In Brazen Lie, Raisi Tells UN Iranian Women's Rights Are 'Unparalleled'

Based on the website’s data from August 2023, the average mobile internet download speed has reached 31.33 megabits per second, showing a more than 6% decrease compared to the previous month. The upload speed has also decreased by approximately 4%.

Iran's broadband fixed internet speed has also experienced a decline. The average fixed internet download speed in August recorded at 11.92 megabits per second, indicating a 1.5% decrease compared to the previous month. The upload speed for fixed internet also shows a declining trend.

On the other hand, Iran's position in the list of surveyed countries regarding internet speed has dropped to the lowest rank in comparison to the past year. In August 2022, Iran was ranked 69th among 145 countries in mobile internet speed, but it has now fallen to 72nd place.

A similar situation has been experienced in fixed internet, with Iran dropping five ranks compared to the previous year. Part of the reason for the decline in Iran's internet speed ranking is the growth of internet speed in other countries around the world.

According to the Speedtest statistics, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait have been recognized as the top countries in terms of mobile internet speed in the world.

For years, Iranian authorities have restricted citizens' access to approximately half of the top websites in the world. In this regard, surveys by the Tehran E-commerce Association indicate that Iran, after China, has the most restricted internet access in the world.

Amini, 22, was arrested in Tehran because the police felt her hair wasn’t covered properly. She was hit on the head in custody and died in hospital on 16 September 2022.

“Her death was, and remains, a tragedy,” said Senator Bob Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a statement, “her murderers’ names will be forever written in the blackest pages of history.”

The ‘state murder’ of Mahsa enraged Iranians, who took to the streets across Iran. The regime employed brutal force to crush the protests. More than 500 were killed, many more injured. Tens of thousands were arrested.

“The international community owes it to them to never let the regime get away with the crimes committed during its brutal crackdown,” Senator Menendez’s statement read. “It owes them our full-throated support as the regime continues to repress the Iranian people to this very day because their bravery is nothing short of inspiring.”

Menendez’s words have been loudly echoed in the Capitol. Senators and Representatives, Republican and Democrat, have spoken or issued statements in support of Iranians.

This is partly because last year’s protests in Iran were simply too big, too consequential, to ignore. Many felt it was ‘the beginning of the end’ of the Islamic Republic.

The recent surge in interest in Iran could also be attributed to party politics in the US. Biden’s Iran policy is unpopular and therefore an easy, efficient attack-line for his political opponents.

But there’s another dynamic at work in Washington: young, educated activists of Iranian origin, inspired and energized by Woman, Life, Freedom movement, are taking it upon themselves to influence US policy towards Iran.

Their efforts have been on display at dozens of protests in major US cities in the past year, and more recently in garnering support for the Mahsa Act in the Congress.

“Against all odds, a new generation of Iranian-Americans is making a positive impact on Capitol Hill, one step at a time,” Sarah Raviani posted on X (formerly twitter) after the bill passed the House on 12 September.

She had spent the preceding days calling Representatives and encouraging others to do so. A week later, she was in Los Angeles, speaking at a rally to commemorate the killing of Mahsa Amini and the beginning of the 2022 protests.

Raviani is only one example, perhaps more prominent than many on social media, but only one among the many who put in the time and effort to effect change.

Scanning through their social media, the new-found army of Iranian-American activists seem to have differences in their background, in their outlook, in their political orientation in the US even. But one wish bonds them together: the end of the Islamic Republic in Iran.

As the United Nations General Assembly gets under way this week, many activists have momentarily turned their attention away from Washington to focus on Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, who arrived in New York on Monday morning.

“Absolutely speechless,” wrote one activist, “Ebrahim Raisi will not only be visiting the US to attend @UN, but will be hosting several private meetings & events throughout his stay.”

“This is the same President that was formerly dubbed the Hanging Judge”, wrote another. “This is the President of the same regime that has been systematically hanging protesters over the past year, r*ping & torturing them in prison, and taking out their eyes.”

Several rallies are planned by Iranian-Americans to protest and raise awareness about the Islamic Republic and Raisi. And grassroots activists are the heart of it once more.

Long gone are the days when National Iranian American Council, NIAC, was the only act in town. They traditionally were advocating rapprochement with the Islamic Republic and an end to sanctions. They may still have their connections in Washington, but they seem to have lost their footing within the Iranian-American community.

Any sign of connection with the representatives of the Islamic Republic comes at a hefty price these days.

Same time last year, some successful Iranian-Americans accepted invitations to an event with Raisi. There was a huge backlash within the community, which made most of them apologize and distance themselves from the Islamic Republic.

This year, there seems to be more invitations. And the new army of Iranian-American activists are watching.

Niloufar Hamedi’s and Elahe Mohammadi’s lawyers submitted legal requests for their release after one year of “temporary detention”, which even according to Iran’s laws is illegal.

The two journalists – from reformist Iranian dailies Shargh and Ham-Mihan – have been imprisoned for about 350 days because the regime blames them for the nationwide protests that followed Amini’s death in hospital on September 16, 2022, after her arrest by the notorious hijab police.

