the website of the Ahwazi Democratic Popular Front, 31-year-old Heydari — a newly married activist from the Malashieh region — was arrested on Sept. 27 and died in prison on Oct. 6. Iranian authorities said he had suffered a stroke. Activists are unconvinced by the official narrative. “During the 2019 protests against the increasing price of fuel, which started from the Ahwaz Arabs and spread from there, 200 Arabs were killed. They didn’t show Arabs any mercy,” Azizi told Arab News. “The Arab press and civil society must know what is happening to us and cover it daily. They must speak on all channels and in all of their books and meetings, and support us, because we are alone. Until now, there is no channel which has covered our pain and showed it to everyone. But our resistance will continue.” The disproportionate targeting of minority communities during the current civil unrest in Iran mirrors its past treatment of minorities. Kurdistan and Sistan and Balochistan have been subjected to the most outstanding amount of violence, according to the Critical Threats Project, an intelligence analysis project created by the American Enterprise Institute in 2009. Two weeks after Amini’s death, a group of protestors gathered after Friday prayers in the Baloch-majority city of Zahedan to show their support for the nationwide protests and demand justice for the alleged sexual assault of a 15-year-old Baloch girl by an Iranian police commander. Amnesty International reported that Iranian security forces opened fire on the crowd with tear gas and live ammunition, with footage showing shooters on roofs aiming at demonstrators. Between 66 and 96 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the course of just hours of what has come to be known as “Bloody Friday.” The New York Times has since spoken with 10 residents from Zahedan, including witnesses and activists; family members of the victims; and a medic who helped treat more than 150 people for wounds. All made the accusation that security forces fired indiscriminately on unarmed protesters and civilians with bullets and tear gas. Helicopters were also deployed, according to witnesses. “According to residents, the violence on Sept. 30 was preceded by a smaller demonstration two days earlier, in another city in the same province, Chabahar,” the US newspaper said in a report on Oct. 14. The Iranian regime’s heavy-handed treatment of ethnic-minority areas has only intensified as the protest movement has expanded to include broader calls for an end to conservative theocratic rule. “I call on the international community to put more effort on recognizing our issues and help us solve them,” the Kurdistan-based activist told ...

“Today the people of Kurdistan and Iran need full support to overthrow this regime.”

(Any outward signs of support for the anti-regime protesters in Iran from the Iranian football team during their match with England would unsettle the country's clerical rulers. ) Anti-regime protests raged on at Iranian universities and in various cities at the weekend, gaining a momentum in some areas that ran counter to the argument of officials that the protests would soon fizzle out. With the Iranian football team due to take on England in the second match of the FIFA World Cup finals in Qatar on November 21, the authorities will be nervous about any televised unmissable signs of solidarity with the protesters from squad members that could further fuel the unrest. And some declarations of support have already been carefully phrased and delivered in the full glare of the global media. Germany, meanwhile, is reportedly irritated with FIFA for failing to take a position on events in Iran.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on November 19 turned his attention to the threat of further disruptive labour action, warning that the country's "enemies" may try to mobilise workers after failing to bring down the Islamic government in more than two months of protests.

Iran’s soccer team blanked 10-man Wales Friday as World Cup host Qatar prevented Iranian fans from expressing their support for the ongoing protests in their the country. 

Iranian fans, who wanted to take flags other than the official one approved by the Islamic Republic to the Al Rayyan’s Ahmad bin Ali Stadium, were stopped by security officers. Many people were barred from carrying or waving Iran’s ancient flag with the Lion and Sun emblem or a simple three-color flag with the main motto of the current wave of protests – Woman, Life, Liberty.

Documents obtained by Iran International show Iran was coordinating secret efforts with Qatar to control who attends the World Cup and restrict any signs of dissent.

Black Reward, a hactivist group that found access to Fars News Agency files this week provided an audio tape of a meeting between a Revolutionary Guard general and a group of media managers or representatives from outfits affiliated with the IRGC about plans to use the sporting event to the benefit of the regime in Tehran. A six-minute audio segment of a tape features General Ghasem Ghoreyshi (Qasem Qoreyshi), deputy commander of the paramilitary Basij and a group of reporters including the one from Fars News who met with him possible in the presence of other trusted reporters to discuss the latest developments including plans for the World Cup. The meeting took place on Tuesday 15th of November. Ghoreyshi starts by saying that “anti-revolutionaries” have bought “5,330 tickets” to the tournament and adds that “our boys have checked the list of the ticket holders and at least 500 people” are known opponents of the Iranian regime.

This is the first piece of evidence of collaboration with Qatar, showing that Iran obtained the list of ticket buyers most probably from Qatari authorities.