#saqez

[womanlifefreedom]

Viral photo from 2022 of many people traveling by car toward a cemetery in Saqez, the hometown of Mahsa Jina Amini, following her death. A woman shot from behind, her hair freed, raises her hands to the sky. The photo is rendered in red and white, while black and white font superimposed reads: You wanted to instill fear in us; instead, courage was instilled

Source: Twitter/ali_naseri

[luminalunii97]

Today marks one year anniversary of 2022 Iranian uprising against the oppressive Islamic Republic regime. An uprising that started with the brutal murder of a young kurd woman, Mahsa Jina Amini, for "inappropriate hijab".

For the past couple of weeks, the regime has prepared their forces to beat down any new movement immediately. The streets of Tehran and many other cities are lined with anti riot forces and police cars. In Saqez, the home city of Amini family, they've stationed the army around the city to massacre people in case they try to start another wave of protest. Mahsa's father has been arrested alongside some family members of other last year uprising martyrs.

There has been small protesting gatherings in Iran in the last two days, there has already been some arrests and violent crackdowns on protesters. I hear people chanting from my neighborhood homes. The government would commit as many bloodbaths as it takes to secure their position, but you can't beat people into obedience when they hate you from the bottom of their hearts.

Woman life freedom

[warningsine]

Rights groups have claimed that Iranian authorities arrested Mahsa Amini’s father and prevented her family from holding a vigil to commemorate the first anniversary of her death.

A report on Saturday in the official IRNA news agency said Amjad Amini had not been arrested. Later in the day, the agency said security forces had foiled an assassination attempt against Amini.

The 1500tasvir monitor, the Iran Human Rights (IHR) group and the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) said Amjad Amini had been arrested early on Saturday in Saqez in western Iran and released after being warned not to hold a memorial service at his daughter’s graveside.

The death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman arrested by Iranian morality police last year for not adhering to mandatory dress codes, led to months of some of the biggest protests against clerical rule ever seen in Iran.

More than 500 people, including 71 minors, were killed in the protests, while hundreds were wounded and thousands arrested, rights groups said. Iran executed seven people linked to the unrest.

Protests, international attention

As night fell on Saturday, a heavy security presence in Iran’s main cities and in mostly Kurdish areas appeared to have deterred large-scale protest rallies but human rights groups reported sporadic confrontations in several areas of the country.

Videos posted on social media showed people gathered on a main avenue in the capital Tehran cheering a young protesting couple as drivers honked their car horns in support.

One of Iran’s most high-profile prisoners, prize-winning rights activist Narges Mohammadi and three other women detainees burned their headscarves in the courtyard of Tehran’s Evin prison to mark the anniversary, according to a post on Mohammadi’s Instagram.

Outside Tehran, at the Qarchak prison for women, rights groups said a fire broke out when security forces quelled a protest by inmates. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network said special forces beat up women in the prison and fired pellet bullets. IRNA reported that a fire engulfed the women’s ward in Qarchak after convicts awaiting execution set fire to their clothes. It said the blaze was put out and there were no casualties.

Protests were also reported in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, and in Mashhad, northeast of the capital. One video posted on social media showed a group of demonstrators in the Karaj neighbourhood of Gohardasht chanting, “We are a great nation, and will take back Iran”, while drivers honked their horns and shouted encouragement.

In the Kurdish city of Mahabad, rights group Hengaw said security forces opened fire, wounding at least one person. It also said several people were wounded in the city of Kermanshah but there was no official confirmation of either incident.

In Amini’s home town, the semi-official Fars news agency reported that police using a pellet gun had seriously wounded a man who “ignored a warning”. It said the man was in an intensive care ward after undergoing an operation, but provided no more detail.

Hengaw identified the man as Fardin Jafari and said he had been shot in the head near the cemetery where Amini is buried.

Al Jazeera could not verify the report.

Hengaw also reported a widespread general strike in Kurdish areas on Saturday, circulating video and photos that appeared to show streets largely empty and shops shuttered. Human Rights Activists in Iran, another group that closely follows events in the country, also reported the general strike.

