HUMAN MASSACRE: WHY IRAN REGIME MUST BE TRIED PT.2

The events that led to this incomprehensible and unseen brutality
From 1981 to 1987 – Thousands and thousands of Iranian activists, mainly youth, were arrested and tortured for opposing the regime’s brutal grip on power and for supporting the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI, MEK). Interrogators threw political prisoners on torture benches, tearing them apart to destroy their wills and hearts. Young girls and boys were indiscriminately tortured and executed with no mercy. Women and men were beaten to death. Virgin girls were raped the night before their execution to supposedly prevent them from going to the heavens. Mothers were tortured in front of their children or children in front of their mothers to break their will. Wives were raped in front of their husbands, sisters in front of their brothers. They had to choose between repenting and suffering the doomed destiny.

 In the final phases of the Iran-Iraq war, Khomeini who felt that defeat was imminent, decided to take his revenge on the political prisoners. Most of the prisoners from that period of time who lived through to tell their ordeal, know that the regime was preparing all along for an extensive massacre from the onset and the first step of this diabolical scheme begun in the fall and winter of 1987.
The regime started to sort and separate prisoners all over the country. The only thing that distinguished the prisoners was their political affiliation, whether they had repented and denounced the MEK, or they showed commitment to the only Nationwide Resistance against the mullahs, the MEK. Khomeini issued fatwas (religious decrees) ordering the execution of anyone who had not “repented” and who was not willing to collaborate entirely with the regime.
Many memories of those who survived that horrific ordeal and are alive now are as vivid as black and white. In one instance, according to one survival, it was in the afternoon of a March day in 1988 that Majid Sarlak, an interrogator and torturer in the notorious Evin Prison , barged in to the women’s ward looking anguished and carrying bunch of forms and applications. He told the prisoners that “the sentence for those who continue their pledge to ‘Mojafeghin’ (the regime’s derogatory term to describe the PMOI/MEK) is execution. “You have lived too long”, he shouted “and now the time has come to take care of you.”
The executions started from Evin Prison, because almost all those with death sentences were kept in Evin and most of the life sentences were in another horrifying prison, called Gohardasht. Among those who were transferred from Gohardasht to Evin, were many that had already finished their sentence and were kept in prison extra time. But this didn’t end in Evin, and soon included other prisons, i.e. Gohardasht, Qezelhesar and other prison in the entire country.

In the final phases of the Iran-Iraq war, Khomeini who felt that defeat was imminent, decided to take his revenge on the political prisoners. Most of the prisoners from that period of time who lived through to tell their ordeal, know that the regime was preparing all along for an extensive massacre from the onset and the first step of this diabolical scheme begun in the fall and winter of 1987.

The regime started to sort and separate prisoners all over the country. The only thing that distinguished the prisoners was their political affiliation, whether they had repented and denounced the MEK, or they showed commitment to the only Nationwide Resistance against the mullahs, the MEK. Khomeini issued fatwas (religious decrees) ordering the execution of anyone who had not “repented” and who was not willing to collaborate entirely with the regime.
Many memories of those who survived that horrific ordeal and are alive now are as vivid as black and white. In one instance, according to one survival, it was in the afternoon of a March day in 1988 that Majid Sarlak, an interrogator and torturer in the notorious Evin Prison , barged in to the women’s ward looking anguished and carrying bunch of forms and applications. He told the prisoners that “the sentence for those who continue their pledge to ‘Mojafeghin’ (the regime’s derogatory term to describe the PMOI/MEK) is execution. “You have lived too long”, he shouted “and now the time has come to take care of you.”
The executions started from Evin Prison, because almost all those with death sentences were kept in Evin and most of the life sentences were in another horrifying prison, called Gohardasht. Among those who were transferred from Gohardasht to Evin, were many that had already finished their sentence and were kept in prison extra time. But this didn’t end in Evin, and soon included other prisons, i.e. Gohardasht, Qezelhesar and other prison in the entire country.

HUMAN MASSACRE: WHY IRAN REGIME MUST BE TRIED PT. 1

28 years have gone since the horrific and brutal massacre of political prisoners that was carried out in just one short summer by the criminal mullahs ruling Iran.
In the summer of 1988, the clerical regime summarily and extra-judicially executed about 30,000 political prisoners held in jails across the country. This heinous massacre was carried out upon a fatwa by the Islamic regime founder, Ruhollah Khomeini.

There are strong indications that Khomeini’s fatwa was issued on July 26, 1988.
The Iranian regime has never acknowledged these executions, or provided any information as to how so many prisoners were killed in a matter of just a few months.
The majority of those executed were either serving prison sentences for their political activities or had already finished their sentences but their time in jail was extended.
Some of them had previously been imprisoned and released, but were re-arrested and executed as part of this heinous massacre.

The wave of executions of political prisoners began in late July and continued unabated for several months.
By the time it ended in the early autumn of 1988, some 30,000 political prisoners, the overwhelming majority activists of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), were slaughtered.
Some of them had previously been imprisoned and released, but were re-arrested and executed as part of this heinous massacre.

