Pahlavi Calls For 'Maximum Support' By US And EU For Secular Rule In Iran

The deadly day, in Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan and Baluchestan and home to a large Kurdish population, took place when security forces brutally suppressed demonstrators gathered in front of a police station to protest the killing of Mahsa Amini and the rape of a 15-year-old Baloch girl by the police chief of Chabahar.

Security forces controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, under the Commandership of the Supreme Leader, killing dozens, including 18 children, 300 more seriously injured.

Mowlavi Abdolhamid, the religious leader of Iran’s largely Sunni Baluch population called the massacre "Bloody Friday" and held Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei directly responsible for the massacre.

Moineddin Saeedi, representative of Chabahar city, on Tuesday warned President Ebrahim Raisi that the issue should be handled “with special attention”.

Abdolhamid said in his recent Friday prayer sermons that he is still following up on the rights of the victims of Bloody Friday emphasizing that the measures taken so far are “inadequate”.

The government has failed to conduct a transparent investigation or hold any security officials responsible for the deaths.

“Eighty people are still in hospitals and 17 were shot in the eyes and blinded," added Abdolhamid.

Since Bloody Friday, the people of Zahedan have held their weekly protests pouring into streets for twenty-three consecutive weeks. The protesters have vowed to continue their street demonstrations until the punishment of all the leaders and perpetrators of the massacre.

Germany has also closed the office of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in the country.

Vahid Haddadi-Asl, the deputy minister in international affairs told state-run ISNA news agency that the European countries are not interested in academic collaboration with Iran.

"We have no limits on scientific cooperation with the countries of the world except with the Zionist regime, but the Europeans restricted their ties and Germany closed the office of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Iran,” he said, DAAD academic, and should not be politicized.

However, in his statements, Haddadi did not mention the extensive pressure on students and declined to explain why a number of Iranian or foreign academic figures are arrested in Iran on the charge of espionage.

Students have been under pressure for years, and in recent protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in September a large number of them were detained and beaten up by security agents, even inside campuses.

However, Haddadi claimed the Islamic Republic had "good academic activities" in the neighboring countries, and "some good agreements were signed with them” namely Iraq, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekis

China’s defense ministry announced Wednesday that the drills will last from March 15-19 and “deepen practical cooperation among the navies of participating countries.”

Although it is not the first time the three countries hold joint naval drills in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean, the announcement coming on the heals of the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement might be a signal by Beijing about its intentions to expand influence in the region.

The drills also coincide with reports that China intends to hold a summit of Arab countries and Iran later this year. The Wall Street Journal quoted diplomatic sources that when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Saudi Arabia for a regional summit with Persian Gulf Arab states in December, he proposed a high-level gathering of the Gulf Cooperation Council members and Iran in Beijing in 2023.

Most analysts agree that restoration of diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia does not mean an overnight resolution to serious differences in their complicated relations. US officials have been quoted as being skeptical about Tehran delivering on what it has promised Riyadh, which is probably pursuing limited goals of reducing tensions rather than forging close relations with Tehran.

But most interestingly, Reuters briefly quoted the Saudi finance minister Wednesday as saying that there are a lot of opportunities for investments in Iran and he does not see an impediment as long as terms of agreements are respected by Tehran.

This is going much farther than a cordial resumption of diplomatic ties, and it would mean that the Saudis are willing to throw a lifeline to the beleaguered clerical rulers in Tehran who face a bankrupted economy.

Any Saudi economic dealing with Iran would also directly undercut US sanctions imposed to pressure Tehran, if not violating them outright. But dangling the prospect of foreign investment that Iran has no chance of securing in the current situation, might be a powerful tool.

There have been speculations that Beijing might try to solve the issue of Iran’s nuclear program that has extremely worried the Saudis, and eluded the Americans. In such a scenario, when tens of billion of dollars in Iranian assets are blocked worldwide, the prospect of Saudi investments could be a powerful lever to cajole Tehran to agree to a Chinese brokered agreement limiting its nuclear program.

Nevertheless, at this juncture, a regional rapprochement seems to be moving ahead fast. Nour News, a website in Tehran close to the national security council reported Wednesday that Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani will visit the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.

"Shamkhani will travel to Abu Dhabi on Thursday in response to an official invitation by his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan to discuss bilateral, regional, and international issues," Nour News said.

