Iran’s Exiled Queen Hails Nation For ‘Standing Up’ To Islamic Republic

In a Wednesday statement signed by 81 French intellectuals, including Costa Gavras, Jacques Audiard, Michel Hazanavicius, Christine Angot, Catherine Corsini, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, and Edgar Morin, they said they will not stop supporting their colleagues until they are released. 

“We wish to express our anger against these arrests, intimidations and imprisonments... We extend our absolute solidarity to all Iranian authors, artists, filmmakers, who struggle every day to exercise their art, at the cost of their freedom. We admire your courage, your determination, your works, and the solidarity you show. Know that our support will be unrelenting until your release,” said the signatories.

Panahi, who has won numerous awards, including the Golden Leopard at Locarno Festival, the Golden Lion in Venice, and the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, was arrested July 11 as he was protesting the detention of the other award-winning filmmakers, who had been arrested July 8 as part of the Iranian crackdown on the signatories of a collective statement titled “Lay down the gun” issued by more than 100 film industry personalities in the end of May. The statement was a call on Iran’s military and security forces not to use weapons against civilian protesters.

In mid-July, France had urged the Islamic Republic to release the three film makers in the latest criticism of Iran's record over human rights by a major Western powers. Days earlier, the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlinale, the European Film Academy and the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk also called for the immediate release of the prominent filmmakers.

According to the country’s Red Crescent, rescue operations are still underway on Thursday to find at least 14 people who are reported missing. 

According to reports, at least one more died in the city of Roudehen, northeast of Tehran, and two children were killed in the city of Zahedan, in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

One of the places worst hit by mud and floodwater is the complex of the shrine of Imamzadeh Davoud, a Safavid-era mosque northwest of Tehran, where dogs are helping relief workers to find the bodies of victims or the trapped people. The mosque dates back to the era of Safavid dynasty (1501-1736) and lies close to Tochal ski resort in the Alborz Mountains, one of the city's popular trekking routes.

The flash floods started around 2:00 a.m. local time on Thursday after a heavy downpour resulted in landslides and mudslides in the foothills of Tehran’s Alborz mountains, officials said, adding that more precipitation is forecast for the area in the coming days. 

On July 22, heavy rains and subsequent flash floods in three cities of the southwestern Fars province left at least 22 dead. 

Iran has been suffering from drought for at least a decade and this year officials have been warning of a further decrease in precipitation. However, Iran’s metrology department had warned about possible heavy seasonal rainfall across the country. The dangers of flash floods have been exacerbated by the widespread construction of buildings and roads near riverbeds.

The protesters – some of whom were seen walking on tables, waving Iraqi flags and sitting in lawmakers' chairs – were followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, who seeks to curb the influence of the Islamic Republic in Iraqi politics. 

On Monday, the Coordination Framework, a coalition of Shiite parties close to Iran, nominated Mohammed al-Sudani as the prime minister, a decision opposed by firebrand Shia cleric al-Sadr, whose party won last year’s general elections.

Protesters, who had forced their way into the Green Zone, which houses the parliament, after removing a number of concrete barriers, began making their way out of the parliament building when al-Sadr issued a statement on Twitter telling them their message had been received and "to return safely to your homes. 

Addressing the protesters, the leader of the Sadrist movement, Saleh Muhammad al-Iraqi, said, "I stand in reverence and respect. It is a wonderful spontaneous and reformist popular message, thank you."

It was the largest protest since federal elections were held in October and the second time al-Sadr has used his ability to mobilize the masses to send a message to his political rivals this month.

The protest took place after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force Chief Esmaeil Gha’ani arrived in Baghdad, one day after Iran-backed groups nominated Sudani, and met with leaders of Shiite groups.

Ali Khamenei claimed that wearing the hijab is no impediment to Iranian women’s progress and accused the West of fueling the recent opposition to hijab to harm the regime.

In a speech to a gathering of prayer leaders from across the country on Wednesday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in his view the Islamic Republic does not need to defend itself about issues related to women including the hijab but should rather be aggressive and attack the West for turning women into a “commodity”.

Iran’s government which is now fully controlled by hardliners has adopted a harsher than usual approach amid economic crisis and hardship for tens of millions. Government and military officials have warned the population against disobeying hijab rules and the morality police hijab enforcement patrols have detained many women, sometimes violently, on the streets.

Several activists and many ordinary citizens have been arrested for their defiance of the hijab rules in July. On several occasions the members of public have interfered when morality police and hijab enforcers tried to detain women for not wearing what the authorities consider as “proper hijab” and freed them.

The Iranian leader claimed that observing the hijab has not prevented Iranian woman from great achievements in various fields despite Western countries’ arguments that women cannot progress “unless they free themselves of ethical and religious bonds.”

He also alleged that “the enemy”, which he said is “led by Zionists and capitalists”, is constantly plotting to harm the Islamic Republic in the “battlefield of soft power” and seeks to destroy people’s faith by fostering doubt in their minds about issues such as the role of women in the Islamic society and women’s hijab.

Referring to discussions over the issue of hijab in Friday prayers, the media, and social media, Khamenei said everyone should act “very gracefully, logically and wihtout from unnecessary emotions” on the issue of hijab and use clear reasoning “to expose the western colonialist attitude” in rejection of hijab.

On Wednesday some hardline and state-affiliated media published a video of the so-called “confessions”of an anti-hijab protester who was arrested because of a confrontation with a hijab enforcer in a city bus in which the two women are shown speaking about the incident and “the lies” of the anti-hijab activists. The anti-hijab protester then begs “forgiveness” for picking a quarrel with the hijab enforcer and the two of them embrace each other and make peace.

The woman identified as 28-year-old writer Sepideh Rashno was arrested soon after the encounter on the bus. An informed source told Iran International that the woman seen in the “confession” video is not Rashno as hardline media such as Hamshahri have claimed but another woman who also was involved in the fight over hijab on the bus.

Rashno has reportedly been in detention at the IRGC ward of Tehran’s Evin Prison since her arrest last week without any contact with her family or access to a lawyer. Authorities have told the family that Rashno’s case is being investigated by the prosecutors of Evin.

Authorities have even started policing the compulsory Islamic dress code – or hijab – on the tombstones of the country’s largest cemetery, located in the southern part of the capital Tehran, and removed about 100 gravestones which had pictures of deceased women without veils.

Maryland’s Democratic Senator Ben Cardin told Iran International, “The current regime in Iran has so many different challenges, but one that we sometimes do not recognize as well as we should is its violations of internationally-established human rights standards. That's outrageous, just outrageous.”

Answering a question about Iran threatening its people against sending videos to New York-based anti-hijab activist Masih Alinejad with up to 10 years in jail, he said that “We have to speak out, and we need to do what we can to protect the human rights of people who are courageous standing up for just basic international rights.”

Iran’s Headquarters For Enjoining Right And Forbidding Evil, tasked with promoting the clerical regime’s interpretation of Islamic laws, said on July 23 that any cooperation and sharing videos with Alinejad will be considered a violation of Article 508 of the Islamic Republic’s Penal Code, and can result in one to ten years imprisonment.

Cardin called on the Senate to spotlight such human rights violations, saying, “We (in the Senate) already have a sanctions regime against human rights violations. That's been deployed in Iran. We just have to be very aggressive and use the tools that are at our disposal.”

Iran’s security organs have also started arresting women who participated in a nationwide civil disobedience campaign July 12 against hijab.

Following a call by women’s rights activists – including Alinejad -- for civil disobedience with the hashtag of ‘No2Hijab’ social media exploded with dozens of videos and photos of women unveiling in public.