US National Security Advisor Discusses Support For Iran Protests With Activists

During a meeting with Iran's Police Chief Hossein Ashtari in Qom on Friday, hardline Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi said the protests were the outcome of financial problems, people's access to social media and the intervention of foreign powers. He added that protests are likely to continue as long as these three elements exist.

Meanwhile, the ayatollah, who has been previously implicated in financial corruption cases, thanked the police for suppressing the protests.

Reports from Iran say the police chief has told the ayatollahs in Qom that the so-called morality police will resume its activities in November. The 22-year-old Mahsa Amini’s death in custody of the morality police in mid-September triggered the protests that are continuing in Iran for the third consecutive week and have turned into a nationwide uprising.

In another development, while all the footage on social media show the police and Basij militia firing shotguns at people at close range, Police Chief Hossein Ashtari claimed before the Friday prayers in Tehran that security forces have been using only plastic bullets. Meanwhile, he claimed that the police has arrested 17 protesters who were armed with combat weapons.

However, he confirmed that the police use live combat ammunitions while defending their headquarters. He further claimed that the police had done nothing wrong in the episode during which Mahsa Amini was killed. Ashtari further blamed foreign countries particularly the United States and Israel, monarchists and the Iranian opposition for engineering the protests. These are the usual suspects Iranian authorities blame for every problem from COVID-19 to the Iranian youths' disillusionment.

Former intelligence minister Ghorban Ali Dorri Najafabadi, who also made exactly the same accusations, also added that authorities were able to suppress and end the protests. While large street demonstrations have decreased since October 2, smaller manifestations, strikes and civil disobedience continue in many cities.

Friday prayer imams also continued their usual disinformation and misinformation about the nationwide protests. Kazem Sedighi, the Friday Imam in Tehran also blamed the United States and Israel for the nationwide uprising. He also charged some other regional states with instigating havoc in Iran. He said the protests were the work of infidels and imperialists. This comes while in recent days school children in Iran were most active in the uprising and the regime's security forces have killed at least 6 of them and claimed that they died in various accidents.

The imam in Qom, Alireza Arafi and the Friday prayers imam of Isfahan Abolhasan Mahdavi also blamed foreign-based Persian media as well as foreign countries as the main culprits behind the uprising. The Imam in Mashhad, the firebrand Ahmad Alamolhoda, however, as usual blamed Iranian women for every problem in the country and opined that "bad-hijab women give way to widespread promiscuity, abnormal sexual tendencies and Satanic liberties."

He charged that "the enemy which is against Iran's power and progress in technology, is behind the sedition that propagates the idea of doing away with hijab as a prelude to uprooting Islam in Iran."

It is hard to judge whether the Iranian clerics are truly overwhelmed by illusions and conspiracy theories, or they know the truth, but simply try to protect the establishment that feeds them and provides them with large financial resources they could not otherwise have.

"Any French visitor, including dual nationals, is exposed to a high risk of arrest, arbitrary detention and unfair trial," read a Friday statement by Paris.

Earlier Thursday, Paris condemned Tehran for airing a video of a French couple, who say they are spies of the French intelligence service.

In order to build a narrative of foreign engendered protests, Iranian state media on Thursday released a trailer of an apparently longer program featuring forced confessions of Cécile Kohler, an educator who heads the teachers’ union National Federation of Education, Culture and Vocational Training (FNEC FP-FO) and her husband Jacque Paris.

In the short clip, they say they are agents of the French intelligence service, and were sent to Iran to prepare grounds for riots. State TV said the two French citizens had entered Iran with "chunks of money ... which was meant to fund strikes and demonstrations." "Our goal at the French security service is to pressure the government of Iran," said Paris in the video.

Moreover, the Dutch government on Friday urged all Dutch nationals to leave Iran and advised against all travel to the country, Dutch news agency ANP quoted Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra as saying.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada has designated Iran's IRGC leadership, adding that “we will restrict financial transactions with the Islamic Republic of Iran associated with the IRGC and the proxies that support them. These actions are some of the strongest measures anywhere against Iran.”

Trudeau also told Iranian women, from schoolgirls to grandmothers, "We stand with you, and we will continue to do so." He added, “To the strong, resilient, and proud Iranian Canadian community, we hear your voices. We heard your calls for action.”