But state media dismissed the reports, with IRNA saying Saqez was “completely quiet” and that calls for strikes in Kurdish areas had failed due to “people’s vigilance and the presence of security and military forces”.

The agency quoted an official in the Kurdistan province as saying: “A number of agents affiliated with counter-revolutionary groups who had planned to create chaos and prepare media fodder were arrested in the early hours of this morning.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, meanwhile, arrested a dual national suspected of “trying to organise unrest and sabotage”, according to IRNA, one of several arrests of “counter revolutionaries” and “terrorists” reported.

Demonstrations and vigils were also held outside Iran, with protesters gathering in Sydney, Paris, London, Rome, Toronto, New York and Washington, DC, to commemorate Amini’s death.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that a garden in the French capital now carried Amini’s name. The mayor called Amini an Iranian resistance hero and said Paris “honours her memory and her battle, as well as those of women who fight for their freedom in Iran and elsewhere”.

The Villemin Garden that now also bears Amini’s name is in Paris’s 10th district, next to a canal with popular boat tours.

In Washington, DC, the capital of the United States, hundreds of protesters gathered in a park across from the White House holding portraits of Amini. Speakers led the crowd in chants of “Say her name … Mahsa Amini”, and recited, “We are the revolution”, as well as, “Human rights for Iran!”

In a statement on Friday, US President Joe Biden said, “Mahsa’s story did not end with her brutal death. She inspired a historic movement – Woman, Life, Freedom – that has impacted Iran and influenced people across the globe.”

The US, meanwhile, announced sanctions on more than two dozen individuals and entities connected to Iran’s “violent suppression” of protests, while the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on four Iranian officials.

Iran has blamed last year’s protests on the US and other foreign powers, without providing evidence, and has since tried to downplay the unrest even as it moves to prevent any resurgence.

In a report last month, Amnesty International said Iranian authorities “have been subjecting victims’ families to arbitrary arrest and detention, imposing cruel restrictions on peaceful gatherings at grave sites, and destroying victims’ gravestones”.

Many journalists, lawyers, activists, students, academics, artists, public figures and members of ethnic minorities accused of links with the protest wave, as well as relatives of protesters killed in the unrest, have been arrested, summoned, threatened or fired from jobs in the past few weeks, according to Iranian and Western human rights groups.

Iran’s Etemad daily reported in August that the lawyer for Amini’s family also faced charges of “propaganda against the system”.

If convicted, Saleh Nikbakht faces a jail sentence of between one and three years.

[coochiequeens]

Journalism can be a deadly job to begin with.

By Britt Gronemeyer

Since the eruption of mass anti-government protests in mid-September 2022, the Islamic Republic has waged a war on women journalists in Iran. The targeting of journalists is not new. However, security forces have deliberately gone after women journalists and jailed them at a rapidly increasing rate. While the international community has spoken out in support of the Women, Life, Freedom revolution, they have done little to protect the women journalists at the heart of this movement. 

In September 2022, Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi were imprisoned on alleged charges of espionage. They had attempted to report on the death of twenty-two-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini—a Kurdish-Iranian woman who had been killed by the so-called morality police for “violating” mandatory hijab. Hamedi wrote for the reformist newspaper Shargh and was the first journalist to report on the death of Amini, doing so from the hospital in Tehran where Amini had been on life support. Mohammadi had reported on the protests at Amini’s funeral in her hometown of Saqez in northwest Kurdistan province.

In January of this year, journalist Nazila Maroufian revealed that she had been jailed and sentenced to two years on alleged charges of “anti-government propaganda and spreading false news” after publishing an interview with Amini’s father, Amjad Amini.

These three women and their experiences do not exist in a vacuum. The targeting of female journalists has been a direct response to the rise of the Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran. More than seventy journalists have been imprisoned in Iran since the beginning of the protests, 44 percent of whom are women. This is an unprecedented number in Iranian history.

