German Medical Groups Urge Govt. To End Human 'Catastrophe In Iran'
Several German medical groups in an open letter to the chancellor and foreign minister have warned about the “increasingly brutal repression” of protesters in Iran.
Several German medical groups in an open letter to the chancellor and foreign minister have warned about the “increasingly brutal repression” of protesters in Iran.
Referring to the “increasing suppression” by regime forces, the 12 medical professional groups called the current situation in Iran a “human catastrophe” and asked the German federal government to do everything in its power to put an end to this.
“We write to you as medical professionals who are gravely concerned about the human rights and medical situation facing the civilian population of Iran. Since the violent death of Mahsa Amini…people from various social groups across the country have put their lives at risk to gather in protest against the Islamic Republic; among those protesting are many medical students and practitioners,” reads the letter published on twitter.
They added that the regime is attempting to suppress these protests by any means including rape and torture.
“It is extremely concerning to see the start of criminal trials against political prisoners in these times. Since political prisoners can face execution in Iran, we fear that the lives of countless people are acutely at risk,” adds the letter.
In another part of the letter, the signatories warned about the “treacherous nature of the security service’s violence against medical professionals,” saying that “doctors have been forced to treat their patients secretly, often outside of health centers; and the medical professionals have, themselves, become the target of repression.”
They also expressed solidarity with medical colleagues in Iran demanding that they are permitted to continue practicing their necessary work in accordance with the Geneva Convention for the protection and wellbeing of their patients.
This comes after Hamid Ghareh Hasanlou, a radiologist doctor, and his wife, Farzaneh, were sentenced to death on charges of collaborating in the killing of a Basiji member in Karaj, west of Tehran, and the suspicious death of Aida Rostami, a young doctor living in Tehran.
While the Islamic Republic claims a young female doctor, Aida Rostami, died after “falling from an overpass,” her family told the media that signs of harassment, torture and assault were observed on Rostami's body. Security agents have told her family that they should announce she had died in an accident.
Some sources and social media users have stated that Aida Rostami was killed because she helped injured protesters.
Earlier, in a letter to Iranian PresidentEbrahim Raisi, the World Medical Association demanded safe working conditions for physicians and other health personnel in the pursuit of their mission as well as full access to health care to all those in need.
It also called for immediate and unconditional end of violence and the establishment of a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.
“We are profoundly shocked to hear that an increasing number of health professionals are threatened, arrested, and tortured in Iran, just because they do their work. According to the ethical rules of our profession, physicians have an obligation to treat those wounded or ill, without any other consideration. Likewise, prisoners must receive the necessary medical care by a health professional, without influence from the authorities,” stressed the World Medical Association.
Several videos have surfaced on social media showing people quarreling with bank clerks or officials who say they do not have enough cash for withdrawals.
Having lost their trust on the Islamic Republic’s embattled currency after a steep fall with no prospect of bouncing back, many Iranians want to remove their money from banks to exchange them for foreign currencies or gold.
Iranian political activist, lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi urged people on Sunday to join the campaign of withdrawing money from banks, noting that state-controlled banks in Iran are not institutions to serve the people and only act as the economic arm of the “killing Republic” referring to the clerical regime. "Now it has been proven to everyone that there is no will in the regime to accept the demands of the people," she said, adding that the campaign to shun banks in daily transactions can deal a "fundamental blow" to the government.
Criticizing the government’s economic policies, Iran's former central banker, Abdolnaser Hemmati, said Tuesday that the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi was so sure about the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal that it moved to stop the indirect subsidy for essential goods, triggering more inflation. He said that now that the deal seems doomed to fail and the currency has lost its value dramatically, the authorities are looking for ways to remedy the dire situation.
The government stopped offering cheap dollars to importers of essential goods earlier this year to save around $15 billion annually. The move immediately doubled and tripled food prices and led to shortages of medicines, medical equipment and animal feed.
Hemmati, who was a presidential candidate in the 2021 election and held heated debates with Raisi, addressed him, saying that “if you knew the problems and had solutions for them, why don’t you do anything? And if you just want to blame your predecessors, why did you even bother to run for office?”
Unfortunately for Raisi, the famous anecdote about an outgoing manager imparting his wisdom to the new one in the form of three sealed envelopes would not work here. The outgoing manager told the new one that the first time things go wrong, open the first letter. Open the second letter for the second incident and open the third letter for the third incident. “Blame Your Predecessor!” was written in the first letter, which Raisi has been doing since the day he took office. “Blame Your Employees!”, read the second one, which is a strategy exhausted by the current administration. The third letter instructed the manager to “Prepare three Letters!”, something Raisi has not done yet because he has no scapegoat ready yet as the next election is in more than two years.
In addition to critics of the government, a 25-percent fall in the value of Iran’s currency in three months and a more than 50-percent drop in 15 months has led to sharp criticism even among conservatives. Conservative politician Mansoor Haqiqatpur has accused Raisi of sharply reducing the value of assets held by rich and ordinary Iranians.
“Less than 18 months ago, when Raisi took office as the President of the Islamic Republic one US dollar was equal to 230,000 rials in Tehran markets. Now the value of every US dollar is over 380,000 rials. The devaluating Iranian currency is now as cheap as straw. This means Iranians have lost half of their assets during this period." In fact, since Haqiqatpur spoke the rial has dropped further and on Tuesday it was close to 400,000 against the US dollar.
