Iran’s violation of press freedoms worsens

 

Annual report on violation of religious rights in Iran

Ground Report, May 10, 2016 - Following Tuesday’s World Press Freedom Day 2016 the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ) released a statement saying “the regime’s draconian measures against news organizations have become more aggressive.”
It stated that “not only does the regime severely clamp down on journalists for reporting on subjects sensitive to the mullahs’, it even goes so far as arresting and torturing to death dissident bloggers.”
One of these documented cases of torture is of blogger Sattar Beheshti. A laborer and also blogger Mr. Beheshti was ‘tortured so seriously that he eventually passed away’ at the hands of the Iranian regime in 2012.
And 4 years on, the clerical regime continues to be suspicious of the journalistic right to freedom of expression but also freedom of association. Just 7 days leading up to World Press Freedom Day, the NCRI reported that ‘the Iran regime sentenced 4 reporters to [a collective tally of] 27 years in jail.’
Journalist Afarin Chitsaz was sentenced to 10 years behind bars; also Ehsan Mazandarini was given seven years; while Davood Assadi and Ehsan (Saman) Safarzaie were each handed down a five year sentence.more

Iran, opening up or illusion

Iran was a source of instability and violence all across the region before during the International sanctions, but now, Sanctions have been lifted on her , and  logically a moment of change should  arrive . Although it is heard that “it could be a unique opportunity, but the main question is , if anything will be changed in the Middle East , and if the diplomacy of the Middle East could now change, for better or for worse  !

But be very wary of anyone who claims anything more, and certainly be careful of anyone who claims anything more for Iran itself. President Hassan Rouhani is not Mikhail Gorbachev, and this is not a perestroika moment. Iran is not “opening up” or becoming “more Western” or somehow more liberal. On the contrary, the level of repression inside the country has grown since the “moderate” Rouhani was elected in 2013. The number of death sentences has risen. In 2014, Iran carried out the largest number of executions anywhere in the world except for China. Last year, the number may have exceeded 2000. Partly this is because Iran’s chief justice has boasted of the eradication of drug offenders, many of whom are juveniles or convicted on dubious evidence.

 Moderation is an illusion in Iran

 Political pressure and religious discrimination have been increased, too. Women who don’t wear veils are still vulnerable to arrest and sentencing. The penalties for apostasy, adultery and … are still high, up to and including capital punishment. Cultural dissidents are under pressure, too, even more so since the sanctions-lifting deal was announced.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran noted that many political prisoners, including some foreigners, remain in Iranian prisons.

If it was  possible to separate all of these stories into a box and call Iran a country with “bad human rights” but “improving foreign policy,” then maybe there would be a case for ignoring them. But — as we’ve learned to our cost, in Russia, among other places — regimes that need violence to repress their citizens do not make reliable diplomatic partners. Any ruling clique that fears popular revolt will always, at the end of the day, tailor its foreign policy to the goal of keeping itself in power. Right now, Rouhani and his foreign minister, think that lifting sanctions will help improve Iran’s economy and create popular support. But if it doesn’t, then they or their successors will immediately direct public anger and emotion at the Great Satan once again.

The same warning applies to the Western businessmen lining up at the borders to enter Iran. No doubt there will be many Iranians willing to help them get rich, if it’s mutually beneficial. No doubt some will make money, though it might be hard to hold on to it in a country whose courts are politicized and whose judges are selected in an arbitrary and opaque process. But either way, there isn’t much point in wishfully hoping that foreign investment will “open up” Iran, either: In the current circumstances, foreign investment is far more likely to enrich the existing elite. If so, the result will be greater repression, more effective disinformation and, of course, more money for the export of terrorism and crime the ideology of the Iranian revolution to Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

So, yes, change may come to Middle Eastern diplomacy. But change has not come to Iran yet. And until it does, Iran will remain a source of instability and violence all across the region.

