Political Prisoner in Iran Demands Release Of Brothers Before Surgery

Addressing retired officers during a gathering in Tehran Salami said that the IRGC “organized” retired officers and “deployed” them to the “battlefield” during the Women, Life, Freedom movement. The protests broke out after a 22-year-old woman was killed in the custody of Iran’s notorious hijab police in September last year.

Salami, calling the protests “riots” according to the Iranian regime’s terminology told retired officers, “Even now, you are in the battlefield…and when there are riots, you are present, you show up, get organized and go [to confront the protests].

The Islamic Republic deployed the regular police, riot police, IRGC forces and plainclothes agents in tens of thousands across the country to suppress the protests. They were armed with military weapons, shotguns, clubs and knives. More than 540 civilians were killed by these forces and 22,000 arrested in five months. Scores of you people lost one or both eyes when agents fired at their faces with shotgun ‘birdshots’.

Salami emphasized that retired IRGC officers have always been present in the past in suppressing protests. However, during the protests, Salami had threatened young demonstrators that the regime will “come after them” with its young supporters.

According to past statements by other IRGC commanders, during the 2009 protests to a fraudulent presidential election, thousands of criminals were freed from prisons and ordered to attack demonstrators.

Pahlavi's statement was made on social media platform X, where he described the incident as an act against the Iranian people.

The day, known as Bloody Friday, witnessed a devastating loss of life as approximately 100 protesters in the Baluch region of Iran, including women and children who were victims of direct gunfire from military and security forces.

"Each and every bullet that was fired at the heads and bodies of the most helpless children of Iran were bullets that targeted the whole of Iran," he said. "Undoubtedly, the main person responsible for this massacre is Ali Khamenei," Pahlavi added.

Many of them succumbed to severe head and chest injuries, marking a dark chapter in Iran's history unfolding amidst the uprising against the regime in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini and the rape of a 15-year-old Baluch girl by the police chief of Chabahar.

Over 300 more were injured and the regime has since failed to take any action against the perpetrators or launch a transparent investigation. In March, an Iranian lawmaker called for justice for the victims of the massacre.

Moineddin Saeedi, representative of Chabahar city, warned President Ebrahim Raisi that the issue should be handled “with special attention” given the level of anti-regime sentiment and the animosity stirring in the Baluch dominant province. 

Last week, hardliner Education Minister Reza-Morad Sahrai said "This year [which started in March], nearly 20,000 school principals have been replaced to bring about changes in schools." 

Mansour Haghighatdoust, a conservative political activist, criticized the “purification process” that is seen in almost all state organizations, describing it as “worrisome” that now educators and cultural figures are under the scrutiny of hardliners, fearing for how the sudden mass redundancies will affect children. “How can 20,000 school principals be replaced in a short period?"

Mohsen Borhani, a professor of criminal law at Tehran university, who was recently sacked for criticizing the regime on social media after the execution of four young protesters, told reformist daily Etemad that the order to remove professors critical of the regime was issued about a month after Ebrahim Raisi took office. 

By protocol, the President of Iran is ex officio the chairman of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, a hardliner-dominated body with a declared goal of ensuring that the education and culture of Iran remains "100% Islamic." Its duties include working against outside "cultural influences" and ideologies, a pretext that is used to sack academics who do not abide by regime dogma. It is also the body responsible for depriving the Baha'i religious minority of education, forcing university professors into retirement and gender segregation of educational centers. 

Teaching restrictions on Mohammad Soroush Mahallati, a professor of Islamic jurisprudence at Qom seminary, may be a sign that the purge has reached Iran’s seminaries, showing that Iran’s hardliners seek to sideline critics who once were members of their own circles. "These restrictions are clearly because of my critical remarks in speeches and articles, and they intend to dissuade students from engaging with me so that no one has any contact with me," Mahallati said about removing official credits from the courses he teaches at the seminary. 

Although the purge of academics has accelerated since last year’s protests ignited by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, Borhani said that “based on undeniable documents, the process of purging academics had been planned long before the protests and is now being implemented.”

Raisi embarked on his ‘purification’ in the first month of his tenure, expelling Bijan Abdolkarimi, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Islamic Azad University. However, Borhani claims that the firing of professors is based on the systematic plan that was started in former hardliner governments, and Raisi just made the best use of Women, Life, Freedom protests as a momentum to expedite the process. 

Since the uprising began in September last year, a large number of academics voiced solidarity with protesters and once the unrest was quelled, the Raisi administration intensified the crackdown, pushing professors into early retirement, not renewing teaching contracts, cancelling classes without prior notice, removing and suspending professors, and reducing monthly salaries. Tens of professors have also been summoned or temporarily detained.

In August, Etemad published a list of 157 tenured professors who were dismissed, forced into retirement, or banned from teaching for their criticism and dissenting views from 2006 to the end of August 2023. Of the 157 previously announced names, 58 were removed during Ebrahim Raisi's administration. The daily published another article to add 52 more names, illustrating the continuing effort by hardliners to eliminate dissenting voices from academia.

The purge of university professors in the past 17 years went beyond that, when non-tenured lecturers were replaced by "religious" and "revolutionary" professors. The trend started after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office and continued in Hassan Rouhani’s administration. Continuing into the Raisi era, it has seen successive governments in the Islamic Republic systematically expelling seasoned professors for their "secular views," among other political reasons.

According to a report from the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology in 2013, during Ahmadinejad's presidency, approximately 17,000 new faculty members were added to universities payroll. Such a move is speculated to be repeated as President Raisi plans to add 15,000 "revolutionary" professors to the academic faculty of universities nationwide.

The online ticket sales process for Sepahan's match against Saudi's Al Ittihad club in the second week of the AFC Champions League began without any provisions for female spectators, a move that clearly contradicts AFC regulations.

The incident occurred despite announcements from Iran's Football Federation regarding the readiness of Naqsh-e Jahan Stadium's infrastructure in Esfahan for accommodating women. Also, Sepahan's matches in Iran's Premier League have taken place without the presence of women.

The issue of women's presence in stadiums outside of Tehran has become increasingly controversial in recent years. FIFA has long advocated for women's access to stadiums, but Iran's Football Federation and other relevant entities persistently delayed its full implementation.

Iran had banned female spectators from stadiums for years, citing religious decency rules. The ban resulted in numerous arrests, beatings, detentions, and abuses against women.

The Iranian regime's handling of women's participation in football matches has also drawn international scrutiny. While there were some limited concessions granted last year, allowing controlled entry, the government's response to nationwide protests eventually led to the revocation of this privilege, resulting in months of matches conducted without spectators.

Atena Daemi, a human rights activist, has since his recent death, made the notes public, drawing attention to the dire plight of inmates in Iran's penitentiaries.

Rouhi, who was apprehended during the nationwide protests, died under suspicious circumstances while in custody on August 31. He had been sentenced to death alongside two other teenagers, on charges of allegedly setting fire to a police station.

The notes written by Rouhi reveal that during his 44 days of incarceration at the Intelligence Department of Mazandaran Province facility, he was subjected to repeated instances of interrogation torture including electric shock and beatings. In one incident, his feet were beaten for three consecutive nights, leading to paralysis and numbness in his right foot.

Rouhi emphasized that all his confessions regarding allegations such as "burning the Quran, insulting sanctities, and damaging government properties" were extracted under duress and the looming threat to his life.

On August 31, the Mizan News Agency, the judiciary's official media outlet, reported his transfer to a hospital due to a "seizure" within Nowshahr Prison, where he ultimately died.

In response to the tragic event, a multitude of users have labeled his suspicious death as a "state murder."