Cut Ties With ‘Child-Killing Regime’ - Khamenei Niece Tells The World

UNICEF in a statement on Sunday said it has received reports that the Iranian regime’s violence has claimed the lives of over 50 children and injured many more during the unrest in Iran.

"UNICEF also remains deeply concerned about continued raids and searches conducted in some schools. Schools must always be safe places for children,” underlined the international body.

It also said it directly communicated its concerns to the authorities in Iran since the first cases of child casualties occurred in response to the protests.

UNICEF went on to urge Iranian officials to respect the rights of all children to “peaceful assembly as a fundamental guarantee” - no matter who they are or where they are.

It called on security forces to refrain from using “unnecessary or disproportionate force”, underlining that kids and adolescents must be protected from all forms of “mental and physical harms”.

In recent weeks, UNICEF and its ambassadors had been widely criticized on social media for being silent about the suppression of children in Iran.

Earlier, the Iranian envoy to UNICEF, actress Mahtab Keramati, resigned to protest the lack of action.

Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization in its latest report said at least 51 children have been killed by security forces in the ongoing nationwide protests.

In the 1998 World Cup, the American and Iranian teams faced each other for the first time after Iran's 1979 revolution.

The match was called "the most politically charged match in World Cup history" and ended with Iran's 2-1 victory. On the day of the match, my brother came to our house with two "Iran t-shirts," one for him and one for our father, who had recently been forced to immigrate to the United States.

Even though my father had taught physics and mechanics in Iran's high schools for nearly 50 years, had written textbooks, trained young teachers, and with the cooperation of some of his friends, founded Khorazmi Schools, one of the best private schools in Iran, he was forced to leave his country during his retirement.

After all my father had done to serve his country, the newly established Islamic regime penalized him severely. The regime confiscated his schools and arrested my brother and me for our anti-regime activities. My brother Bijan, who had received a ten-year sentence from the revolutionary courts for his political activities, and had spent more than six years behind bars, suddenly was executed in the 1988 massacre of the political prisoners and the Islamic Republic refused to give us his body or tell us where he was buried. The rest of us were forced to leave the country, and my father soon had to join us.

My father loved sports, especially soccer, and always memorized the players' names, the games' schedules, and the results. On that historic day, when he proudly sat in front of the TV to watch the game, I asked him, "Will you support Iran's regime team in this match?" He answered, "It doesn't matter to me which team wins. Iran is my homeland, but America has sheltered me, so whoever wins, I will feel victorious."

That day, my father's answer was not convincing because I had endured pain and suffering as a woman living in an Islamic country with a gender-apartheid regime. Immediately after the revolution, I was forced to go to an all-girls segregated school instead of a "mixed elementary school." The content of schoolbooks was changed to Islamic propaganda. I was forced to wear hijab, long dresses, and wide-leg pants in dark colors to cover my body's curves. All my human rights, including the right to divorce, the right to custody of my children, the right to equal inheritance, the right to testify in court, the right to leave the country, the right to study in a series of disciplines, the right to participate in a series of sports, the right to enter sports stadiums, the right to mingle with the opposite sex, the right to run for dozens of important positions in the country, including the presidency, were taken from me.

I didn't see this soccer team as my country's team, and I hated the Islamic Regime's flag and its anthem. That day, I had no interest in the Islamic Republic team winning, but I was in the minority. The passion for soccer and the World Cup mesmerized everyone. They had forgotten that soccer and the world events are a place for dictators to validate their existence, normalize their oppressive regimes, and spread their propaganda.

After 24 years, we are again at a historical moment, and on Tuesday, November 29, 2022, the teams of the Islamic Regime of Iran and the United States will face each other. In these 24 years, the regime's violence has reached a much wider range of people. If in the 1980s, the Islamic Republic committed crimes behind the walls of prisons and away from the eyes of the people, now it is shooting protesters in the streets in broad daylight, and cell phone cameras are recording these crimes.

In the 1980s, no one heard the voices of the prisoners who were executed and dumped secretly in individual or mass graves, but today we know the names of many of those killed in the recent protests. Due to access to the victims' social media accounts and because of satellite TVs and other forms of digital media, we know about the victims' interests, their lifestyles, and even the music they listened to. Many of the soccer players in the 1998 match, such as Ali Daei, Mahdi Mahdavi Kia, Karim Bagheri, Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh, etc., are standing by the people now and support the Iranian people's revolution against this brutal Regime.