Iran regime sentence dual Iranian-American citizen to 18 years imprisonment

The Los Angeles Times reported San Diego man, 46, sentenced to 18 years imprisonment in Iran for the so called charges of “collaborating with a hostile government”.
Speaking from Ninava jail in Gorgan, northeast Iran, Gholamreza Shahini said he was visiting family members in Iran when he was arrested on 11th July. During his trial last week, he was sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment.
The week before this, two Iranian American businessman received ten years prison sentences on similar charges, adding to the growing number of dual nationals being arrested.
The number is increasing since the nuclear deal was signed last year. Before this, the U.S. had ceased diplomatic relations with Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
However, it appears that President Hassan Rouhani ’s outreach to the West is being undermined by tyrants wanting to “use prisoners as bargaining chips in future negotiations”.
Shahini said that prosecutors presented posts from social media as evidence during the trial. He said he does not know why he was arrested. He was due to start graduate school in homeland security studies this autumn.
He was put into solitary confinement for two weeks after his arrest. He was then put into a ward containing several hundred prisoners who had been arrested on murder or drug charges. They had to share eight bathrooms and a handful of showers.
Although he has seen hospital doctors, his asthma and dental issues remain unaddressed.
He said: “I’m a U.S. citizen. Let’s put pressure on the Iranian government so that it will not happen to another citizen. Maybe I am Iranian, but I am also American.”
He added that he would go on a hunger strike as soon as Iranian media outlets announce his sentencing. “I won’t stop unless I am free or die.”
His family say that Shahini has converted to Christianity – something which could add to his troubles with the Islamic Republic.
His sister, Fatemeh Shahini, called the news “a nightmare.” His girlfriend, Sevil Suleymani, said she and the rest of the family were shocked by the swiftness of the proceedings. She said: “After hearing his sentence, he is in a bad situation. He is really scared. It is shocking for all us. Nobody expected this.”
The LA Times points out that Iran’s official media has not reported Shahini’s sentencing and the State Department has not yet commented.

U.S. HOUSE PLANS TO VOTE ON IRAN SANCTIONS ACT (ISA) RENEWAL

A report for Reuters on October 25, by Patricia Zengerle, with additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, says that Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives plan a vote on a 10-year reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act as soon as mid-November, setting up a potential showdown with the White House and Senate.  This, according to statements from congressional aides.

The Iran Sanctions Act, or ISA, allows trade, energy, defense and banking industry sanctions over Iran's nuclear program and ballistic missile tests.  It expires on December 31, and it’s one of the major pieces of unfinished business lawmakers face after the Nov. 8 elections.

The Congressional aides say that Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. Representative Ed Royce, is expected to introduce the 10-year renewal as soon as Congress returns on November 14.

They also say an unchanged renewal is likely to pass the House, but its fate in the Senate is less certain. A White House spokesman declined to say whether President Barack Obama would sign it into law.

Republican controlled majorities in both the House and Senate opposed the international nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for relief from crippling economic sanctions, as did as every Republican in Congress.  They’ve tried repeatedly to pass legislation to clamp down on Iran, and accused President Obama of having conceded too much to Tehran in the nuclear talks.

Some Senate Republicans are trying to build support for legislation that would renew the ISA, but would also do more to punish individual Iranians and businesses over the country's ballistic missile tests and what many view as its support for terrorism.

Some senators are pushing for a new law to eliminate the president's right to waive sanctions.

According to the Reuter’s report, the Obama administration requested Congress to hold off on renewing the ISA. The administration says it has enough power to reimpose economic sanctions if Iran violates the nuclear agreement, even if it expires.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest wouldn't say how President Obama would respond if the bill passed both houses of Congress and reached his desk.  "I won't prejudge at this point whether or not the president would sign that bill," Earnest told reporters.  "The president and the Treasury Department retain significant sanctions authority that already has been used to impose costs on Iran for their flagrant violation of their international obligations," he said.

White House opposition to the bill may generate resistance from Democrats in the Senate, making it difficult to garner the 60 votes needed to move ahead, as Republicans hold only 54 seats in the 100-member chamber.

Renewing the sanctions bill will also have an effect in Iran, since Iranian officials are already complaining that remaining U.S. sanctions have frightened away trade and robbed it of the benefits promised under the nuclear deal.

Reuters reports that a House Foreign Affairs Committee aide said “addressing the ISA before it expires is a ‘top priority’ for Royce.”

"The Iran Sanctions Act was enacted to curb Tehran’s support for terrorism and its very dangerous weapons proliferation. It should remain in place until the regime stops exporting terror and threatening us and our allies with deadly weapons," Royce said in a statement sent to Reuters.  "That's why I'll be introducing a bipartisan, long-term extension of these important sanctions," he said.

CLINTON SPLIT WITH OBAMA ON IRAN, ACCORDING TO WIKILEAKS

In an opinion piece for Asharq Al-Awsat, Eli Lake, an American journalist and the former senior national security correspondent for The Daily Beast and Newsweek, who is currently a columnist for the Bloomberg View, writes about Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.

Lake writes, “A month after President Barack Obama’s historic 2013 phone call to Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, his former secretary of state privately warned that the so-called moderate only won the election because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guard Corps allowed it.”

Wikileaks made public a speech transcript of Hillary Clinton, on October 28, 2013, allegedly telling  the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago: “I believe that Rouhani was allowed to be elected by the two major power sources in Iran, the supreme leader and the clerics and the Revolutionary Guard … in part because the sanctions were having a quite damaging effect on the economy.”

According to Wikileaks, she continued: “I don’t think anyone should have any illusions as to the motives of the Iranian leadership. What they really want to do is get sanction relief and give as little as possible for that sanction relief.”Lake believes that Clinton is skeptical about Rouhani, and that this is a split from the Obama administration’s portrayal of the Iranian president as a moderate, as opposed to the regime’s hardline elements. The Obama administration went so far as to, in 2015, oppose a congressional proposal to increase visa scrutiny of those visiting the U.S., who had also visited Iran, saying that the measure would weaken moderate forces there.

Obama believes in the promise of Iranian reform under Rouhani. In an interview with NPR in April 2015, he said, “I think that, if in fact the Rouhani administration — the forces that are more moderating, even if, let’s acknowledge, that they don’t share our values and they still consider us an enemy — if they are shown to have delivered for their people, presumably it strengthens their hand vis-a-vis some of the hardliners inside of Iran.”