According to journalist and activist Yeganeh Rezaian, a senior researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Women, Life, Freedom uprising would not exist without female journalists.

“The Women, Life, Freedom movement was started by the unfortunate death of a woman, but also by women’s coverage of that terrible incident. So, if it was not for those first two female journalists who covered the death of Mahsa Amini, there would be no clarity about what had happened to her,” Rezaian explained to me.

What the constitution says

This phenomenon is not limited to Iranian journalists covering the ongoing protests. The Islamic Republic has a long history of jailing journalists as well as subjecting them to extreme censorship and political pressure. 

Under the Islamic Republic, the legal framework for freedom of the press is constituted by a combination of sharia law and Islamic cultural norms. While there are provisions within the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran developed in 1979 that protect freedom of expression and address the freedom of the press, these provisions are often overlooked or subjected to severe restrictions.

Article 24 of the Constitution establishes the rights of the press to freedom of expression, yet they are subject to exceptions in favor of the principles of Islam and the rights of the public. Article 168 of the Constitution reinforces the restrictions on the freedom of expression by laying out the procedures relating to offenses by the press. The 1986 Iranian Press Law established the Mission of the Press, the Rights of the Press, and the Limits of the Press. The provision regarding the limitations placed upon the press would prove to be the most significant in justifying contemporary restrictions of the press.   

By adopting rhetoric pointing to national security concerns and the spread of propaganda, the Islamic Republic has abused its jurisdiction over national security. The Iranian state uses national security charges as an increasingly transparent façade for the wrongful detention of journalists in an effort to eliminate criticism of the regime and prevent the exposure of other human rights violations they have committed.

Waging war on women journalists

Rezaian claimed that the current targeting of female journalists is not shocking. She has commented that these efforts have become so prolific that they no longer attempt to hide the detention of journalists, noting that they are shameless in raiding these women’s homes without warrants and providing purpose for their imprisonment.

CPJ has declared the Islamic Republic the worst jailer of journalists in the world for 2022. The sheer number of detentions is worsened by the conditions in which these women journalists are being treated. Journalists in Iran are subjected to poor prison conditions, including being frequently kept in solitary confinement. Furthermore, female journalists are specifically targeted as victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault. 

So, while the international community says that they stand with the women of Iran, they must step up in the face of a war against female journalists and ensure that they are given the freedom to continue to fight for the rights of their peers. 

Freedom of the press in the international community is addressed through numerous bodies of international law. UNESCO declares that access to information is a fundamental freedom as well as an integral component of freedom of expression. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Islamic Republic of Iran has ratified, holds that everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression. This includes the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.” The blatant dismissal of these rights by the Islamic Republic must be recognized and condemned by the international community. 

There are other ways to hold the Islamic Republic accountable, including the use of targeted financial sanctions and travel bans against companies and individuals that are responsible for the unjust treatment of journalists. Additionally, European Union states could summon their ambassadors back to their countries in protest of the wrongful detentions and the harsh treatment of female journalists. Lastly, countries with universal jurisdiction laws can and should investigate the detentions of women journalists to bring the individuals responsible to justice.  

As women journalists risk their lives to share the realities of the Islamic Republic’s brutality with the world, the international community must support them with deliberate action.  

Britt Gronemeyer is a Young Global Professional at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs.

[eurekadiario]

Las fuerzas de seguridad de Irán reprimen las protestas un año después de la muerte de Mahsa Amini

Las fuerzas de seguridad iraníes reprimieron las protestas en las zonas kurdas del país el sábado y detuvieron brevemente al padre de Mahsa Amini, un año después de que la muerte de la joven bajo custodia desencadenara algunos de los peores disturbios políticos en cuatro décadas.

Los Guardias Revolucionarios detuvieron a un ciudadano con doble nacionalidad sospechoso de "intentar organizar disturbios y sabotajes", informó la agencia oficial de noticias IRNA, uno de varios arrestos de "contrarrevolucionarios" y "terroristas".

