#NO MERCY FOR BASIJ

[loneranger0369]

This.... is 1 month too late....

I'm doing my Share.

Please share.

Please reblog.

Women. Life. Freedom

[opedguy]

Iran Cracks Down on Peaceful Protesters

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Dec. 7, 2019.--Cracking down Dec. 1 on peaceful protesters in Iran, 80-year-old Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave the order to mow down street demonstrators, killing at least 208, wounding hundreds more and jailing up to 7,000.  Demonstrators protested rising gas prices while basic commodities, like food and clothing, have skyrocketed for ordinary Iranians. Iran finds itself feeling the economy heat from 73-year-pld President Donald Trump’s new sanctions, levied after he pulled the U.S. out of former President Barack Obama’s Iranian Nuke Deal May 8, 2018.  Since then, Trump has applied “maximum pressure” on Tehran, preventing the Persian Nation from selling Iranian oil in world markets.  Trump wanted Iran to come back to the bargaining table, only to watch his peace overtures rebuked by Khamenei and 71-year-old Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

            Khamenei learned in the past what to do in Iran when street protests threaten his brutal clerical rule.  Khameni repeated the same crackdowns witnessed after national elections in 2009, then again in 2017-2018, when Iranian youth realized Khamenei’s mullah rule betrayed Ayatollah’s Ruhollah Khomenei’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.  Back then, Khamenei returned to Iran to topple Iran’s monarchy led by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.   While Khomenei succeeded in ousting the Shah, ordinary Iranians now realize that Iran is far worse off today then it was during the Shah’s rule.  Khamenei used Dec. 1 Iran’s Basij militia with backing from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps [IRGC] to massacre peaceful protesters, the exact thing done in 2009 and 2017.  Like other totalitarian or authoritarian regimes, Khamenei controls Iran’s weapons and means of using them.

            Khamenei said Dec. 1 that Iran would show “Islamic mercy” to the protesters, despite giving the Basij militia the green light to open fire on peaceful demonstrators.  Protesters complained about rising gas and commodity prices, making it difficult for ordinary Iranians to make ends meet.  Trump continues to ratchet up the economic pressure, making it difficult for Iran to sell oil on world markets.  Iran’s Rial currency has plummeted to its lowest level since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.  It’s a sad testament that Iranians pay only 90 cents a gallon, even with a 50-cent increase, attesting to how the plummeting Rial has left working-class Iranians cash strapped.  Khamenei blamed nationwide protests on America, Israel and Saudi Arabia, his go-to scapegoats when the government takes no responsibility for creating Iran’s economic misery.  Khamenei takes zero responsibility for today’s crisis.

            Blaming unrest on the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia is consistent with the ongoing propaganda campaign, diverting state media away from the government.  “The faster these cases are considered, the better and those who are suspected of being close to any group should dealt with in a way that is closer to “Islamic mercy,” Khamenei was quoted by IRNA, Iran’s state-run news agency.  Offering to pay reparations to citizens regarded as martyrs, providing they weren’t connected with what Khamenei calls “rabble rousing,” or subversive outside groups.  Khamenei can’t fathom that the protesters were ordinary Iranians seeing no economic future, watching the government squander one opportunity after another. Trump has made clear to the Ayatollah that he’s willing to sit at the table to discus a wide range of activities. Khamenei rejected any dialogue with Washington unless Trump ends all sanctions.

            Khamenei thinks that the violent protests, including setting banks ablaze, were instigated by the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia.  It wasn’t that long ago Sept. 14 that Iran was accused hitting Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq-Khurais largest oil refinery, blaming it on Yemen’s Houthi rebels.  Pentagon officials have said with 100% certainty that Iran was the only Mideast nation capable of hitting the oil facility.  “Setting a bank on fire is not an act done by the people. This what thugs do,” Khamenei said, showing his total denial that ordinary Iranians are disgusted with clerical rule.  Khamenei’s latest crackdown is no different from the 2009 Green Movement when a disputed presidential election caused widespread street protests.  Watching the Rial currency go from 32,000 to 127,000 per U.S. dollar has left working class Iranians desperate, taking to the streets to vent their frustrations.