Clinton, according to Wikileaks, at least, has taken a more realistic view since leaving the administration. In the transcript of her Chicago speech, she allegedly called Rouhani’s outreach to the West a “charm offensive,” and argued that “U.S. negotiations were important as a sign of good faith to the international community, but not as a way to influence Iranian internal politics.”

This election year, the Republicans seized on Clinton’s support for Obama’s nuclear deal. It’s true that Clinton defends the deal.

But, according to newly leaked e-mails, her campaign has been attentive to concerns over the deal.  Lake says, “… starting with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. For example, e-mail exchanges between Stuart Eizenstat, a senior State Department official under President Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton’s top national security aide, Jake Sullivan, show how the campaign sought and incorporated suggestions on her Iran deal statement from the pro-Israel and Jewish community.”

Lake quotes a leaked December 2015 e-mail from Eizenstat to Sullivan concerns a message from a senior aide to Netanyahu: “Eizenstat says the Israeli official told him: The prime minister always had a ‘surprising good relationship’ with Hillary; she is ‘easy to work with,’ and that she is more instinctively sympathetic to Israel than the White House.”  President Obama fought with Netanyahu and pro-Israel organizations in the summer of 2015 over the Iran deal.

Lake continues, “Clinton’s skepticism of Rouhani is in line with other criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy she shared in her behind-closed-doors speeches. For example, at an October 2013 speech at the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit, she was critical of Obama’s decision to walk away from his ‘red line’ on the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons.”  She allegedly said,  “You can’t squander your reputation and your leadership capital. You have to do what you say you’re going to do. You have to be smart about executing on your strategies. And you’ve got to be careful not to send the wrong message to others, such as Iran.”

“All of this would have been trouble for Clinton had these speeches been released during the Democratic Party’s primaries when her dovish opponent, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, asked her to release the transcripts. Sanders supporters could also have made hay of transcripts of talks to major banks showing Clinton supported trade deals she criticized during the primary.  But WikiLeaks held onto these transcripts until just weeks before Americans will vote for their president. Candidates usually try to tack to the center for the general election. In this strange political season, WikiLeaks has performed this pivot for her,” Lake concludes. 

EXPANSIONISM OF IRANIAN REGIME: “NOT A SIGN OF STRENGTH BUT OF WEAKNESS”

On October 25, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) published excerpts from an article in Alwatan Saudi Newspaper by Dr. Mohammed al-Sulami, an expert on Iranian political affairs and the head of the Iranian-Arabic Studies.

In it, Dr. al-Sulami stated, “…in 1978, the revolution was stolen by the Mullahs and Khomeini could establish the political system of ‘Governance of the Jurist’ .Therefore, the ‘export of revolution’ was at the core of the regime's strategy. The plan, however, resembled more to a dream than a reality. The Iranian regime resorted to its supporters in the region because it was not able to tolerate the dangerous consequences as well as the costs of direct intentions. Iran's plan relies primarily on non-Iranians so that they appear in public while the regime is behind the curtains."

Therefore, he says, we should view the expansionism of this regime is not a sign of strength but of weakness.

He writes, “As the head of the Iranian-Arabic Studies puts it, the two major events caused the acceleration of the Iranian regime's movement in the region. The first incident was the fall of Baghdad when the US invaded Iraq in 2003. Tehran took advantage of the collusions in Iraq. The wrong analysis of Americans about the Iran's threat gave more opportunities to the Iranian regime as well. It is worth noting that the withdrawal of the Persian Gulf states from Iraq was involved in this matter and thus, the eastern gateway was transformed to a wide space for the expansionist activities of the Iranian regime. Iranian authorities took the time of crisis as an opportunity to achieve two main goals. The first objective is to prevent the collapse of the Syrian regime, and the second is to expand the scope of its presence in the Arabic region; being in the shadow of chaos and turmoil in different countries.”

He goes on to say, ”Iran's regime provokes the Shiite minorities in the region so that they oppose the governing policy of their country. The regime uses different strategies and maps to succeed in making expansionist and sectarian plans in the region. The Arabic countries are still passive and they only act upon Iran when Tehran makes the splash in the region. Is there such a fruitful way to deal with the destructive plans of the clerical regime? Are the countries of the region seeking to create alternatives to this approach? Is not it time to talk about the siege of Tehran? The primary issue is not Tehran's capabilities, but most significantly, the lack of unity and empathy is the main problem. So how long will the divisions and dispersals continue?"

Iran security forces kill Ahwazi girl while arresting her father

Saleh Hamid, AlArabiya.netWednesday, 26 October 2016

Iranian security forces killed a three-year-old Ahwazi-Arab child after they opened fire on the car she was travelling in with her parents in the Alawi neighborhood, west of Ahvaz. 

Sources told Al Arabiya that security forces opened fire on the car on Monday night because the child’s father Abbas Sawari, who is wanted by internal security forces, did not comply with the checkpoint’s orders to stop.

As a result, Sawari’s daughter Raghed was shot and killed immediately while his wife was shot and transferred to hospital for treatment.

The source added that security forces then arrested Sawari and led him to an unknown location.

Last November, hundreds protested after Ali Jalali, a 17-year-old Ahwazi-Arab, was killed by Iranian police’s gunfire during the latter’s raid on a popular market in al-Nahda neighborhood in Ahvaz.

