Iranian Opposition Figures Hold Event In Canada To Call For Unity

Javaid Rehman told Iran International on Saturday that "I'm confident Iranians will get justice", but the establishment of a precise accountability mechanism in the form of international fact-finding mission is a concrete step forward.

He said there are serious instances of violations of the rights of the people since September 16, 2022, when protests erupted, while over 500 people were killed by state authorities, including 71 children.

“Accountability must now take its course and people who have committed this very serious violations of human rights must be held accountable.”

He further noted that to bring a stop to further future serious violations of human rights in Iran the international community and global media must exert pressure on Iranian authorities to respect international law and the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Rehman also urged the Islamic Republic to allow fact-finding missions so that they can assess, investigate, and hold the perpetrators accountable.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the UN Special Rapporteur expressed support for the right of the Iranian people to protest.

“They have challenged the state authorities and they have also reached out to me to say that they are suffering, and their rights are being violated. So, I would encourage these young, brave Iranian people, and I am there for the Iranian people. I would support them,” he underlined.

According to the report, 182 Baluch people were executed in 23 prisons across Iran, out of which about 81% were drug-related cases.

At least 167 others have lost their lives due to the direct gunfire by military agents in Sistan-Baluchistan province.

On the other hand, at least 76 citizens were victims of "violence by generally unknown armed persons" last year. Activists believe these people are mostly armed by the IRGC to conduct missions for the security organizations.

The report further added that 82 people lost their lives when smuggling fuel across the border to Pakistan. Gasoline and especially diesel are extremely cheap in Iran because of heavy government fuel subsidies. One gallon of diesel is just 4 US cents.

More than 120 protesters were killed on Bloody Friday on September 30 and during protests in the following weeks in Zahedan and Khash, the report says. On Bloody Friday in Zahedan, the provincial capital, security forces killed more than 80 people, and injured hundreds. Zahedan is one of the few Sunni-majority cities in predominantly Shiite Iran.

Since then, people in Zahedan held anti-regime protest rallies for 25 weeks in a row amid heavy presence by security forces.

Following Friday prayers every week and sermons by Sunni Baluch religious leader Mowlavi Abdolhamid, people hold demonstrations to vent anger at regime brutalities.

General Hassan Karami told Entekhab News on March 25, that the special forces are preparing to simultaneously confront unrest at 400 locations.

The protests that started in September 2022 raged in more than 100 Iranian cities for over five months before they receded in February, although protests in some regions and chanting from rooftops still continue and pockets of street protests have also been observed.

In Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan Province protests have taken place every Friday since September. Hundreds have been reportedly killed or wounded during the protests over the past six months.

Gen. Karami called the ‘Woman, life, freedom’ protests “Super Sedition” and claimed that his forces have overcome the unrest “successfully.” Using military terms for treatment of civil disobedience, Karami said: “We have grounded the enemy and its human resources and media backing it and badly defeated them.”

Since the start of the protests Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and military commanders attributed the protests to “conspiracies” hatched by foreign powers and media.

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The special force of the Iranian police was only one of the units the government used to suppress the protests. Karami characterized it as “A specialized force with unique capabilities.” He said: “We designed our operations based on the location and nature of threats.” Karami also boasted that most of the equipment used by the special forces are made in Iran.

During the protests, apart from improvised vans that were turned into anti-riot vehicles, all the weapons, including shotguns used to blind the protesters were imported from other countries.

Although Karami’s remarks reveal the Iranian regime fears a new round of nationwide protests in the spring, Interior Minister Ahmadi Vahid who is the highest-ranking officer in charge of the police said in remarks about the protests: “We had to face some problems and nuisance in the past year but we cannot say that it was a tough year.”

He said that the National Security Council under his supervision was tasked with dealing with the protest, and we accomplished this mission successfully.” Ironically, Vahidi did his best to avoid the word “protest” and referred to it as "this matter” or “the nuisance.” He also said that “It was a problem the Islamic Republic’s enemies had created.”

Vahidi said that the protests did not distract Iranian officials from focusing on what they needed to do for the country. What he said is in contrast with remarks by many Iranian politicians including members of the parliament who have been constantly criticizing the government for its inaction in the face of the country's most serious economic crisis in modern history and for failing to solve Iran's foreign policy problems.

During the past months, observers have warned the government that popular discontent persists "like a fire under the ashes" and that protests might erupt at any moment with small events that can ignite big upheavals. Even Khamenei's top military adviser former IRGC Commander Yahya Rahim Safavi has warned him that protests might reoccur if the officials do not stand by the promises they have made to the nation.