Iran’s cyber army – new intelligence confirms ongoing Global threat

briefing at the National Press Club in Washington

The deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ), Alireza Jafarzadeh in an article published in ‘The Hill’ explained about the Iranian regime’s involvement in a series of cyber-attacks against the United States.
Mr. Jafarzadeh said that the U.S. Justice Department reported that Iran, by 2013, was behind a series of cyber-attacks that targeted a minimum of 46 companies and a dam. However, the latest intelligence about the scope and depth of the mullahs’ regime’s involvement in a cyber-war against the U.S. is “widening the anti-terror focus”.
Hackers linked to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), between 2011 and 2013, are said to have attacked financial institutions such as the New York Stock Exchange and Bank of America, as well as other companies such as AT&T.
Another target was a flood-control dam 25 miles north of New York City.  Jafarzadeh explains that the hackers “broke into the command and control system of the dam in 2013” and would have been able to release water from behind the dam if it had not been for the fact that, at the time of intrusion, the sluice gate had been manually disconnected.
Jafarzadeh explains that this is an “unequivocal warning that the Iranian regime is preparing to mount a larger cyber-attack against American infrastructure”.
Recent reports from inside the Iranian regime indicate that the IRGC commander Mohammad-Ali Jafari is working to create a “Cyber Force” which will act as the “sixth force” of the IRGC (beside the ground forces, navy, aerospace, extraterritorial Qods (Jerusalem) Force and domestic Bassij militia).
IRGC Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani (killed during battle in Syria) said in 2010 that Bassij cyber council had trained over 1,500 people to become cyber jihadis. He also promised that their activities would increase.
President Obama once said that Iran has a desire to get “right with the world”. But the regime is still committed to pursuing a strategic war against the U.S. and its allies and Jafarzadeh warns that any “hopes of change in behaviour are illusory at best”.

Iranian children join the war in Syria

 

Iranian mullah training children

The Iranian opposition group  ( NCRI ) released a translated video it says was produced by the Tehran’s Bassij Music House and was shown over several days on state-run television this month.

The selling pitch to youngsters: You will be defending sacred Shiite shrines in Syria and will position yourselves to invade Israel, whose destruction is an Iranian regime priority.

The Iranian regime, faced with a crisis in recruiting fighters to defend Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, have now embarked on a propaganda campaign to recruit youngsters to join the war in Syria.
The state media of the Mullah's regime, in the past few days, has released a promotional clip - ‘Martyrs who defend the sacred shrine’ – in an effort to persuade children to participate in the war.
Bassij Music House, the producers of the video, is the propaganda arm of a branch of the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – the paramilitary Bassij.
The video shows young children singing the following: 
“Let’s rise up to save the sacred shrine.
I have joined [Imam] Hossein’s army division.
… I have a warrant from the [Imam Ali] to defend the sacred shrine.
On my leader [Ali Khamenei’s] orders I am ready to give my life.
The goal is not just to free Iraq and Syria;
My path is through the sacred shrine [in Syria], but my goal is to reach Jerusalem.
… I don’t regret parting from my country;
In this just path I am wearing my martyrdom shroud.
… From Mashhad [north-east Iran], I will walk on foot to Damascus.
I am like the bird that flocks to the sacred shrine.”
There are similarities, for example the images and slogans used in the video, that remind us of the regime’s efforts to recruit during the Iran-Iraq war. The regime was faced a public backlash when they tried to recruit soldiers, so instead the mullahs “used Iranian children as human waves to clear the minefields”. Their efforts were fruitless at the time and Khomeini had no choice by to accept a ceasefire – or a “chalice of poison” as he called it.  

In the Iranian regime’s lexicon, ‘defending the sacred shrine’ is the equivalent of deploying the forces of the IRGC and more recently the regular army to Syria to defend the Assad regime as he massacres the people of Syria. This is while the majority of the Iranian regime’s casualties are near Aleppo which is several hundred kilometers away from the holy Shiite shrines near Damascus.

Even after trying to deploy various units including the IRGC forces and foreign militias, the regime is now seeking to recruit children to fight in the war.
This “disgraceful and inhumane act” will not resolve the deadlock situation, just like it didn’t work in the Iran-Iraq war. This time, he said, the regime is in an ever more fragile state.

Women situation has worsened since Rouhani took over

The National Council of Resistance of Iran Women Committee

They call Rouhani a moderate or a reformist. This is a total myth

Elham Zanjani from the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ) in an interview with Deutsche Welle radio talked about about the suppression of women in Iran.Officials in Iran have said this week they have a network of 7,000 undercover agents who inform police about ’moral transgressions’ - like women who don’t cover their hair properly, the report by DW said on Wednesday, adding that women in Iran are also increasingly blocked from education opportunities and employment.
'They call Rouhani a moderate or a reformist. This is a total myth,” Ms. Zanjani said.
She pointed out that the mullahs’ regime is “based on misogyny; there is no way that women will have progress and equal rights.”
“Definitely, the situation of women has worsened since Rouhani took over.”
“In the document that we published, there is a report from the Iranian state-run news agency IRNA where it states that from years before - for example from 2005 going on to 2010 and then until when Rouhani took over - the situation of women’s university admission and the situation of women’s rights in education has deteriorated.”
Rouhani has had very high responsibilities within the regime from its founding days, she said. He is a very strong believer in the principle of ‘Velayat-e Faqih,’ or absolute clerical rule, she argued.




 Over 60 percent of university students in Iran are women however they are forbidden from studying in at least 77 fields only on the basis of their gender, she pointed out.
Ms. Zanjani reiterated that when European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and other EU officials go to Iran and the “issue of human rights, particularly women’s rights, is not the first issue on the table, things will not improve for women in Iran.”