Al caer la noche del sábado, una fuerte presencia de fuerzas de seguridad en las zonas mayoritariamente kurdas de Irán parecía haber disuadido manifestaciones de protesta a gran escala, pero grupos de derechos humanos informaron de enfrentamientos esporádicos en varias zonas del país.

La muerte de Mahsa Amini, una mujer kurda de 22 años arrestada por la policía moral el año pasado por supuestamente violar los códigos de vestimenta obligatorios, desencadenó meses de algunas de las mayores protestas contra el gobierno clerical chiíta de la República Islámica jamás vistas y atrajo la atención internacional. condenación.

A pesar de la fuerte presencia de seguridad el sábado, hubo indicios de acciones de protesta en varios puntos del país. Videos publicados en las redes sociales mostraban a personas reunidas en una avenida principal de la capital, Teherán, animando a una joven pareja que protestaba mientras los conductores tocaban las bocinas de sus autos en señal de apoyo.

IRNA informó que el fuego envolvió el pabellón de mujeres de la prisión de Qarchak en la provincia de Teherán antes de ser extinguido después de que los convictos en espera de ejecución prendieron fuego a sus ropas. Dijo que no hubo víctimas.

La Red de Derechos Humanos del Kurdistán, que dijo que el incidente estaba relacionado con las protestas, dijo que fuerzas especiales entraron en la sala, golpearon a las mujeres y dispararon perdigones.

En otro incidente, el grupo de derechos humanos Hengaw dijo que las fuerzas de seguridad abrieron fuego en la ciudad kurda de Mahabad, hiriendo al menos a una persona. También dijo que varias personas resultaron heridas en la ciudad de Kermanshah, pero no hubo confirmación oficial de ninguno de los incidentes.

En Saqez, la ciudad natal de Amini, en el noroeste de Irán, la agencia de noticias semioficial Fars informó que la policía había herido gravemente con una pistola de perdigones a un hombre que "ignoró una advertencia policial". Dijo que el hombre estaba en una sala de cuidados intensivos después de ser sometido a una operación, pero no proporcionó más detalles.

Las publicaciones en las redes sociales también mostraban imágenes de residentes de ciudades como Teherán gritando consignas contra el líder supremo, el ayatolá Ali Jamenei, como "¡Muerte al dictador!" así como protestas en zonas como Gohardasht, en la ciudad de Karaj al oeste de Teherán, y en Mashhad en el noreste.

Un vídeo publicado en las redes sociales mostraba a un grupo de manifestantes en Gohardasht cantando "Somos una gran nación y recuperaremos Irán", mientras los conductores tocaban las bocinas y gritaban aliento. Reuters no pudo autenticar de inmediato el video.

En las manifestaciones que siguieron a la muerte de Amini, más de 500 personas, entre ellas 71 menores, murieron, cientos resultaron heridas y miles fueron arrestadas, dijeron grupos de derechos humanos. Irán llevó a cabo siete ejecuciones relacionadas con los disturbios.

El sábado, se advirtió al padre de Mahsa, Amjad Amini, que no celebrara el aniversario de la muerte de su hija antes de ser liberado, dijo la Red de Derechos Humanos del Kurdistán, y la familia no pudo realizar una vigilia planificada junto a su tumba.

Una mujer participa en una protesta contra el régimen islámico de Irán tras la muerte de Mahsa Amini, en Estambul, Turquía, el 10 de diciembre de 2022. REUTERS/Dilara Senkaya Adquiere derechos de licencia

IRNA negó en un informe que Amjad Amini hubiera sido arrestado, pero no dijo si fue detenido brevemente o advertido.

Anteriormente, las redes sociales y los informes de grupos de derechos humanos hablaban de fuerzas de seguridad tomando posiciones alrededor de la casa de Amini en Saqez, en el oeste de Irán.

'MOVIMIENTO HISTÓRICO'

La represión de las protestas se produjo cuando la condena del organismo de control nuclear de las Naciones Unidas a la decisión de Teherán de excluir a varios inspectores del país subrayó el aislamiento de Irán de Occidente.