Ehsan Khandozi, the government spokesman for economic affairs who doubles as the minister of economic and financial affairs, said on Tuesday that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has agreed to dedicate 11 trillion rials (or about $31.4 million) from the National Development Fund to the government’s treasury to be used for its unfinished projects. He added Ali Khamenei has also given the go-ahead to bartering oil in exchange for railroad and transit projects across the country.
In a decree issued on Monday, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei demanded a swift process to carry out sentences handed down to those who have indicted on serious charges during three months of unrest.
He did not directly mention capital punishment for detained protesters but said the sentences issued for “serious crimes,” whether or not related to the security of the country, should be well-documented and deterrent.
His remarks can be construed as a signal to judges to go ahead with sentencing more people to death over their participation in the protests that began in mid-September, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in custody of hijab enforcement police.
The Islamic Republic has so far executed Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard, both 23, and based on the latest report by the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization, 39 other people are at risk of execution on charges of “war against God” and “corruption on earth.” However, the executions seem to have halted since last week, therefore Ejei’s order can mean the greenlight for further executions.
It can also be seen as a measure to hand down more prison sentences, and carry out more executions to intimidate the population and stifle dissent.
In his 15-point decree, he also called on judicial officials to inform higher authorities in cases deemed sensitive. Ejei also called for coordination with state media and the media center of the judiciary in cases that are important for public opinion.
Last week, Tehran’s judiciary chief Ali Alghasi-Mehr said 400 protesters have been sentenced to prison terms of between 2 to 10 years for participation in Tehran alone. “In hearings on cases of rioters in Tehran province, 160 people were sentenced to between five to 10 years in prison, 80 people to two to five years and 160 people up to two years,” he said.
There are no independent courts in Iran. Both prosecutors and judges answer to the same Judiciary controlled by hardliners. In most political trials, there is no due process of law, no freedom to choose defense lawyers and little access to case files. The Judiciary can frame people for crimes they did not commit, as multiple cases have demonstrated in the past. It can define what “disruption” means and sentence any protester to death for causing an ill-defined act of disruption.
In November, a group of 227 parliament members called on the Judiciary to issue death sentences for people arrested during the ongoing antigovernment protests. As the Islamic Republic is adamant to execute more protesters, some Islamic law experts are voicing opposition to the Judiciary’s interpretation of Sharia.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) announced in its latest report that from September 17 until December 13, at least 493 protestors have been killed, of which at least 68 were minors. While the Islamic Republic has not provided accurate figures of those detained in the recent protests, the watchdog went on to say that at least 18,424 protesters have been arrested including 632 students.
The Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran and London-based Amnesty International said in a joint statement in July that at least more than 250 hangings had been confirmed. "If executions continue at this horrifying pace, they will soon surpass the total of 314 cases recorded for the whole of 2021," the groups said.
“I met with Seyed-Mohammad Hosseini at Karaj Prison. He cried through his account of tortures, being beaten with tied hands and legs and blindfolded, to being kicked in the head and losing consciousness, the soles of his feet being beaten with an iron rod to being tased in different parts of the body,” Ali Sharifzadeh Ardakani who says he has just recently been allowed to represent Hosseini tweeted Sunday.
“There is no legal validity to the confessions of a man who has been tortured,” he added.
Sharifzadeh had earlier this week said the Revolutionary Court of Karaj did not allow him to take on Hosseini’s case, study the case file, and represent him in the process of appeals to the death sentence. “This is gross violation of the rights of a person sentenced to death,” he tweeted on December 15.
Seyed-Mohammad Hosseini was arrested in November in Karaj, capital of Alborz Province to the west of Tehran, and charged with "waging war against God” and “corruption on earth”, both carrying the death sentence.
Hosseini has been accused of participation in the alleged killing of Ruhollah Ajamian, 27 on November 12. Ajamian who served alongside other security forces as a member of the Basij militia of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) was stabbed, beaten, and stripped naked by a group of men and died of his injuries later.
Thirteen protesters were put on trial for his killing by the Revolutionary Court shortly after the incident five of whom, including Hosseini, were sentenced to death.
Hosseini was sentenced in an unfair trial without access to his chosen defense attorney, like the majority of other protesters put on trial in the past few weeks.
The Revolutionary Court regularly refuses to accept the power of attorney of independent lawyers who the accused or their families appoint and only approves its trusted lawyers who in many cases only make an appearance during the trial without having even seen the case files.
Hosseini is in imminent danger of execution like at least a dozen other young men who were arrested since protests swept across the country in September following the death in custody of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
“How desperate is a regime to treat its people this way? Do they think that a "confession" under torture is worth anything at all? Now we don't have to assume, we know,” Ye-One Rhie, a member of the German parliament (Bundestag) who has taken on the political sponsorship of rapper Toomaj Salehi asked quoting Sharifi Ardakani’s tweet.
French lawmaker Aude Luquet has taken on Hosseini’s political sponsorship and called for an immediate halt to all executions in Iran. Hosseini is also sponsored by Austrian parlemaintarian Harold Truch.
The Islamic Republic has so far executed Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard, both 23. Both were allegedly tortured into “confessing” to the crimes they were charged with and tried without due process. The executions have enraged many Iranians who believe they were hastily tried and executed to instil fear in the rest of the population and keep them away from the streets.
“Five were sentenced to death for the killing of one Basiji. One was executed for injuring a Basiji. No one was held accountable for the killing of hundreds of citizens. No one was held accountable for killing thousands in the protests in the past few years. This regime has taken justice and freedom to the slaughterhouse,” a tweet posted with the photos of the five sentenced to death in Karaj said on December