Don’t mistake Iran’s weakness for strength: Struan Stevenson

Former European Parliament member representing Scotland from 1999 to 2014 and President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA), Mr. Struan Stevenson gave a speech about the status of the Iranian regime and accelerating problems that the mullahs are facing with on October 15 at the University of California at Berkeley.
The following is the text of Speech by Mr. Stevenson, Chair of Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (Caucus) at University of California, in Berkeley, October 15, 2016

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear sisters and brothers, Thank you so much for coming to this event today. It is great to be back in the States. I would like to thank the American-Iranian communities for inviting me to USA.
I should tell you that I come from Scotland. I live on the coast in South West Scotland. I can see Ireland from my window. Belfast is only 18 miles across the sea from my front door. In fact, the rugged Scottish coastline where I live is a magnet for geologists. They come from around the world and can be seen chipping away at the local rocks, searching for special fossils, which are found in only two places in the world - South West Scotland and the Appalachian Mountains that run down America’s Eastern seaboard. Apparently some 480 million years ago, when the earth’s crust was forming, a chain of volcanoes erupted tearing Scotland off the American continent and ramming us up next to England, where we have remained rather uneasily ever since. So technically, or at least geologically, Scotland could have been the 51st US State!
During my many years of collaboration with the Iranian democratic opposition PMOI (MEK) or as they are called here MEK, I visited America on frequent occasions. I remember tense meetings in the State Department and the House of Representatives, where I denounced the policy of appeasement being followed by successive US administrations in respect of Iran. I recall addressing meetings in the Senate where I spoke about Iran’s terrorist footprints across the globe.
I remember joining a protest rally outside the White House where we demanded the removal of the PMOI (MEK) and the umbrella coalition NCRI from the black list, one of the great injustices suffered by the Iranian opposition.
I was a member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014 and President of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq during my final 5-year mandate. That meant I was able to visit the region and see for myself the abject failure of the West’s policy of appeasement in respect of the Iranian mullahs and their marionettes in Iraq.
I was able to learn at firsthand about the Iraqi government’s repeated attempts to annihilate the defenceless PMOI (MEK) refugees in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, under the guidance of the Iranian regime, while the US, UN and EU stood back apathetically and watched, in a classic act of betrayal. I will say more about Camp Liberty later.
I also chaired an important group or Caucus in the European Parliament for over 10 years called the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup, which became the centre of European activities for democracy in Iran.  This Caucus played a big part in changing the attitude of the European Union towards the Iranian opposition and in the campaign to put pressure on the US State Department and the EU to de-list the PMOI (MEK).
We are still spellbound by Iran. Many westerners and even some Iranians who live here, make a big mistake about the Islamic Republic of Iran. They think that the regime’s interventions outside of Iran, its meddling in countries like Iraq, Syria and Yemen, is due to the strength of the regime. The reality is that currently the regime is extremely weak and vulnerable. When we criticize the west for giving too many concessions to Iran under the terms of the nuclear deal, we mean that if we were tougher and took a firmer line with the mullahs, we could have gained much more because of the regime’s weaknesses and many problems.
After signing the nuclear deal, despite all its shortcomings, it has in fact made the regime weaker and its problems have increased. The West should remember that it was the PMOI (MEK) network inside Iran, at huge risk to their own lives, who first informed the world, way back in August 2002, about the mullahs’ secret nuclear programme. Western intelligence agencies had simply failed to uncover this conspiracy. And yet, rather than rewarding the PMOI for this information, the US, UK and EU fought tooth and nail to keep them on their international blacklists, where they had been placed at the direct request of the mullahs, based on trumped-up and farcical charges dreamed up by Tehran. This was appeasement policy at its worst and it took us many years of difficult, complex and expensive court battles in Washington, London, Paris and Luxembourg to have the terror tags removed.
A year after the deal, no major economic problems have been solved and the money the government of Rouhani has received, has been spent on exporting terrorism in the region.
For example a sum of $150 billion of frozen assets was released by the Obama administration, providing a windfall for a government that was teetering on the brink of economic collapse. But far from investing in its own people, the fascist mullah-led regime has used this money to re-double its spending on weapons and on exporting terror through the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Qods (The Arabic name for Jerusalem) Force, both of which are listed terrorist organisations in the West and both of which are involved in almost every conflict in the Middle East. The IRGC and the Qods Force supply arms, money and military personnel to every Middle East war zone.
The Iranians are already in breach of the nuclear deal. In March they test-fired two Qadr-H missiles in open defiance of a UN Security Council resolution tied to the agreement. The missiles were chillingly marked with the phrase: ‘Israel must be wiped out’ and the test firing took place provocatively on the same day that the US Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel.
Now Putin, in a further flagrant signal of aggression to the West, has sent the first shipment of Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran and last August he even reached an unprecedented agreement with the theocratic regime to use an Iranian airfield as a launch pad for Russian airstrikes in Syria. Iran and Russia are close allies and are jointly massacring the innocent civilians in Syria. Indeed only this week, Russia has announced its intention to locate a permanent Mediterranean naval base in Syria.
Iran’s main export, now that sanctions have been lifted following  the nuclear deal, will not be oil. Its main export is and always will be terror. As well as Yemen’s Houthi rebels, Iran funds and supplies Hezbollah in Lebanon, Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the brutal Shi’ite militias in Iraq. This is the real Iran under the theocratic and fascist rule of the mullahs, whose so-called ‘moderate’ president Rouhani the West believes it can do deals with. We should wake up! The ‘smiling’, ‘moderate’ Rouhani is in charge of a venally corrupt government, which has executed nearly 3,000 people since he took office in 2013. Mass hangings are now the order of the day. Many are done in public, even in football stadiums. But this should come as no surprise.
Despite the wishful thinking of some people in the West, the nuclear deal has not resulted to any opening in society because what we have in Iran is a theocracy, a religious dictatorship.