            Khameni’s clerical regime continues to crack down on ordinary Iranians, expressing their frustrations with mullah rule.  With a government hell-bent on building ballistic missiles—possibly A-bombs—and enriching uranium, it’s no wonder Iran’s citizens feel left out.  Khamenei’s regime spends its time demonizing the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia, while all three countries enjoy relative prosperity.  Trump has tried, but failed, to get Khamenei and Rouhani to come back to the bargaining table to stop Iran’s malign activities in the Mideast and North Africa.  Khaemeni’s proxy wars, supplying arms-and-cash to Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah’s militia in Lebanon, makes Iran the biggest state sponsor of terror in the Mideast and North Africa.  Iranians have wised up to see that Khamenei puts ordinary citizens on the backburner, too busy sponsoring terrorism.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma

.  

[ladystylestores]

Iran’s message to its people: If you revolt, you die | Poverty

Since late June, 11 Iranian citizens – three in Tehran and eight in Isfahan – have been sentenced to death for taking part in mass anti-government protests in November 2019. Iranian journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was accused of fuelling anti-government protests through a popular Telegram channel in 2017, also received the death penalty during the same period.  

Also in June, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shut down Iran’s biggest anti-poverty NGO, the Imam Ali Society, and arrested its founding director, Sharmin Meymandi Nejad, citing “anti-Iran activities”. The independent charity had attracted the regime’s fury during last year’s protests by criticising government officials for “calling the poverty-stricken demonstrators rioters and agents of the enemy”. 

Why did Iranian authorities rapidly intensify their efforts to silence dissenting voices in the last few weeks? The short answer is “fear”. Today, amid a devastating pandemic and crippling economic sanctions, the Iranian government is more concerned about the possible re-emergence of mass riots than ever before. 

Today, Iranian people are fed up with the government’s totalitarian desire to control all aspects of their lives and its apparent inability to address pressing environmental threats, such as air pollution and drought. Moreover, they are extremely dissatisfied with its bungling response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But above all, many Iranians from all walks of life are experiencing unprecedented, crippling economic hardship as a result of the cumulative consequences of the US sanctions, the COVID-19 pandemic and the incompetence of the Iranian government.  

US President Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and embark on a “maximum pressure” policy devastated Iran’s economy, which was already in dire straits due to chronic mismanagement and widespread corruption. Just over a year later, the coronavirus pandemic, and the consequent drop in global oil prices, inflicted a second deadly blow on the country’s finances.

Due to US sanctions, Iran’s oil revenues dropped from over $60bn in 2018 to $9bn in 2019. As the Iranian leadership tried to compensate for its oil revenue losses with gains in other sectors, the pandemic struck the service sector – which makes up more than 40 percent of Iran’s economy – and sped up the country’s looming economic collapse. 

In the first half of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic already caused a 15 percent drop in Iran’s GDP, and the country is expected to experience further losses in the second half of the year.  

Adding to these concerns, Iran’s economy is experiencing another period of “stagflation”, a combination of recession and high inflation. The Iranian leadership’s short-term remedy for its economic woes has always been to print more money, which leads to higher inflation. Earlier this year, the Iranian rial plummeted against the US dollar to the currency’s lowest value ever, with one US dollar being traded for 230,000 rials. Inflation, meanwhile, reached 40 percent in 2019 and is expected to rise further this year. 

Iranians have been protesting against increasing economic hardship since December 2017. Most recently in November last year, they took to the streets en masse to protest against an unexpected increase in gasoline prices. The government violently cracked down on the protests, killing up to 1,500 people and injuring many others.  

Since last year’s violence, the worsening economic situation – and the unrest it may trigger – has been a primary source of concern for Iran’s political elites. Most recently on June 27, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha, one of Iran’s highest-ranking and most politically influential clerics, wrote an open letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei and warned him that “increasing inflation and declining incomes have created back-breaking problems for the people” which threaten the stability of the country and the future of the regime.  

To remedy this situation and prevent future unrest, the regime adopted a twinned strategy of offering basic material aid to the poor and intensifying oppression. 

In April, as the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the country’s existing economic and social woes and increased the likelihood of a new episode of nationwide unrest, the government created an ad hoc welfare central command station called the Imam Hassan Headquarters to provide Iran’s poorest and most vulnerable with basic goods and “buy” their loyalty.

The government, however, is well aware that such initiatives are akin to putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. Iran’s parliamentary research centre has warned that as many as 57 million Iranians (out of a population of 82 million) may be pushed below the poverty line in 2020. The regime, whose income is already shrinking, cannot afford to provide sufficient aid to such a large section of the population for too long. 

This is why the government is also using a more effective and familiar tactic to prevent mass unrest: oppression. 

