Obamas Express Solidarity With Ongoing Protests In Iran

The song “Baraye...” -- which means “For the Sake Of” in Persian -- received 95,000, or over 83 percent, of the 115,000 total submissions for the award following a campaign on TikTok urged users to nominate the song, which is the de-facto manifesto of the protests. 

It has been reuploaded to YouTube and other social media platforms, and “was used by Iranians all over the world as a rallying cry,” a crowdsourced guide for nominating the song for a Grammy says.

The special merit award is meant to honor a song “that has had a profound social influence and impact,” the Recording Academy said on its website. Submissions are open through October 14.

The Recording Academy was “deeply moved” by the social media campaign, Chief Executive Officer Harvey Mason, Jr. said in an e-mailed statement. “While we cannot predict who might win the award, we are humbled by the knowledge that the Academy is a platform for people who want to show support for the idea that music is a powerful catalyst for change.”

Hajipour, who shared his song amid the protests over Mahsa Amini’s death in custody of hijab police, was himself arrested and released on bail and later was banned from leaving Iran on charges of anti-regime propaganda and inciting violence. He composed the song from tweets and other social-media posts from protestors commemorating Mahsa Amini. 

In his CNN interview Tuesday, Biden did not endorse a call from some Democrats to downgrade relations with Riyadh. Neither did the US president back draft legislation from Senator Richard Blumenthal and House member Rohit Khanna to pause arms sales to the Saudis for a year.

But with the Democratic Party fearing higher gasoline prices will harm its chances in November 8 midterm Congressional elections,Biden addressed concerns that the Saudis had agreed the 2-million-barrels-a-day output cut with Russia, the other leading OPEC+ member, just as the US is backing Ukraine against Russia militarily.

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, cited the OPEC+ decision in vowing as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to work against future arms sales to the Saudis. There are also Democrat concerns over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, at home and its seven-year armed intervention in Yemen where its economic blockade of the country has left 3.5 million people acutely malnourished.

Biden came to office in 2021 pledging to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, only to famously ‘fist-bump’ July Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud, whom US intelligence assesses was likely responsible for the killing.

Saudi relations and Iran

But as nuclear talks with Iran have faltered and Tehran is harshly suppressing popular protests at home, the question arises if any attempt to downgrade relations with Saudi Arabia would not present opportunities to Iran in the region.

Asked this question Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price answered, “we won’t take our eye off the threat that Iran poses not only to the region but in some ways beyond. You have seen us…respond and take action…against the malign actions and malign influence that Iran has perpetrated, that Iran has attempted to export throughout the region.”

But plans for organizing joint regional air defense against potential Iranian missile and drone threats, as well as other joint efforts might suffer if there is a cold spell in Washington-Riyadh ties.

Price also emphasized US responses to popular protests in Iran, including sanctions on some officials. Amnesty International has reported that Iranian security forces killed at least 130 protestors in late September, including 88 in the south-east province of Sistan-Baluchistan. Washington, Price said, aimed “to support these brave Iranians…across Iran’s cities and towns who are exercising peacefully their universal rights.”

‘Assassination plots’

Critics of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) which the Biden administration has worked to revive, and supporters of Saudi Arabia, have criticized calls for downgrading US relations with Riyadh.

“I don’t remember hearing from some voices who are calling for the US to cancel meetings with Saudi Arabia…after Iran plotted to assassinate Americans on US soil while US took part in JCPOA negotiations in Vienna,” tweeted Jason Brodsky, of the advocacy group, United Against Nuclear Iran, Tuesday, referring to reports from US law enforcement about Iranian involvement in a plot in 2021 to kill former US National Security Advisor John Bolton and threats against others.

Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told Al-Arabiya television Tuesday that Riyadh’s thinking over cutting oil production was “purely economic.” Some Democrats and Saudi dissidents have pointed to the Saudis’ relationship with the entourage around former President Donald Trump and suggested the move was instead aimed at influencing the US elections.

The minister was visiting the western city of Sanandaj where protesters have been defying hundreds of government troops and gunmen for at least three days. There are no clear figures about casualties in the city but several people have been killed and dozens injured by live fire.

Reports by activists on social media indicated that the wounded have been turned away form hospitals, or they have refused to seek help knowing that doctors are under orders to call security agents when a wounded person is brought in. The government arrests them on the spot before they are treated and taken to prison.

Demonstrators were chanting and bullets flying in Sanandaj as the interior minister was apparently inspecting a water project in the area. The city has a majority Kurdish population and was one of the first spots where protests started in mid-September, following the killing of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s notorious hijab police.

There were also bloody protests in other Kurdish-populated cities and towns such as Baneh and Saqqez, the hometown of Mahsa Amini. These protests were continuing Tuesday night at the time of this writing.

Strikes by oil and petrochemical workers that started Monday continued in some spots on Tuesday, notably at the oldest refinery in the Middle East in Abadan, near the Persian Gulf. There were also strikes in Asalouyeh, a city which is home to many petrochemical and natural gas plants.