Any relaxation of their oppressive laws would result in a crack in the system, a fracturing of the atmosphere of fear and terror. That is why Ayatollah Khamenei has even issued a fatwa, banning women from riding bicycles! That is why the same mullahs who have been responsible for the mass executions in the early eighties in Iran, are still in government. So the theocratic nature of this Islamic fundamentalist dictatorship has not changed but its appearance has changed. Instead of Ahmadinejad, we have Hassan Rouhani who smiles and his foreign minister, Javad Zarif speaks very good English and frequently tweets, as if speaking good English or being active on Twitter is an indication of moderation! Bear in mind that the rest of Iranian society are blocked from having access to Twitter and Facebook.
On August 9th this year, the son of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, the former Deputy Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and the nominated successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, published a previously unknown audio-tape in which Montazeri acknowledged that the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, most of whom were supporters of the PMOI (MEK), had taken place in 1988 and had been ordered at the highest levels of the regime. In the electrifying tape, Montazeri can be heard telling a meeting of the ‘Death Committee’ in 1988 that they are responsible for a crime against humanity. He says: “The greatest crime committed during the reign of the Islamic Republic, for which history will condemn us, has been committed by you. Your (names) will in the future be etched in the annals of history as criminals.” Because of his forthright protests, the Grand Ayatollah was dismissed as the heir to the Supreme Leader by Khomeini and placed under house arrest until his death in 2009.
The mass executions, in jails across Iran, were carried out on the basis of a fatwa by the regime’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. A ‘Death Committee’ approved all the death sentences. Indeed Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, a member of that ‘Death Committee’, is today President Hassan Rouhani’s Justice Minister. None of the perpetrators of the 1988 massacre have ever been brought to justice. When the massacres began, hundreds of political prisoners were hanged or shot every day and their corpses were buried hurriedly in mass graves in all of Iran’s major cities, in particular Tehran. In my book ‘SELF-SACRIFICE – Life with the Iranian Mojahedin’ I included a series of interviews with PMOI (MEK) supporters who had been imprisoned and horrifically tortured at that time.
Iran’s so-called ‘moderate’ President, the smiling Hassan Rouhani with whom the West believes it can do business, was Deputy Commander-in-chief of the regime's armed forces at the time. As such he was certainly fully aware of the shocking extermination of the political prisoners in Iran and as such should be held to account, together with all of the other perpetrators. Twenty-eight years on from this barbaric crime, international condemnation has been slow to emerge.
Indeed the West seems determined to overlook this perhaps one of the greatest human rights outrage since the end of World War II, so that it can sign lucrative commercial deals with the Iranian regime. It is a disgrace that there has been no prosecution of the criminals who orchestrated and carried out the gruesome 1988 murders.
If the UN is to retain any shred of legitimacy it must immediately launch a full and independent investigation into this appalling crime and insist on the arrest and trial for crimes against humanity of Khamenei, Rouhani and all of the other murderers whose bloodstained hands the West continues to shake.
Rouhani’s government, under the ultimate control of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, condones torture and arbitrary imprisonment, discriminates against women and encourages public floggings, amputations, eye-gouging, stoning to death and hanging as a means of terrorizing its own population into docile submission.
Of course to this day one of the biggest targets for arrest, imprisonment, torture and execution in Iran is the PMOI (MEK). Supporters of the PMOI (MEK) face a mandatory death sentence under the Iranian Constitution for ‘Waging War Against God!’
Tehran fears and loathes the PMOI (MEK) and in particular the Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi , whom they recognize as their main opposition and the main threat to their power. When Mrs Rajavi talks about restoring freedom, justice, democracy, human rights, women’s rights, an end to torture and the death penalty and the eradication of nuclear weapons, it sends shivers down the spine of the turbaned tyrants in Tehran.
I must tell you about a recent bizarre event inside Iran that made the Ayatollahs mad. The regime reacted furiously to the printing of Maryam Rajavi’s photo in an important university magazine. Many years ago, Mrs Rajavi was a graduate of Sharif University of Technology in the Faculty of Metallurgy Engineering in Tehran.
The Iranian regime closed down the Society of Graduates in Sharif University, one of the most important technological establishments in Iran, after the publication of a photo of Mrs Rajavi, in its latest book listing its former graduates in October this year. The Iranian regime’s officials and their affiliated organizations reacted furiously to the publication of her photo describing her as the “number 1 enemy“of the regime.
This incident also sparked a protest by over 30 members of the Iranian regime’s parliament or Majlis who asked the  Minister of Higher Education “What is the reason behind the publication of the photo of the leader of The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) in the magazine?”
The regime continuously says that the PMOI (MEK) is an insignificant grouplet and that it has no support. If that is the case why did the mullahs become hysterical at a simple photo of the opposition leader?
Many of you also perhaps attended the huge annual rally in Paris in July, when over 100,000 PMOI (MEK) supporters were present to listen to Mrs Rajavi. No other group or movement that I know of can organize such a major event and attract such a big crowd.  It just shows how important your support is. PMOI (MEK) supporters in the US and Europe have forced the regime onto the back foot again and again.
Can I also say a few words about the problems in the region? Why is it that the West always seems to back the wrong side in the Middle East? Despite repeated warnings, the UN, US and EU backed Nouri al-Maliki as Prime Minister in Iraq for 8 disastrous years. He was a puppet of the fascist Iranian regime, doing their bidding by opening a direct route for Iranian troops and equipment heading to Syria to bolster the murderous Assad regime.
The mullahs’ support for Maleki in Iraq and for Bashar Assad in Syria, two corrupt dictators who repressed their own people and particularly the Sunni community, resulted to the rise of ISIS in the region. Because the Sunnis were humiliated and repressed, they were pushed towards being recruited by the Islamic extremists. So thanks to Tehran, ISIS grew and became a threat to the whole world.
In fact what we call Islamic Fundamentalism today, really began when Ayatollah Khomeini, came to power in 1979 and set up the first Islamic Republic in the world in recent history.
And since then Tehran has been the main source of exporting Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, for both Shias and Sunnis. Tehran’s role in supporting Islamic extremism and providing inspiration as well as logistics for them, is similar to the role of Moscow during the spread of communism. There were many different communist and Marxist parties with a lot of internal ideological differences. But Moscow played a vital role for them. As soon as the Soviet Union crumbled and Moscow lost that central role, many of these communist groups disappeared and vanished. That is why we believe that when we have regime change in Tehran, all these extremist Islamic groups will fade away.
It is time we woke up to the fact that as long as the mullahs remain in power there will be no possibility of peace in the Middle East. The mullahs will always be the problem. They can never be part of the solution.
