Khamenei Loyalists Try To Explain Away Amini’s Death, Iran Protests
The Islamic Republic’s parliament has finally convened to discuss and whitewash Mahsa Amini’s death in custody, and the ensuing protests by blaming “enemies.”
The Islamic Republic’s parliament has finally convened to discuss and whitewash Mahsa Amini’s death in custody, and the ensuing protests by blaming “enemies.”
Although individual Iranian lawmakers had spoken about the ongoing uprising in Iran, the parliament (Majles) for the first time issued a statement on Saturday about what it called "recent insecurities", the busiest days of protests, as people and students took to the streets in the most widespread anti-government protests yet.
On Sunday, the Majles dominated by hard-line supporters of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei convened to thank security forces for their public service during more than two weeks of protests. There are no reliable figures about how many protesters security forces have killed, but a rough number of 150 can be estimated, considering 42 killed on September 30 in Zahedan when government forces opened fire on demonstrators attacking police stations.
Lawmakers gathered on the floor of parliament and chanted "Death to seditionist" taking an agressive postion against the protesters, as seen in the video below tweeted by ISNA news agency..
The statement on Saturday showed that the lawmakers are determined to ignore the real causes of the protests and continue the regime’s policy of dismissing any criticism. This is what Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has done throughout the years. This time he is completely silent raising questions if he is still functioning and in charge.
Blaming America and ‘enemies’
The Majles, sticking to religious rhetoric, condemned the protests and denounced what it called "recent insecurities, and insults to sanctities." It repeated unfounded accusations that protesters insulted Islam, while the only insult throughout the protests has been directed at Khamenei.
Nonetheless, the parliament promises to follow up the case of Mahsa Amini, the young woman who was murdered in police custody in mid-September. But by all indications, the Sunday session showed that the ruling hard-liners are looking for excuses to once again argue that her death might have been from natural causes.
Iran International had published Mahsa Amini’s CT scan showing a broken skull, that Fars news agency affiliated with the IRGC verified as genuine.
The statement on Saturday was not signed by individual members of the parliament, so, it is not known how many of the 290 Iranian MPs have signed this rather authoritarian statement. However, what is significant is that the parliament has acknowledged that it was the Amini’s death that triggered the anti-government protests.
The statement charged that a group of people who were not part of the protesters took advantage to create havoc and insecurity in Iran and called on the security forces to prosecute the culprits.
Meanwhile, Etemad Online website in Tehran has quoted IRGC Brigadier General Hassan Hassanzadeh who is in charge of Mohammad Rasoulallah Division, the largest IRGC unit, responsible for the capital’s security, as saying that "the IRGC has understood through eavesdropping that America is behind the protests and wishes to send Iranians to the streets to protest."
Hassanzadeh said, "America knows that it cannot secure a victory in Iran by furthering its ‘maximum pressure’ policy, so it tries to trigger protests in the streets of Tehran." He added, "They sent individuals to Iran. We have arrested some of them and are trying to identify the rest." However, he did not name anyone.
"In our eavesdropping, we found out two weeks ago that an American official said the US has concluded that they cannot win anything in Iran through pursuing the maximum pressure policy," Hassanzadeh said, adding that "The enemies sent groups of people into the streets and caused some damage." He added the enemies who were aware of the Iranian people's financial problems, tried to destabilize our Islamic system."
Khamenei silent
Hassanzadeh is the only IRGC commander who has commented so far about the current protests. Some of this silence is because military commanders and politicians are waiting for Khamenei to speak out, but he has not said a word about the protests that have galvanized Iranians and solicited many international reactions.
Some observers say Khamenei usually speaks about such events when he makes sure that his security forces have the upper hand in the streets and suppression is in its final stages.
Those who have spoken publicly about the ongoing events have either ranted the usual anti-US rhetoric which is part of the Islamic Republic jargon about any problem, or like the editor of hard-line Kayhan newspaper, have made outlandish remarks such as calling for the detention of movie stars and footballers to intimidate others.
While the protesters have made it clear that they no longer want to hear from or about Khamenei, his loyalists are anxiously looking forward to his next speech to get some ideas about how to react to the protests and what to say. If he does not show up soon, loyalists will have no choice other than concluding that there is something wrong about the 83-year-old ailing cleric.
Hacker group Backdoor (3ackd0or) provided Iran International with documents about the four police officers who stopped Mahsa along with a few of his relatives in Tehran and took her to the Vozara police station in a police van. According to reports, she suffered at least one severe blow to her head that led to her death in the following hours.
Iran International has no knowledge of how they obtained this information, which cannot be independently verified.