“We’re using the most powerful tools at our disposal to crack down on Iran's brutal regime. We'll be pursuing a listing of IRGC leadership under our Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, making over 10,000 senior IRGC members inadmissible to Canada,” he said.

International reactions to Iran’s crackdown on ongoing popular protests are growing, with more and more countries condemning Tehran’s behavior, summoning envoys, or adopting resolutions.

He also touched upon the issue of money-laundering and the IRGC’s vast sway across the Middle East, saying, “We intend to massively expand targeted sanctions under Special Economic Measures Act to hold to account those people most responsible for Iran's egregious behavior. We are expanding Canada’s capacity to fight money laundering and illicit financial activity, as well as to crack down on foreign interference to protect Iranian Canadians and other communities in Canada.”

Deputy premier and finance minister Chrystia Freeland said, “The IRGC leadership are terrorists, the IRGC is a terrorist organization. And today by listing the Iranian regime and the IRGC leadership under Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, we're recognizing these facts."

However, the Canadian government did not officially designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization as many were expecting. Asked about why the government has refrained from such a step, Trudeau avoided a direct answer, saying that his government has found the best legal provisions to put strong sanctions, similar to measures implemented during the Bosnian and Rwandan conflicts.

On October 3, Canada imposed new sanctions on Iran under the Special Economic Measures Act, in response to gross human rights violations, including its systematic persecution of women and in particular, the egregious actions committed by Iran’s so-called ‘Morality Police’ and its leadership. Canada also implemented sanctions against Iran’s security and intelligence apparatus for its destabilizing activities across the region and the regime’s propaganda and misinformation apparatus.

The US State Department also said on Friday that it would continue to coordinate with its allies and partners on how to respond to Iran's "bloody crackdown" on protesters and its "state-sponsored violence" against women.

Earlier on Friday, 30 Conservative members of UK Houses of Commons and Lords stressed that the prospect of change in Iran has never been this strong, urging the UK government to recognize the right of the Iranian people to defend themselves by any means necessary and to overthrow the regime.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution Thursday condemning Mahsa Amini’s killing and voiced support for protests demanding change in the country.

The resolution instructed all member states “to use the mechanisms envisaged in the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders to support and protect these individuals [activists, protesters], in particular women’s rights defenders and EU-Iranian dual nationals.”

US Envoy for Iran Rob Malley told NPR that "What US wants is a government in Iran that respects people's fundamental rights. It's not a policy of regime change. It's a policy of backing people who're protesting peacefully, because they want to be able not to wear a headscarf yet face oppressive system."

Iran International has reviewed a copy of a draft of a bill, which is being circulated among Senators on foreign relations committee. The bill is not named, and it is not on the Committee’s agenda calendar yet.

Sources familiar with US Government Internet freedom agenda told Iran International Congressional correspondent Arash Aalaei that there has been solid support in US Congress lately for Internet freedom, since the uprising in Iran, to provide free and accessible internet connectivity to Iranians.

After protests began in mid-September the Biden Administration pledged to help the people in Iran to circumvent Internet filtering as well as providing alternative methods of connectivity as opposed to traditional land and phone line internet.

The bill does not include any mentioning of any specific countries, but it mandates the Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive strategy to support global free internet, prioritizing countries and regions that are being repressed by continuous shutdowns of Internet.

The Iranian government has a two-decade old policy of restricting content that can be accessed on the Internet and during protests disrupts connectivity to prevent information sharing as it uses brutal methods to suppress the people.

Sources told Iran International that the bill is already being discussed by the Senate foreign relations committee members and has strong bipartisan support.

In a letter on Thursday, they said, “As lawyers of Iranian descent, we can attest that the movement in Iran, with women at its forefront, is of the kind that in recent history has paved the way for the adoption of fundamental freedoms such as those enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms -- a movement that must be supported by all proponents of the free world.”

Describing Canada as the home to the second largest Iranian diaspora, they said the country can serve an important role in supporting the people of Iran. “Iranians are desperate to restore their access to the internet to maintain effective communication among themselves and to keep the world informed of the atrocities being committed by the Iranian government.”

They urged the Canadian government to immediately form “a task force with a mandate to review obstacles to internet connectivity in Iran and to devise practical mechanisms that can broaden internet access.” 

The lawyers said such an initiative can bring about the involvement of many NGOs and non-profit organizations that can assist in this endeavor, but “are not currently aware of means and modalities to do so.”