Obama’s failure to back the Syrian opposition has allowed the bloody civil war in that country to rage on for almost six years, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and sparking the huge migration crisis in Europe. Indeed US policy (or the lack of it) in Syria has bolstered the Iranian regime’s support for Bashar al-Assad and has allowed Vladimir Putin to flex his Middle East muscles in direct confrontation with the West, pouring petrol on the flames of conflict, hand in hand with Tehran. The West should back the Syrian opposition.
Allow me now to say a few words about our courageous PMOI (MEK) brothers and sisters who were trapped first in Ashraf camp, then in Camp Liberty near Baghdad Airport. I am extremely happy that they have all been recently transferred to Europe, mainly to Albania.
Since the American occupying forces transferred control and jurisdiction for the residents of Ashraf to the Iraqi government under Nouri al-Maliki seven years ago, there was a constant state of intense siege imposed by the Iraqi government. The residents were moved to a former American military camp, called Liberty. The siege involved the complete imprisonment of the residents of Camp Liberty in a small compound vulnerable to repeated rocket attacks. The residents suffered a continuing blockade against fuel, food and essential equipment.
A medical blockade of the camp cost many lives and much suffering and there was constant psychological torture involving bogus ‘family members’ from Iran, who were allowed to penetrate the security perimeter and shout abuse and threats at the residents through loudspeakers, while carrying out reconnaissance missions to prepare for further rocket attacks.
These serial violations of the basic human rights of the civilian residents of Camp Liberty were ignored by the UN. Three massacres at Camp Ashraf, five missile attacks on Camp Liberty, two cases of abduction of defenceless residents, and the imposition of a fully-fledged eight-year siege, which left 177 residents dead.
I should also add that the Iraqi regime has looted all of the property at Ashraf and is now using the camp as a military base. There has been no attempt to compensate the PMOI (MEK) for this property valued at more than $550 million dollars.
The attacks continued under Iraqi prime minister Abadi with a devastating rocket barrage on 29th October last year, involving 80 missiles fired at Camp Liberty leaving 24 residents dead.
Against this background of violence and aggression, only tiny Albania was prepared to stick its head above the parapet, providing a safe haven now for most of the PMOI (MEK) refugees. A limited number of residents were resettled in several EU countries but most of them are now in Albania.  The Albanians suffered years of oppression under the Communists and they know what it is like to fight for freedom and democracy. Their courage in rescuing the PMOI (MEK) residents from Camp Liberty, against a backlash of fury from Tehran, should be a lesson to us all. But all of the expenses associated with these transfers and with their subsequent living-costs in Albania, have to be met by the PMOI (MEK). This is understandable since Albania is a very poor country, but it is unacceptable that the US and EU contribute so little to this project and do not even put pressure on Iraq to pay compensation for the properties left behind in Ashraf, or for the personal goods confiscated from every batch of refugees before they were allowed to fly to Albania.
The mullahs wanted to eliminate all of the people in Liberty or make them surrender, so it was a terrific victory to see all of the remaining Ashrafis flown out to Albania.
It must have enraged the mullahs. This is another example of the strength of the opposition and the weakness of the regime. Because the mullahs were determined to kill and arrest many Liberty residents but they failed to do so, which demonstrates how fragile the mullahs have become in the region.
One rather funny thing I have learnt from my Iranian friends. There is an old culture and tradition amongst some of the Iranians I have met in recent years that they think the USA controls everything! The older generation of Iranians had the same view about us British!
But the many victories that the Iranian resistance has achieved, such as the recent successful transfer of the Liberty residents to Europe, has shown that this traditional view is not correct because we, all of us, in this big family of the Iranian democratic resistance, whenever we have stood firm, whenever we have joint forces and have been prepared to pay the price, have managed to open up our way forward and brush aside the obstacles. In many cases we have managed to bring the USA and Europe together in our support. The great international campaign to remove the PMOI (MEK) from various terrorist black lists was another example where the Iranian opposition and its supporters stood firm and with the great friendship of many parliamentarians in Europe and members of congress in the USA, we managed to de-list the PMOI (MEK) from those terrorist lists.
So because of your efforts that we have managed to achieve these  great victories. In the beginning, Western governments were not on our side and in many cases they collaborated with the Ayatollahs against us, but with your steadfastness you managed to bring them to our side in many cases. This is power. This is the power of the resistance. A huge power.
Now that the residents of Camp Liberty are safe, we can turn all of our attention and focus all of our energy on regime change in Iran.
I would like to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for your constant, unflagging support over the years. The reality is that the PMOI (MEK) and NCRI has always relied on its own Iranian supporters and thousands of US and European citizens who have contributed to this movement. Every penny that’s been raised, every signature that’s been placed on a petition of support, has been a help and contribution for peace and freedom, not just in Iran, but for the whole world.
For decades, Iran has systematically jailed, tortured, and executed dissidents without due process of law and assassinated political opponents, even outside its state borders. But I am absolutely confident that if it were not for this resistance movement, the political situation in the region and in Iran would have been much worse and the Iranian regime would have been able to commit even more crimes in the world.
You, my brothers and sisters in this big family of the Iranian resistance, all of you who have stood side by side with this opposition movement, you have broken the mould. Although no government has supported you, although you were unjustly put on various black lists, although many of you have paid a heavy price in your personal life, nevertheless you are running this huge movement with the help of the people…..people inside Iran, Iranians outside Iran as well as tens of thousands of people in the western democracies.  This is quite unique.  This is due to your brave and competent leadership and to your faith and commitment. In all these years that I have been in politics, I have never seen any resistance movement, or indeed any political party, to be so committed to its principles and be prepared to make such self-sacrifices for the noble cause of freedom.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have long been impressed by the dedication and self-sacrifice of the PMOI’s supporters. They seek nothing for themselves. Their only goal is to restore freedom for the 80 million Iranians imprisoned by the world’s most brutal and ruthless regime. The mullahs’ fear of the PMOI (MEK), the NCRI and Mrs Rajavi demonstrates the extent of support that the main opposition enjoys even within that beleaguered nation. I long for the day when the sunshine of freedom will shine once more on the people of Iran. This resistance movement can lead the people of Iran towards that new dawn and towards the freedom that they so richly deserve. And it is through your support that we will make this happen.
Thank you so much.