A video released by striking workers threatened destruction of plants and equipment if the Revolutionary Guard and its various armed groups do not lay down their weapons and stop killing civilians in the country.

Wednesday can become another milestone in the 26-day old antigovernment protest movement that clearly has assumed features of a revolutionary push to overthrow the clerical regime in Iran. A group of activists known as ‘Tehran Youth’ have called for nationwide protests on Wednesday. This was the group that had called for the large protests on Saturday, October 8, which brought out crowds in various parts of Tehran and several other cities, showing the power of the “revolutionaries”.

The call for another round of nationwide protests starting at noon October 12 came as a response to government violence in Sanandaj, amid a mood of national unity against the Islamic Republic. Protesters proudly highlight slogans of mutual support, especially for outlying regions such as Kurdish areas close to Iraq and the Baluch city of Zahedan which is located at the opposite end of the vast country, near Pakistan.

The Baluch region is a neglected and poor part of Iran, where security forces more likely felt they could kill more indiscriminately on September 30 when around 60 protesters were gunned down in Zahedan. The death toll has now risen to around 90.

No one knows exactly how many people have been killed nationwide, but some human rights groups put the figure at close to 200. Security forces have also arrested between four to five thousand protesters, including many university students and even school children.

“I hope to speak to the Iranian foreign minister today to ask once again for the immediate release of all our compatriots,” Colonna told France Inter radio. The minister said she expected a meeting of European Union foreign ministers October 17 to “validate” a set of sanctions against Iran targeting those “behind the repression.”

France Monday advised nationals against going to Iran for any reason and directed those there “to limit their movements…to imperatively avoid any type of gathering and to make themselves known to the French Embassy in Tehran.”

The five French detainees include Cecile Kohler, a trade union leader, and her partner Jacques Paris, who were arrested in May, accused of involvement in teachers’ protests seeking higher pay, and whose ‘confessions’ aired last week on an Iranian state television station. The pair said they were in Iran on holiday. A trailer on the Arabic-language Al-Alam station said they had arrived with “packets of money.”

Also in jail is French-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested 2019 and sentenced to five years in prison for “undermining national security.” Another French citizen, Benjamin Briere, was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to eight years and eight months for espionage, without due process of law.

‘Adhere to the rules’

After the recent outbreak of protests following the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest in Tehran by ‘morality police,’ Iran said late September it had detained nine foreign nationals linked to unrest, including those from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Monday that foreigners “should adhere to the rules and regulations and not enter into issues that are basically not within the scope of the normal travel of foreign citizens.”

The French embassy in Tehran Tuesday announced delays in processing visa applications from Iranians due to “the internet filtering the Iranian authorities have decided to do.” Harmatullah Rafiei, head of a leading tourism association, had earlier suggested some European embassies had suspended processing Schengen visas. Iran argues that social media has been used by foreign-based groups to foment violence including attacks on ambulances.

‘Brutal suppression’

The European Union has as yet given no indication of what sanctions may be agreed at the foreign ministers’ meeting October 17. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told Bild am Sonntag, a Sunday newspaper, that Berlin would support measures freezing the assets and banning the EU entry of those responsible for “brutal suppression,” referring to antigovernment protests.

While Baerbock did not name any persons or organizations, the United Kingdom announced Monday it was sanctioning Iran’s ‘morality police,’ the police’s national head Mohammad Rostami and its Tehran chief Ahmad Mirzaei, and well as national police chief Hossein Ashtari and other officials, whom it accused of “serious human rights violations.” Tehran summoned the British ambassador Monday evening to protest over ‘interference in internal affairs.’

According to a Tuesday report on CBS News, the wounded protesters attempt to treat themselves at home, "somehow," as security forces scan hospitals to detain injured people. 

Some Iranian medical professionals, who spoke to CBS on condition of anonymity out of concern for their safety, said they felt a duty to help the wounded, with one of them – who is a nurse – saying that she treated two protesters whose skulls had been fractured. "They were afraid to go to the hospital," she said, adding that she had to tend to their wounds on the street during the unrest. 

Another Iranian nurse and emergency call operator said, "We are required to report all gunshot cases to the police because all of the phone calls are recorded,” noting that the risk of arrest to injured protesters is real. 

Dr. Kayvan Mirhadi, an Iranian American and chief of internal medicine at the Clifton Springs Hospital in New York, said he receives around 500 Instagram messages daily from wounded protesters from Iran, begging him for medical advice.

He said if he fails to refer them to his trusted doctors in Iran, he tries to walk them through the best home remedies possible. According to him, their injuries range from fractures and significant head injuries, to second- and third-degree burns from electric batons, as well as bullet and pellet wounds.

According to another doctor, ambulances in the capital Tehran transport injured protesters directly to police stations. "As soon as they enter the hospital, there are intelligence agents and members of Revolutionary Guards who record their names," he said.