The Islamic Republic is known to crack down on people who reveal corruption and wrongdoing in Iran, with authorities announcing that reporting the crimes is worse than the crimes themselves.

Hamedi reported about Mahsa Amini struggling for her life in a hospital after receiving fatal head injuries while in custody. When the 22-year-old Amini passed away, residents of Tehran began gathering around the hospital to protest and soon demonstrations spread to many cities. The Women, Life, Liberty movement that began presented the most serious challenge to the Islamic regime in its 44-year history and lasted for months.

Iran’s intelligence ministry and the Revolutionary Guard accused the two reporters of having links with the CIA and foreign governments and conspiring to agitate public opinion against the regime.

Hamedi’s attorney, Partu Borhanpur in an interview with Shargh newspaper said two months have passed since her trial was held and the court has not announced its decision, keeping Hamedi illegally in temporary detention.

Videos posted on social media show groups of protesters chanting “Down with the Islamic Republic” and “I’ll kill the ones who killed my sister [Mahsa (Jina) Amini]”. The sound of gunshots can be heard in one of the videos, but casualties have so far not been reported. 

On Saturday, marking the anniversary of Mahsa (Jina) Amini's death, which ignited nationwide protests last year, people took to the streets. However, only small groups of young men and women, or individuals, managed to chant anti-government slogans in certain cities like Rasht in northern Iran and the central city of Arak when they had the opportunity.

Security forces on foot and on motorbikes on Saturday managed to prevent protesters from starting nearly everywhere, violently breaking up groups of more than two or three people. In some areas they used violence indiscriminately and made random arrests. 

"It was crucial for the regime to maintain strict control on the anniversary and prevent the emergence of new protests," said a political analyst in Tehran who requested anonymity when speaking to Iran International. "The government would have resorted to violent crackdowns had large groups of protesters managed to gather, which could have further fueled more protests. Additionally, it would have heightened international pressure on the regime," he added.

Security forces’ heavy presence on the streets which some on social media refer to as “martial law” continued in many large and small cities including the capital Tehran on Sunday. 

“There was no need for so many preventive measures on the anniversary if last year’s protests were only a temporary problem [as authorities claim],” prominent reformist politician and commentator Abbas Abdi said in a commentary he published on Telegram. News websites and print media in Iran did not carry anything even remotely related to the anniversary of the protests. 

Hundreds of social media and other activists, ordinary citizens as well as several family members of the victims of last year's protests have been targeted by security bodies in the past few days. 

Mahsa (Jina) Amini’s father, Amjad Amini, was detained Saturday morning and released a few hours later. The family had announced on social media a few days earlier that they were planning to hold a ceremony at her graveside as tradition dictates but it appears that her father's detention altered the family’s plans. 

Other detainees included people from all walks of life such as several Kurdish citizens in western provinces, two Baha’i citizens in Esfahan (Isfahan), and three public figures in the northeastern Golestan province. 

A video posted on social media Sunday showed family members of some of the detainees who had gathered outside a police headquarters in Tehran being beaten by the police. 

Rahim Jahanbakhsh, Chief of Police of the West Azarbaijan Province, told the media Sunday that 137 social media activists were arrested in his province alone. “They tried to mislead the public by their content, photos and videos and some of them wanted to incite riots,” he said.

Several actors and other artists who are known for supporting the protesters’ cause, overthrowing the regime, including the well-known actress Hanieh Tavasoli, were also detained in the past few days. 

Tavasoli was arrested close to midnight at her home Saturday and released on bail Sunday. Tavasoli’s social media accounts were deactivated a few minutes after her arrest. 

Many other activists and ordinary citizens were called in by intelligence bodies for questioning. Among them were two dissident Sunni clerics from two towns in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan Province and Rojan Maleki, a sixteen-year-old girl from a village near the Kurdish city of Marivan who was questioned for writing graffiti. 

Saadat Abad, located in western Tehran, was one of the neighborhoods where residents rekindled the memories of last year's protests by chanting slogans such as "Death to Khamenei" and "Death to the dictator."

The echoes of anti-regime slogans resonated in other western districts of Tehran as well, encompassing areas like Shahr-e Ziba, Arya Shahr, Baqeri, Chitgar, and Ekbatan.

During the protests last year, neighborhoods such as Chitgar, Baqeri, and Ekbatan were gripped by nightly slogans as residents regularly confronted security forces for several months.

On Sunday, the security forces of the Islamic Republic, synchronized with the anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death on September 16, deployed numerous special forces units, plainclothes officers, and motorcyclists within these neighborhoods, with a pronounced presence in the Ekbatan.

In some districts of Karaj, 30 kilometers west of the capital, once again protesters voiced their discontent through nighttime slogans Sunday night. The demonstrators chanted slogans against the Islamic Republic from the windows of their homes and apartments.

Slogans such as "Death to the Child-killing Regime" and "Death to the dictator" featured prominently.

Moreover, reports and images disseminated across social media platforms suggest that, in commemoration of Mahsa Amini's death anniversary, protesters in select areas of Tehran and several other cities wrote anti-government slogans in the streets.