Today, we should all boycott this World Cup and the Islamic regime's team, which instead of being a "national team," is an "Islamic regime team" and represents a child-killing gender apartheid political system, and hope that it will be the loser of this tournament. Every time the flag of the Islamic Republic is waved in international gatherings and its disgraceful anthem is played; it is a blow to the freedom movement of the Iranian people. In addition, the host of the World Cup, Qatar, is not qualified to host these competitions at all. Not only is it unclear how FIFA granted the hosting of this World Cup to a small country like Qatar, which has no history of football at all, but also Qatar's abuse of migrant workers, not paying their wages, the death of thousands of people during the construction of Qatar's stadiums, and discrimination against women and LGBTQ community makes this country ineligible to host the World Cup.

Although I have boycotted these games and will not watch them, I sincerely hope that the US team wins on Tuesday so that we no longer see the flag of a child-killing, gender-apartheid regime with no respect for human life and human dignity, waiving in the air.

The last victory of the Islamic regime against Wales team was celebrated by its repressive security forces in the street, the same forces that, until hours earlier, were killing innocent people with batons, guns, and bullets. The same forces that are committing crimes against humanity in Baluchistan and Kurdistan. Regime hired immigrants from other countries to cheer its team in Qatar's stadiums. It used all the intelligence capabilities and police forces of Qatar to prevent its opponents from entering the stadiums and silenced their voices. A team with this background does not deserve victory.

The real Iranian National Team is the young people willing to die in the streets for freedom and secularism. Our national team is imprisoned in Evin and other prisons in Iran. Our heroes are Nilofar Hamedi, Zainab Mousavi, Elaha Mohammadi, Hossein Ronaghi, Toomaj Salehi, Majid Tavakoli, Arash Sadeghi, Sepideh Qolian, Golrokh Iraei, Zeynab Jalali and thousands of others who are ready to give their lives for their country, for freedom of Iran, and a better tomorrow.

Opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily the views of Iran International

Tehran says the German envoy Hans-Udo Muzel was also summoned for Berlin’s key role in holding a UN Human Rights Council special session on Iran last week.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani said in this meeting, Tehran “strongly protested against the interventionist and baseless statements of the German authorities.”

“The German ambassador was also told that the recent resolution of the special meeting of the UN Human Rights Council is a wrong step based on a completely political and instrumental use of human rights and is fundamentally rejected. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not cooperate with any mechanism defined by it,” added Iran’s foreign ministry.

The ministry also noted that it has warned the German ambassador that Berlin and other European governments who support “the unilateral sanctions of the United States” are not “qualified to raise human rights claims”.

The UN Human Rights Council voted Thursday to launch an independent investigation into Iran's deadly repression of protests, that has killed more than 400 civilians.

The 35th special session of the Human Rights Council was held following an official request submitted on November 11 by Germany and Iceland, as well as the support by over 40 other states.

In an interview with moderate conservative website Khabar Online, Ali Motahari blamed the Raisi administration for the country's economic problems without mentioning Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's responsibility. However, when speaking on key issues such as reforming election law, negotiating with the United States to revive the JCPOA, and aligning with Russia in its war against Ukraine, he acknowledged that it is Khamenei who has the final say on key issues.

Motahari is a social conservative who has sometimes been an outspoken critic when the hardliner core of the regime has violated insider rules or taken steps leading to more international isolation.

Speaking on the ongoing protests in Iran, Motahari said that people's hopelessness about their future triggered the current wave of protests. Blaming the existing economic crisis and hard-line policies as the root causes of the protests, he agreed that creating a moderate political grouping might help resolve the country's current economic and political impasse.

He also maintained that the government's indecision about the nuclear deal, economic problems and even the ongoing protests has lent momentum to the popular uprising.

The idea of holding a referendum on major issues is not new. Former President Hassan Rouhani proposed the idea on several occasions, angering Khamenei and his followers.

In another development, in an article entitled "The government's Autumn hibernation," Khabar online criticized Raisi and his administration for being absent from the public scene and for their indifference in the face of recent UN and IAEA resolutions about Iran's human rights record and its nuclear program.