"Top economic, banking and security officials will accompany the Supreme National Security Council secretary to the UAE," it added.

Improvement of not only diplomatic but economic relations between GCC members and Iran could be a signal that plans to expand and strengthen the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United States and Arab countries will take the back seat.

This would also be a serious blow to US ‘maximum pressure’ strategy against Iran to push it toward a nuclear agreement that would perhaps include other provisions to limit Iran’s damaging activities in the region. If Saudis can tame Tehran with their own methods, the US role will be diminished as a security guarantor for the Kingdom.

Judiciary Spokesman Masoud Setayeshi said Tuesday at a press briefing that around thirty celebrities have been indicted by courts, and he threatened them with harsh repercussions if they continued such activities.

The interior ministry said Saturday that over 100 people in eleven provinces were arrested in connection with the poisonings that started in the religious city of Qom in central Iran in late November and spread to dozens of schools across the country. The accused, authorities claim, were connected to “terrorist groups” and foreign governments.

The government, however, has not revealed any details about these alleged arrests, as the public remains skeptical about the government’s role in the attacks.

Among the celebrities indicted for his social media posts about the spate of attacks is popular actor Reza Kianian. In a recent Instagram post Kianian shared a poster showing two men in black balaclavas and combat uniform holding up a little girl with a gas mask on her face fearlessly flashing a victory sign at one of the two men.

Kianian came under immense attack from hardliners on social media for the post that suggested security forces’ involvement in the poisonings, and demanded that authorities take legal action against him for defaming security forces.

Like Kianian, many ordinary Iranians have been suspicious of involvement of the regime itself, or religious extremists protected by the regime, in the school attacks and call the acts “state terrorism”.

Instagram post by actor Reza Kianian 

Authorities have revealed very little about the alleged perpetrators, the nature of the attacks, and the chemicals used to poison the children. The state television, nevertheless, aired the so-called ‘confessions’ last week of a man and his daughter arrested and accused of attacking schools with N2 gas canisters.

One of the accused said in the video that they lit “wicks” attached to the canisters before throwing them in the courtyards of seven schools in Larestan, a city in southern Iran. Experts say N2 is neither poisonous nor flammable to require a flame to explode and spread.

Several celebrity actors and other artists who supported the Mahsa protest movement by criticizing the regime or releasing ‘hijabless’ photos of themselves on social media, such as popular actress Taraneh Alidousti, were arrested in the past six months.

In defiance of the compulsory hijab, Alidousti appeared ‘hijabless’ in the photos taken outside Tehran’s Evin prison with her colleagues and supporters upon her release on a large bail in January after nearly three weeks of imprisonment.

Actress Taraneh Alidousti after being released on bail outside the prison

The harsh legal action against celebrities follows threats of "severe punishment” by Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei against those criticizing the authorities for the gas attacks that have sent hundreds of schoolgirls to hospitals.

The judiciary spokesman also said Tuesday that the charges have been brought against three newspaper editors, academic and reformist political activist Sadegh Zibakalam, and Secretary General of Unity of the Nation Party Azar Mansouri for “spreading rumors and lies.”

Around sixty journalists have been arrested since September in connection with the protests ignited by the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who died in the custody of the morality police after being arrested on the street for not wearing her hijab ‘properly’. Two female reporters, Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloufar Hamedi, who were arrested in October for their reporting on Mahsa’s death, are still in prison.

According to a video received by Iran International, one of the people who suffered injuries during Iran-Iraq war said Monday that government officials keep repeating that “you went to war for the sake of God.”

This is not the first time the war veterans protest against their poor living conditions.

In the past years, they gathered many times in front of the parliament urging lawmakers to resolve their issues.

In August, Iran's Council of Retirees reported that one of the veterans wounded in the Iran-Iraq war, named Khosro Yavari, set himself on fire and died in Songhor city of Kermanshah province due to financial hardship.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf admitted in a televised speech Monday that the Islamic Republic has failed to resolve economic problems and control inflation. He said the regime has not been able to help people in covering their daily life expenses.

He once again claimed the government intends to compensate for this to some extent "with policies such as tax exemptions and direct subsidies".

These remarks come at a time when inflation has increased sharply this year and MPs have warned against another wave of inflation in the coming year beginning March 21.