En Washington, cientos de manifestantes se reunieron en un parque frente a la Casa Blanca con retratos de Amini. Los oradores encabezaron a la multitud con cánticos de "Di su nombre… Mahsa Amini", y también recitaron "¡Somos la revolución" y "¡Derechos humanos para Irán!".

En una declaración del viernes, el presidente de Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, dijo: "La historia de Mahsa no terminó con su brutal muerte. Ella inspiró un movimiento histórico - Mujer, Vida, Libertad - que ha impactado a Irán e influido en personas de todo el mundo".

Gran Bretaña impuso el viernes sanciones a cuatro funcionarios iraníes y Estados Unidos dijo que estaba sancionando a más de dos docenas de personas y entidades relacionadas con la "represión violenta" de las protestas por parte de Irán.

Sin nombrar a Biden, el portavoz del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de Irán, Nasser Kanaani, calificó de "dobles raseros y mentiras" las expresiones occidentales de apoyo a los derechos de las mujeres en Irán.

Los medios estatales también descartaron informes de disturbios y huelgas en varias ciudades de la región del Kurdistán iraní. IRNA dijo que Saqez estaba "completamente tranquilo" y que los llamados a ataques en las zonas kurdas habían fracasado debido a "la vigilancia de la gente y la presencia de fuerzas militares y de seguridad".

La agencia citó a un funcionario de la provincia de Kurdistán diciendo: "Varios agentes afiliados a grupos contrarrevolucionarios que habían planeado crear caos y preparar material para los medios fueron arrestados en las primeras horas de esta mañana".

En un informe del mes pasado, Amnistía Internacional dijo que las autoridades iraníes "han estado sometiendo a las familias de las víctimas a arrestos y detenciones arbitrarias, imponiendo restricciones crueles a las reuniones pacíficas en las tumbas y destruyendo las lápidas de las víctimas".

Muchos periodistas, abogados, activistas, estudiantes, académicos, artistas, figuras públicas y miembros de minorías étnicas acusados de tener vínculos con la ola de protestas, así como familiares de manifestantes muertos en los disturbios, han sido arrestados, citados, amenazados o despedidos de sus puestos de trabajo. en las últimas semanas, según grupos de derechos humanos iraníes y occidentales.

El diario iraní Etemad informó en agosto que el abogado de la familia de Amini también enfrentaba cargos de "propaganda contra el sistema". Si es declarado culpable, Saleh Nikbakht se enfrenta a una pena de cárcel de entre uno y tres años.

Edición de Toby Chopra, Alex Richardson, Nick Macfie y Daniel Wallis

[neutrin0]

Today in saqez someone got shot in the head .

[blogynews]

"Unveiling the Unthinkable: Iran's Forces Detain Mahsa Amini's Father on Her Grievous Anniversary!"

Mahsa Amini’s Father Detained by Iranian Authorities on Anniversary of Daughter’s Death On the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in Iranian police custody, her father, Amjad Amini, was briefly detained on Saturday, according to human rights groups. The incident occurred amidst a heavy presence of security forces, who were positioned around Amini’s home in Saqez, western Iran. According to…

[blogynewz]

"Unveiling the Unthinkable: Iran's Forces Detain Mahsa Amini's Father on Her Grievous Anniversary!"

Mahsa Amini’s Father Detained by Iranian Authorities on Anniversary of Daughter’s Death On the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in Iranian police custody, her father, Amjad Amini, was briefly detained on Saturday, according to human rights groups. The incident occurred amidst a heavy presence of security forces, who were positioned around Amini’s home in Saqez, western Iran. According to…

[blogynewsz]

"Unveiling the Unthinkable: Iran's Forces Detain Mahsa Amini's Father on Her Grievous Anniversary!"