The article concluded that "Raisi's indecision and his government's absence in public arena to tackle problems has gradually turned cultural, foreign policy, economic and social issues into security problems" for the country and the nation.

At the same time, it criticized Raisi for failing to understand and prioritize the problems Iran is currently facing and for turning the issues that should normally have conventional solutions into unwanted crises. In other words, Raisi's absence has provided opportunities for forces outside the presidential administration to get involved in policy making behind-the-scenes and impose a high cost on the government.

Khabar Online did not name those forces, but it was presumably referring to influence by Khamenei's many offices, influential clerics and IRGC officers who intervene in the affairs of the state.

The article charged that since Raisi came to office, he has always avoided public appearances during crises. He has stopped his visits to provinces and has been silent about hardliner attempts to restrict social media and deprive thousands of Iranians from benefitting from their Internet-based businesses.

At the same time, the Raisi administration constantly contributed to crises by measures such as eliminating the preferential rate of exchange as well as acting passively regarding security forces restricting Internet access.

Khabar Online mentioned that Raisi's silence was eye-catching when security forces killed dozens of protesters in the provinces. He did not act or say anything about Tehran's police's brutality against peaceful protesters either. According to the website, Raisi's silence has provided opportunities for hardliners to push for policies, such as strengthening the ‘morality police’, that have enraged the people. Raisi did not even respond to clerics and political activists' letters about those developments.

Antigovernment protests in Iran continued Sunday mainly through nationwide strikes by truckers and protest rallies at universities during the day and street rallies through the night. 

Truck drivers and owners in many cities across the country did not move their vehicles on Sunday in one of the biggest strikes taking place in more than two months since the current wave of protests began following the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. 

Truckers in several cities such as Esfahan, Bandar Abbas, Qazvin, and Kermanshah refrained from moving goods in support of the protests, sit-ins and strikes by industrial workers. Many people on social media describe the strike by the truckers as a significant blow to the Islamic Republic since it has the potential to cripple the economy. Some people say, “the truckers are leading the revolutionary uprising.”

The strike is so costly for the regime that it has already started giving the drivers extra fuel subsidies to lure them back into work. 

In a video that became viral on Sunday, a driver is heard saying that if the government was able to give them subsidies before, why did they refuse to do so earlier in the year when they held another round of nationwide strikes. 

This round of strikes started Saturday after a call for a 10-day work stoppage by the Truck Drivers’ Union, while numerous workers at steel and automobile factories also stopped work on Saturday. Workers at Esfahan Steel Company, Alvand SarmaAfarin Incorporation, Morattab Car Manufacturing, Safe Khodro Car Manufacturing Company, Qazvin’s Pars Appliances Company, and some others joined many other factories already on strikes.

In recent weeks workers at dozens of industrial units, including automobile manufacturing, household appliances, heavy industries, petrochemicals, oil, gas, sugarcane, etc., went on strike. Shopkeepers and business owners in dozens of Iranian cities also closed their shops and went on strike many times for consecutive days in support of the uprising against the clerical regime.

The streets of many Iranian cities as well as the capital Tehran were also scenes of rallies after the sun set on Sunday, while calls for nationwide protests has been issued by different groups for the coming week. 

People in several neighborhoods of Tehran held rallies and set trash cans on fire while chanting slogans against the regime’s crackdown on protesters. 

According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), from September 16 until Friday, November 25, at least 448 protestors have been killed, of which 63 were minors. While the Islamic Republic has not provided accurate figures of those detained in the protests, the watchdog went on to say that at least 18,170 protesters have been arrested including 565 students.HRANA added that 156 cities and more than 140 universities across Iran have also been the scenes of anti-government protests.

However, the Islamic Republic has also released several people detained during protests or in support of the protesters. Among the prominent dissident figures who have been freed on bail are human rights activist and journalist Hossein Ronaghi and actress Hengameh Ghaziani. Ronaghi, who was transferred to hospital directly from Evin prison, had been on a hunger strike that lasted over 60 days.

Many people call their release a new propaganda trick by the Islamic Republic to divert attention from the bloody crackdown in Kurdish and Baloch cities while some believe the new moves are the consequence of the international measures against the Islamic Republic. The United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday adopted a resolution based on which an international panel will be formed to investigate the violence against protesters in Iran.