Other Iranian observers such as reformist commentator and political activist Hamid Reza Jalaeipour have warned that : "Iran has not yet entered a revolutionary situation, but if the current unrest continues, the country will move toward a revolutionary phase."

“His highness the Supreme Leader is the best personality [created] after the Imam of the Age,” Kazem Sadighi, Friday imam of Tehran told his congregation Friday in his first sermon of the new Iranian year.

In Shiite eschatology, the twelfth imam, Mahdi, is a messianic figure thought to have been in occultation by divine will since 941 CE. He is referred to as the Imam of Ages who will appear at the end of time to cleanse the world of sin and evil. Khamenei’s devotees often refer to him as the representative of the Imam of Ages, with absolute power to rule.

Sadighi also promised that Iranians will make the world a better place under Khamenei’s banner who he said is the commander-in-chief of all of the world’s oppressed people and “the resistance front” against the world powers and “an example [for mankind], an imam, a leader and divine executive.”

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“The esteemed Leader has waged war on Satan and named this year as the year bridling inflation and boosting production,” another imam in the southern city of Shiraz, Ayatollah Lotfollah Dozhakam said in his sermon while exhorting his congregation to obey Khamenei.

“We can’t claim we are Muslims and awaiting the appearance of the Imam of Ages but do not obey his representative (Khamenei),” Dozhakam said.

Another Khamenei appointed Friday imam, Hojjat ol-Eslam Mahmoud Noorpour who also represents him in the northern Golestan Province told his congregation that hijab is “the most important institution of the Islamic Republic” and urged the authorities to enforce it at government offices, public places, hospitals and pharmacies, shops, and schools and universities.

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Many women have been refusing to wear the compulsory hijab since September when anti-government protests engulfed the country in reaction to the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Aamini in the custody of the morality police. The young woman was arrested and taken to a detention center because the morality police patrols deemed her hijab not appropriate enough.

Photos and videos posted on social media these days show many women stepping into shops and banks and riding on public transport with no headscarf. To the religious and hardline political establishment, refusal to wear the hijab is nothing short of open defiance of the regime and its ideology.

But it is not only the hijab that they are worried about these days. The month of Ramadhan has arrived. For decades, the regime has banned all eating, drinking, and smoking in public including at workplace and schools before dusk when those who fast can begin eat and drink.

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Clerics have even coined a term for the acts of eating, drinking, or smoking in public during the fasting hours which could very loosely be translated into “showing off in public that one is not fasting”. This ‘crime’ is punishable by ten to sixty days of prison or up to 74 lashes.

Even girls as young as nine are required to abide by the fasting rules at school because it is the age they are believed to be mature enough to wear the hijab and to fast. For boys the age of maturity comes much later, at fifteen.

“Respecting the holiness of the month of Ramadhan is a must for all. Showing off that one is not fasting is even worse than not fasting,” Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi, the Friday imam of the city of Arak said while his peer in Gonbad, Noorpour, urged the police and state-sponsored vigilantes who are mainly responsible for warning those who do not abide by the hijab to “take decisive action against those who break the law.”

Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani was quoted by the official news agency IRNA as saying, “The continuation of America’s illegal presence in, and occupation of parts of Syria, as well attacks against different targets in that country, are violations of international law and Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The US military retaliated against drone and rocket attacks targeting its bases in northeastern Syria launched by proxy forces controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the IRGC, on Thursday and Friday.

The Pentagon and the Biden administration, while reiterating their determination to defend US personnel, emphasized that they were careful in their military strikes to minimize loss of any Iranian lives and collateral damage.

Kanaani referring to US support for “the fake Zionist regime” said, “US claims of maintaining a presence in Syria for fighting against the Islamic State group, which the US has a major role in its creation, is simply an excuse for occupation and pillaging Syria’s national wealth, including its energy resources.”

Tehran has been repeatedly alleging that the United States is “stealing oil” from Syrian oil fields close to its bases.

The spokesman also rejected US accusations as unfounded, implicitly referring to statements that attacks on US forces were launched by militias under Iranian command.

Earlier, Iran's security council warned the US against further attacks, stressing that any further strikes will be countered immediately.

Critics in the US have accused the Biden Administration of a meek response to Iranian-led attacks in Syria and Iraq. Since President Joe Biden assumed office there have been 80 such attacks and but only a few US retaliatory strikes.