Iran rocked by abuse allegations against top Qur'an reciter

Complainants use banned media outlets to accuse Saeed Toosi of sexually abusing them when they were aged 12 to 13

Iran has been shaken by scandalous allegations against a top Qur’an reciter, who is accused of sexually abusing underage trainees, in the first case of its kind to cast a spotlight on the taboo topic.

The allegations are unprecedented in the Islamic republic, where such figures are generally trusted by the public and claims of this nature are usually kept in the dark, with few victims known to have ever dared to come forward.

In the past week, at least three male complainants have given separate interviews accusing Saeed Toosi, a prominent qari (someone who recites Muslims’ holy book with a melodious sound), of sexual misconduct including rape while they were between the ages of 12 and 13.

The allegations first surfaced widely on social media, which in the absence of a free press have a huge reach in Iran. Some of the alleged victims then went public, speaking to Voice of America’s Persian TV network after their calls for justice fell on deaf ears in the Iranian judiciary. 

Local agencies and newspapers, including the reformist Shargh and Etemaad, have also carried reports identifying Toosi as the alleged abuser. 

Toosi has since issued a statement denying the accusations, which he described as “bogus and total lies” aimed at tarnishing the image of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

As a top reciter in the country and winner of two world Qur’an-reciting competitions, Toosi was a role model for many young enthusiasts, who would normally start memorising and reciting the holy script from an early age.

Toosi is known to have performed in the presence of Khamenei on various occasions, meaning that he was trusted by the leader’s inner circle. 

According to VOA, four years ago several complainants filed a suit against Toosi, who was initially indicted, but charges were later dropped. 

The complainants, who are from families with conservative religious backgrounds, eventually broke their silence and spoke to VOR, as well as the London-based BBC Persian service, because they lost hope in being able to bring the alleged abuser to justice. More alleged victims came forward, and as many as 10 people have now claimed abuse.

Both VOA and BBC Persian are blocked inside Iran and regularly jammed, but millions of people watch the channels via illegal satellite streams. 

One anonymous victim, whose voice was broadcast by VOR, said he was assaulted while on a Qur’an-reciting trip abroad with Toosi. “He touched my body while we were on the flight. He molested me,” he said. “When we arrived at the hotel, we were supposed to get separate rooms but he organised for us to get one room. I was only 12 years old. He betrayed me. While I was taking shower, he came in naked. I was in shock, I couldn’t scream, my mind was locked. He did his thing.”

A second victim said he approached Toosi because he was eager to learn from a master of Qur’an-reciting. “He took me to a public bathhouse, and there he did things on the pretext that he was giving me a massage. When we came out, he was frightened and pleaded with me not to tell anyone. I was in shock.” A third victim echoed the previous accounts by saying that Toosi, who is now 46, abused him sexually on the pretext of giving him a massage. 

Sex is still considered a taboo subject in Iran. There is little public debate around the issue of consent or the protection of children in schools or among families. 

In a country where consensual sex between adults outside marriage is forbidden, same-sex intercourse between non-homosexual individuals is rife, and many confuse homosexuality with bacha bazi: sex between a man and a boy. The Iranian judiciary has added to the confusion, considering both as lavat – same-sex intercourse – which is punishable by death. In cases where people have been sentenced to death in the country, it is often difficult to distinguish which involve gay men having consensual sex and which involve rape. 

It is not clear what stage Toosi’s legal case is at with the Iranian judiciary. The publicity has forced the authorities to say that the case has not yet been closed and is still ongoing. The judiciary spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, said this week that plaintiffs included four victims and that the matter has been given to an experienced judge for review.

Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, the judiciary chief, firmly defended his institution on Monday and, in comments seen as a warning to the victims, said those who who cooperated with “hostile media” – a reference to the banned TV networks – should be punished “so we know who is [loyal] to the revolution and who is not”.

Iran: Writer arrested in violent raid on her house following prison sentence for story about stoning

Amnesty International, 24 October 2016 - The Iranian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release writer and human rights activist Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, following her arrest today, Amnesty International urged.
Despite the fact that no official summons has been issued, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee’s home was raided this morning by officials, who violently broke through her front door before taking her to Evin Prison in Tehran. It appears that she has been taken to the women’s ward to begin serving her six-year sentence. She has been convicted of charges including “insulting Islamic sanctities,” for writing an unpublished story about the horrific practice of stoning in Iran. Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee’s husband, Arash Sadeghi, a human rights activist and prisoner of conscience, has since started a hunger strike in protest at her imprisonment.

“Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee is the latest young writer and activist to be caught up in Iran’s relentless crackdown on artistic expression. Her imprisonment for peacefully voicing her opposition to stoning is a terrible injustice and an outrageous assault on freedom of expression. It is also a shocking and deeply disturbing display of support for the cruel and inhuman punishment of stoning,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
“The Iranian authorities must break this cycle of injustice and immediately and unconditionally release Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee. We also urge them to ensure that her conviction is quashed.” 
Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee is the latest young writer and activist to be caught up in Iran’s relentless crackdown on artistic expression.
Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Middle East, and North Africa Director at Amnesty International

The unpublished fictional story, for which Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee has been convicted of “insulting Islamic sanctities”, describes the emotional reaction of a young woman who watches the film The Stoning of Soraya M - which tells the true story of a young woman stoned to death for adultery - and becomes so enraged that she burns a copy of the Qur’an.
The story was discovered by authorities when Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was arrested together with her husband, Arash Sadeghi, who is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence in Evin Prison on charges including “spreading propaganda against the system”, “gathering and colluding against national security” and “insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic”, which stem from his peaceful human rights activities.

On 6 September 2014 both were arrested at Arash Sadeghi’s workplace in Tehran by men believed to be Revolutionary Guards. The men showed no arrest warrant but took the couple back to their home, where they proceeded to search through their possessions and found the story which Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee had written.
Arash Sadeghi was subsequently moved to Evin prison while Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was transferred to a secret location. She was detained there for one night before also being transferred to Evin prison, where she was held for 20 days without access to her family, a lawyer or a court. Her first three days were spent in solitary confinement.
During her detention, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was subjected to extended interrogations, where she was blindfolded and warned she could face execution for “insulting Islam”. In the next cell, she could hear her husband being threatened and verbally abused by his interrogators. Arash Sadeghi has since stated that he was punched in the head, kicked, slapped and choked while in custody.
Instead of doggedly intimidating and imprisoning critical voices, the authorities should abolish this cruel punishment once and for all
Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Middle East, and North Africa Director at Amnesty International 
Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was tried and sentenced to six years imprisonment in two brief sessions by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran. She had no legal representation at the trial. The first lawyer she appointed was put under pressure by intelligence and security officials to withdraw from the case, and the second was barred from reading her court case and representing her. She was not given the chance to speak in her own defense because the first session was focused on her husband’s activism. At the second session she was in the hospital recovering from major surgery and could not be present; she provided the court with her medical records, but her request to adjourn the hearing was rejected.
Earlier this month Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee received a phone call from the Centre for the Implementation of Sentences ordering her to present herself to Evin Prison to begin serving her six-year prison sentence, and threatening that if she did not she would be picked up on the street or her house would be raided. However, she was never served with a formal summons.
“Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee is being punished for the peaceful exercise of her human rights. But the crime at the root of this case is Iran’s ongoing retention of the horrific practice of stoning, which amounts to torture. Instead of doggedly intimidating and imprisoning critical voices, the authorities should abolish this cruel punishment once and for all,” said Magdalena Mughrabi.

Why this many Suicides in Iran?

The National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ), has documented three such public suicides, in an article about the staggering suicide rate.
It reads: “A man cut his wrist in front of a public office and died, a young woman sets herself on fire in Keshavarz Boulevard and another one throws herself from the top of a pedestrian bridge. These incidents are just some instances of suicide in public places which have taken place in recent weeks in Iran.”
According to Tavakkoli, the secretary of Iran’s Psychiatrists Association, experts believe these public suicides are the ultimate form of protest against a failing society but he stressed that the most important issue is how suicide is treated by the society. If the suicide, or suicide attempt, is rejected as a lone case or negatively judged, then society will not deal with the problems which increase the suicide rate.
Specifically, the constantly dim economic climate, discrimination of large proportion of the people and the tyrannical rule of the mullahs can make Iranian people feel desperate and helpless, thereby increasing the suicide rate. 
He said: “Such [a] rejecting attitude not only is not going to help prevent and control suicide, but it makes people who have reached to this point feel embarrassed and be unable to talk about their thoughts with those around him or with experts so as to receive their help. In addition to that, suicide, at a social level, turns into a phenomenon that its existence and dimensions are being ignored or improperly recorded and as a result, it makes its way under the skin of city as an unknown phenomenon so that we will practically be deprived of the possibility of knowing it, planning for it or intervening in it.”
Despite the recent spate of public suicides, most suicides are shrouded in secrecy.
The WHO estimates that 11 people attempt suicide in Iran, every day; 30% of these attempts result in death. In some parts of the country, the rate even rises above the world average. The most common method, according to the WHO, is poisoning.

Iran Regime is the Cause of this Environmental Disaster

 There may be no way to save Iran’s most historic lake from the drought plaguing the country.

Rouhani’s government, who have spent years ignoring the problem, recently invited environmental scientists from Europe and Asia to advise on the crisis of Lake Urmia, but there are doubts on how effective this can be following the neglect by the Regime.

According to a report on state-run T News, the Lake Urmia region is at risk of sand and salt storms which could make it to central Iran, including Tehran, Ghazvin, and Arak. These storms could seriously jeopardise the health of 14 million people.

Environmental scientists warn that dust, especially those laden with salt, cause serious illnesses and diseases, like sinus infections, lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases, eye diseases, Asthma, ear, nose and throat infections and neurological diseases.

One of Iran’s sample studies on dust storms and its effect on children’s health from 2014, showed that 21% of kids suffered wheezing, 30% had dry coughs, 13% made whistling sounds while breathing, 10% reported sleeping disorders due to irritation of their respiratory system and 9% suffered from respiratory tract congestion as well as restricted breathing.

This study involved 88 students from East Azerbaijan province.

While it is a small study, it suggests that 97% of children there were affected by irreversible respiratory problems.