The commander of the team was Captain Enayatollah Rafiei, 52 years old and from the town of Khodabandeh in northwestern Zanjan province.
The other male agent of the team was identified as Sergeant Ali Khoshnamvand, 27 years old and from the village of (Khoshnamvand) Khushnamvand in the Kouhdashtdistrictof Lorestan province in western Iran.
Parastou Safari is 36 years old and was born in the eastern city of Kermanshah. She is probably the female agent who deemed Mahsa’s clothing “inappropriate” and decided to take her to the station for “a short training on Islamic dress code.”
Fatemeh Ghorban-Hosseini is 27 years old, the youngest of the team that arrested Mahsa and was born and raised in the capital Tehran.
The authorities first tried to spread disinformation that Mahsa Amini had an illness which caused her death, but soon information emerged that severe blows had broken her skull and caused a coma after two hours of her arrest.
Her death almost immediately led to protests in her home province of Kordestan in Western Iran and then spread to the capital Tehran and other cities. The government resorted to brutal force against demonstrators and so far at least 150 people have died, with the largest single-day toll on September 30 in the city of Zahedan where 42 local protesters were shot.
On Thursday, September 29, Mohammad-Bagher Bakhtiar, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq, published an audio file quoting informed sources at the Forensic Medicine Organization as saying that Amini died because of a "blow to her skull".
Iran International had earlier published Mahsa's skull CT scan which showed bone fracture, hemorrhage and brain edema. The medical documents and dozens of exclusive images sent to Iran International by a hacktivist group vividly show a skull fracture on the right side of her head caused by a severe trauma to the skull, which corroborate earlier accounts by her family and doctors about her being hit several times on the head, proving that the Iranian police's claim that she suffered a heart attack was untrue.
An eyewitness told Iran International last week that Mahsa had told her in a detention room that an officer had hit her on the head.
Spearheaded by Hamed Esmaeilion, a Canada-based activist whose daughter and wife were killed by the IRGC, the Saturday worldwide demonstrations started in Australia, New Zealand and East Asia followed by European cities with cities in the American continent being the last ones to start the scheduled rallies.
Many people in Iran and abroad have been holding regular protests since the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman whose murder in the hands of hijab police has sparked an uprising. The level of unanimity and support from foreign leaders and officials as well as celebrities and well-known figures is unprecedented.
The protesters in most cities congregated outside the Islamic Republic’s embassies or consulates or main squares, chanting slogans against the Iranian regime, such as “Death to the dictator,” in reference to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and “Women, Life, Liberty,” as it is official motto of the current wave of protests.
In Australia and New Zealand, many government officials and international human rights activists attended the rallies and, in some cases, delivered speeches. At least three cities in Australia alone, namely Adelaide, Sydney, and Melbourne, were scenes of large demonstrations.
In London, a large crowd of Iranian expats gathered around Trafalgar Square to express support for Iran’s protests. "Eventhough we're far from homeland, We have your back compatriot," they chanted.
In Edinburgh, member of the Scottish parliament and the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats Alexander Geoffrey Cole-Hamilton delivered a speech in support of the ongoing protests in Iran.
The gathering in Swedish capital Stockholm and Brussels in Belgium have been very huge as the cities are home to large communities of Iranians.
During the rallies in Stockholm, Reza Younesi, whose brother Ali, a gold medalist at World Astronomy Olympiad, is jailed in Iran, called for release of all prisoners of conscience and all those unjustly detained by the Islamic Republic.
Social media platforms are exploding with video footage from today's protests in Iran as the rallies are still going on in many cities across Europe.
The protests have officially started in over a dozen cities in the Americas, most of which are in United States and Canada. Numerous speeches by prominent figures have been also scheduled.
According to different estimates, about 30 to 50 thousand people have participated in the gathering in the Canadian city of Toronto.
Niagara Falls, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States, is planned to be illuminated for 22 minutes in memory of Mahsa, who was 22 years old when she was killed, as a visual tribute to protests.
Iran's regime faced a multi-flank attack on Saturday, with student protests turning into general unrest, and businesses going on strikes in Kurdish majority provinces and southeastern Iran as well as the bazaar in capital Tehran.
Protests and strikes at around 100 universities Saturday morning turned into street demonstrations as students left the campuses and moved into streets.
Amid escalation of protests across Iran, the heads of the three branches of the Iranian government held an emergency meeting on Saturday night while the country's parliament has scheduled a special session with top security officials including Interior Minister and Police chief in attendance to discuss protests. The meeting will be held on Sunday morning behind closed doors.