Mahsa Amini’s Father Detained by Iranian Authorities on Anniversary of Daughter’s Death On the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in Iranian police custody, her father, Amjad Amini, was briefly detained on Saturday, according to human rights groups. The incident occurred amidst a heavy presence of security forces, who were positioned around Amini’s home in Saqez, western Iran. According to…

[nedsecondline]

Los envenenamientos provocan protestas en la ciudad natal de Amini en Irán

Redacción internacional (EFE).- Varios casos de envenenamientos en centros educativos femeninos provocaron este domingo protestas en Saqez, ciudad …Los envenenamientos provocan protestas en la ciudad natal de Amini en Irán

[eideard]

For FREEDOM!

Protests continued in several cities across Iran on Thursday against the death of young woman in police custody, state and social media reported, as a human rights group said at least 83 people had been killed in nearly two weeks of demonstrations. Mahsa Amini, 22, from the Iranian Kurdish town of Saqez, was arrested…in Tehran for “unsuitable attire” by the morality police that enforces the…

[aradxan]

[womanlifefreedom]

“FREEDOM”

Photo of a woman standing on a car with her hands in the air as masses of cars and people head toward the horizon was taken forty days after Mahsa Jina Amini was killed. The word FREEDOM, where the woman forms the Alef, is superimposed in yellow.

An estimated ten thousand people attempted to gather to mourn in Saqez, a city in the Kurdistan province where Amini is buried. Protests also erupted across the country, numbering in the tens of thousands.

Forty days following the death of a family member or friend is a traditional day of mourning in Iran. More about traditional funerary and mourning customs.

[natgeokurdistan]

خۆزگە جەنگەڵ بووبای وەتەن کە تۆفان لە جەنگەڵدا هەڵگیرسا هیچ درەختێک تەنها نییە پشتی هەر درەختێک درەختێکی ترە لە جەنگەڵ درەختەکان بە پێوە ئەمرن شان بەشانی یەکترەوە خۆزگە جەنگەڵ بووبای وەتەن دەشتی سیرە مێرگ، سەردەشت، پارێزگای ورمێ Sira Merg Plain, Sardasht, Urmia Province ________________________________ تا ژینگە پارێز نەبی، ناتوانی وڵات پارێز بی... ________________________________ 📸By: @3a7ark 🔺🔺 🔺 ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ ➖➖ ➖ 🔻🔻 🔻 #kurdistan_is_a_region_full_of_beauty #کوردستان_پر_لە_جوانی #kurd #kurdistan #urmia #sardasht #کورد #کوردستان #ارومیه #سەردەشت #سردشت #sena #kermashan #ilam #baneh #mariwan #mahabad #oshnaviyeh #bukan #saqez #piranshahr #paveh #kamyaran #bijar #miandoab #کرماشان #سنە #ایلام #سنندج #بانە 🔶🔶🔶 (at Sardasht) https://www.instagram.com/p/CEWBy8rgwxO/?igshid=1jjizpmvgnkyb

[radicalgraff]

"Who do we call when the police murders?

به کی زنگ بزنیم وقتی قاتل خودش پلیسه؟

Graffiti seen in Iran during the ongoing protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22yr old woman who fell into a coma after being beaten in police custody.

Ms Amini, an ethnic Kurd who was from the western city of Saqez in Kurdistan province, died in hospital on Friday after spending three days in a coma.

She was detained outside a metro station in Tehran last Tuesday by morality police. They accused her of breaking the law requiring women to cover their hair with a headscarf, and their arms and legs with loose clothing.

According to witnesses, she was beaten while inside a police van that took her to a detention centre.

Protests erupted in Saqez after her funeral on Saturday, with security forces reportedly opening fire on a crowd that marched towards the local governor's office.

There were also clashes between protesters and riot police in Sanandaj, Kurdistan's capital, on Saturday and Sunday.

Four people were reportedly killed in Iran's Kurdish region on Monday when security forces opened fire during protests over the death, a Kurdish rights group said.

Her death has been condemned nationwide, with the Persian hashtag reaching nearly 2 million Twitter mentions.

The most intense demonstrations have been in Iranian Kurdistan, where authorities have previously put down unrest among minority Kurds.