Biden, Top US Officials Voice Support For Iran Protests
US President Joe Biden and his top officials in a flurry of meetings and statements on Friday pledged support to Iranians protesting for their basic rights.
US President Joe Biden and his top officials in a flurry of meetings and statements on Friday pledged support to Iranians protesting for their basic rights.
Joe Biden, visiting a college in Irvine, California said he is “stunned” by the popular protests and that the US stands with Iran’s “brave women”.
As a group of protesters were standing with “Free Iran” signs, the President said, “I want you to know that we stand with the citizens, the brave women of Iran.” He continued, “It stunned me what it awakened in Iran. It awakened something that I don’t think will be quieted for a long, long time.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington DC also met separately with Iranian civil society activists based abroad, earlier in the day.
Three Iranian women led by Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born British actress and activist, met with Blinken and other State Department officials to discuss how the United States can support Iranians who have been protesting for more than four weeks.
After the meeting, Blinken tweeted, “Today, I met with civil society partners to discuss what more the U.S. can do to support the people of Iran, particularly its brave women and girls.”
Boniadi in reply tweeted, “I am encouraged by your openness to hearing the democratic aspirations of the people of Iran and we look forward to engaging on next steps to support Iranian civil society to that end.”
The Biden Administration had focused on reviving the Obama-era nuclear deal known as the JCPOA since assuming office, but almost 18 months of indirect talks with Tehran failed to produce an agreement when the protests began in mid-September after Mahsa Amini, a young woman was killed in ‘morality’ police custody.
Iranians living abroad, particularly in the United States were outraged and began to campaign for world attention to Amini’s case, which symbolized the degree of human rights abuses perpetrated by the Islamic Republic’s clerical-military regime. Mahsa Amini’s hashtag on Twitter quickly took off as no other issue before, reaching hundreds of millions of responses.
The administration’s first response was relatively quick, sanctioning Iran’s ‘morality police’ and listing seven senior officials one week after Amini’s death and a few days after large protests broke out. It also moved to ease restrictions on Internet-related technology for Iranians as the government often shut off access to control flow of information about the protests.
But a question lingered in the minds of many Iranians about the administration’s policy to return to the nuclear deal that former President Donald Trump had abandoned in 2018 and imposed heavy economic sanctions on Tehran. Although talks are in deadlock, a potential new deal would release tens of billions of dollars to the authoritarian government that it can use to suppress its people, particularly women.
The administration came up with a new position this week, saying it is not “focused” on reviving the JCPOA, and its attention is on the protests. Friday’s meetings with Iranian activists followed that apparent shift in its Iran policy.
But many Iranians have been demanding a clear break with the nuclear talks that would forestall any lifting of sanctions and release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds in foreign banks.
Zahedan is the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province in the southeast near Pakistan, with a majority ethnic Baluch citizens who are Sunni with grievances against the Shiite clerical regime. When they came out to protest on September 30 amid nationwide demonstrations, government forces opened fire, killing around sixty civilians. In the following days two dozen more residents were killed.
Iranian plainclothes agents raided a girls' high school in Ardabil, northwest of Iran and an Azari speaking city, on Thursday, injuring 10 students and arresting seven others. One schoolgirl has died of internal bleeding, according to the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association. Reportedly, the government was trying to force the school girls to participate in a pro-regime rally.
Video showing confusion and ambulances in the girls' high school in Ardabil
An anonymous announcement came out in Tabriz, the largest Azari speaking city in Iran following the incident in Ardebil calling on citizens to join nationwide protests on Saturday, warning government forces not to raise their fists against the people.
Independent Iranian human rights group based abroad, HRANA reported that as of Friday evening 233 protesters were confirmed killed by security forces, including 32 children. Earlier, Amnesty International had reported 23 children dead.
HRANA added that authorities have arrested 7,704 protesters, including 170 university students. In the past four weeks 428 street and university protest gatherings have taken place in 112 cities and towns.
School children have been also protesting forced hijab after Mahsa Amini was killed in ‘morality’ police custody in mid-September. An unknown number of school students have been arrested and sent to what the government says “psychological” rehabilitation centers, which no one has ever heard about.
The ethnic Arab population of the oil-rich Khuzestan province in the southwest also protested on Friday. Due to government disruption of Internet access no videos have been received by text messages say there were fierce protests Friday evening in Ahvaz, the provincial capital, with security forces firing weapons.
The government also organized a gathering of supporters in Tehran on Friday, which coincided with Prophet Mohammed’s birthday. Several thousand people took part, but the crowd seemed much smaller than in similar past rallies.
Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei also gave a speech in an Islamic conference organized by Tehran, where he spoke about his vision of Muslim unity, without directly attacking the protests that have rocked Iran for four weeks.
An anonymous group of activists calling themselves the Tehran Youth have called for nationwide protests on Saturday [October 15], which is expected to become a new round of rallies and demonstrations around the country similar to unrest on October 8 and 12.
Iran International obtained the copy of a message sent to all retired members of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and all those affiliated with it to join the government forces planning to confront protesters on Saturday. But our information indicates many have refused to show up at 8:00 am at Tehran’s IRGC headquarters. This means that government forces may not have the required numbers to disperse protesters who have adopted a new tactic of coming into streets in various location instead of one large gathering.
During the meeting on Friday, Blinken said, "We work to support the Iranians who are standing for their fundamental freedoms with extraordinary courage despite the efforts of the regime to deny them the ability to assemble, to speak freely, to communicate with each other."
Iranian-British activist Nazanin Boniadi was among the participants of the meeting. Boniadi is also scheduled to hold another meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris later in the day. Iranian-American writer Roya Hakakian and Iranian-American activist Sherry Hakimi were also present in the meeting, which was also attended by US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.
Blinken mentioned the recent sanctions on the so-called morality police for its “incredibly abusive practices” and efforts to “license technology” so that the Iranians can communicate with one another and the outside world as measures to back the uprising in Iran, triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
He said, “the Iranian regime will try to paint this and other expressions of solidarity with those standing up for their freedoms as evidence that these protests are somehow made outside of Iran and the work of others,” noting that the Islamic Republic’s authorities “fundamentally do not understand their own people,” and “the struggle of the people of Iran for the fundamental freedoms that have long been denied them.” “And the sooner the regime understands that and acts on that. The better everyone will be.”
The National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI) sent a letter to Blinken October 11, asking the Administration “to reassess its prevailing policy toward Iran and the team of diplomats tasked to implement it.”