In June 2020, the state-appointed IRGC Brigadier General Hossein Nejat, one of Khamenei’s most trusted officers, as the head of Sarallah headquarters. Sarallah is Tehran’s most important security headquarters and is tasked with protecting government officials and institutions in the city against domestic threats such as riots, anti-government protests or coup attempts.

General Nejat’s appointment to this role indicates not only that the regime is gearing up for more anti-government protests, but also that it is preparing to crush any revolt with force. 

Prior to his appointment, Nejat made it clear that he views the urban poor as the most critical threat to the Iranian regime. In his analysis of the November 2019 uprising, for example, the general claimed that the West is using poor Iranians to topple Iran’s government and described them as “illiterate people, who live in the outskirts [of major population centres] and [whose minds] are polluted in the cyberspace”. 

And it is not only the forces directly tied to the Sarallah headquarters that are preparing for a battle with the urban poor. The IRGC has also started to prepare a volunteer paramilitary force of government loyalists, known as Basij, for a new round of unrest. According to my sources in the militia, the Guard has introduced new anti-riot tactics and scheduled extra propaganda sessions to convince Basij forces of the necessity of cracking down on civilian protests.  

Meanwhile, the IRGC propaganda machine is doing overtime and using social networks to pre-emptively brand any future protest movement as a Western attempt to topple the government.

As they work to expand their support networks, the government’s forces are also simultaneously dismantling any civil society organisation and movement that could provide support for protesters during future unrest, such as the anti-poverty NGO, Imam Ali Society. 

Another important element in IRGC’s strategy to prevent future unrest is injecting fear into the population. This is why Iran’s judiciary, which often acts as an arm of the IRGC, has sentenced youths involved in last year’s protests to death. The message that was sent to the masses with these sentences was clear: There is no mercy, if you revolt, you will die. 

Today, Iran’s security and political elites are clearly working overtime to prevent a new round of civic unrest. It is impossible to know whether they will succeed in sedating, and scaring, the Iranian masses enough to prevent another round of nationwide protests. One thing, however, is certain: in the hopes of maintaining order, the Iranian regime is becoming more authoritarian and repressive every passing day. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Source link

قالب وردپرس

from World Wide News https://ift.tt/2OCkjmP

[loneranger0369]

I think.. That they are repeatedly setting the Evin Prison on fire.... Because, this is not the first time I came to know about this...

Yeah... Khamenei is so full of Humanity. He is so very kind, which is why he is allowing this to happen.

Meanwhile... Members of United Nations sit around in expensive Places, drive around in expensive Cars, which they purchased using the Money earned from regular Public, like the people of Iran...

@staff gonna add Iran to things we care about yet?

-fae

[aftabkaran]

Basij leader at the merci of protesters, where he should be. Sanandaj, today.

[loneranger0369]

Once a Nobody.

Now known by almost Everybody...

Mahsa, you are a Light and Hope to many struggling People.

I wish the Struggle of the Iranian people brings them everything Good that they are fighting for

The fight goes on.

[loneranger0369]

So... The Iranian Army willing to support the people of Iran was ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT!!! ANOTHER PROPAGANDA VIDEO BY THE MOTHERFUCKING REGIME!!!!!

Anonymous helping Iran??

BULLSHIT!!!!

Iran Protests - Genocide in Kurdistan

Islamic Republic security forces have launched a massive assault on protesters in Kurdish-populated cities in Iran. The death toll is rising every day. Yesterday, armoured vehicles and artillery mounted trucks were moving into the Kurdish region and they continue to do so today. Over the past few days, cities in the Kurdish-populated towns and cities in western Iran have seen the worst levels of violence by state security forces so far in response to growing protests. Daily killings of civilians by security forces have led to massive anti-government demonstrations at funerals in solidarity with victims’ families in each city.

On November 19, protesters reportedly took control of parts of the city of Mahabad, 181 miles north of Sanandaj, and barricaded the streets. After several hours, large military reinforcements were sent to the city. Before confronting protesters, the city’s power was shut off. The sounds of gunfire and protesters could be heard until the early morning as soldiers pursued people from house to house. At the same time, the authorities have shut down access to the internet almost completely in the west of the country to minimize the ability to share information about the state’s violence and atrocities.

In these cities, the Islamic Republic is using hexachloroethane, a nerve agent that temporarily disorganizes the central nervous system and is quite toxic by skin adsorption.

The most common initial effects are chlorine and zinc poisoning, vomiting, burning skin and coughing, but in the long run it can cause liver cancer, skin allergies and kidney damage. 

Please spread the news. The world needs to know that there is genocide taking place in Kurdish-populated towns and cities in Iran.