Islamic Republic Does Not Represent Iranians - US Senators

Hamid Farrokhnejad, in an exclusive interview with Iran International, stated that "the regime is such a coward and so humiliated that it seeks legitimacy by terror, imprisonment, torture and execution.”

He also compared the Islamic Republic with Bashar al-Assad’s in Syria, saying that he is the ruler of Syria, but his rule is of no use and meaningless.

Farrokhnejad has been criticized by the state media and supporters of the Islamic Republic due to his stance against Khamenei within the past few days.

Earlier, a post by Farrokhnejad against Ali Khamenei's “dictatorship” on Instagram incited a wave of reactions among regime supporters.

In his post he compared Iran’s authoritarian ruler with other dictators such as Francisco Franco, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini, saying he is “mentally ill” just like his “colleagues”.

In response to Farrokhnejad's comment, Director of the Cinema Organization of Iran, Mohammad Khazaei said “You have no right to insult our leader, our sage, and our mentor. Here is still the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Farokhnejad was banned from traveling abroad by the regime, but he managed to leave Iran is currently is in the United States.

Expressing irritation with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres over an investigation into Iran sending military drones to Russia, United States Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood told the meeting the UN was “apparently yielding to Russian threats” by not sending officials to Ukraine.

UNSC members France, the United Kingdom, and the US have argued that Iran supplying drones to Russia violates a clause in UNSC Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal. The clause requires prior council approval (up to October 2023) for transferring to and from Iran of certain categories of weapons.

Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s UN ambassador, said any drones supplied to Russia before February were not banned by the council and were not “for use in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.” He said the UN enquiry served only “to divert attention from the western states’ transfer of massive amounts of advanced sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine in order to prolong the conflict.” The US alone has sent $20 billion in arms to the Kyiv government.

Iran has not criticized Russia for its unprovoked attack on Ukraine, while the United States and its European NATO allies have strongly opposed Moscow on the issue and are helping Kyiv to reclaim its territorial integrity.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s UN ambassador, told the council that UN officials “should not bow to pressure from western countries” and that “any results of this pseudo investigation [would be] null and void.”

The UNSC meeting marks a growing rift between, on one side, the US, France, and the UK, and on the other side Russia, who alongside China mainly blames Washington for undermining the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the US unilaterally left in 2018 while imposing stringent sanctions on Iran.

A statement Monday from the three western European JCPOA signatories – France, Germany, and the UK – reiterated that the failure of talks to revive the agreement was solely due to Iran. Their statement said Tehran had “refused to take the deal tabled” by the “JCPOA co-ordinator in March and August,” referring to proposals made by the European Union chair of talks, which Iran regarded as unsatisfactory. The continuing expansion of Iran’s nuclear program was having “severe impacts on international security and the non-proliferation regime,” the ‘E3’ statement said.

JCPOA ‘still the best option’

The EU, whose officials have mediated not just multilateral JCPOA talks but also bilateral Iran-US contacts, now appears more proactive than the E3 over the JCPOA – flying in the face of US President’s Joe Biden just-revealed November proclamation that the JCPOA is “dead.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell met Tuesday in Jordan with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani. Silvio Gonzato, the EU Chargé d’Affaires, told the UNSC Monday that “diplomacy and restoring the JCPOA’s full implementation” were “still the best option for preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” and that this was “instrumental to the security of the whole region and…in our fundamental common interest.”

While acknowledging that JCPOA restoration work had been “seriously challenged” by unrest in Iran and the drones supply, Gonzato said the EU “remains in close contact with all JCPOA participants and the United States.”

And while Gonzato noted Iran’s JCPOA infringements, including enriching uranium to 60 percent and limiting international inspectors’ access, Gonzato cited the “very serious negative economic consequences” Iran faced “following the US’s withdrawal from the JCPOA” its “re-imposition of previously lifted US unilateral sanctions, which we deeply regret.”

In Washington Saturday, Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State as President Donald Trump left the JCPOA told a conference there should be no diplomacy with “a brutal and corrupt regime.” Addressing the conference virtually, Maryam Rajavi, co-leader of the Mujahideen-e Khalq, the militant opposition group relocated by the US from Iraq to Albania, said “the current uprising in Iran is one of the world’s most important developments in 2022.”

According to these documents, the vice president for legal affairs has asked the Iranian banks with blocked assets in South Korean banks as well as in the Seoul branch of Bank Mellat to cooperate in filing a lawsuit to unfreeze the money. 

Letters were sent to 16 Iranian banks in September and follow-up letters to nine of them last month, asking them for prompt responses. 

Ali Saleh-Abadi, the head of the Central Bank of Iran, said on Monday that the main obstacle in releasing the frozen funds is determining the recipient accounts to which the money would be transferred. He said there were some changes in the recipient accounts. 

Every few months, especially when the Islamic Republic’s currency hits new lows against the dollar, Tehran announces that talks are underway with Seoul to free the blocked funds. 

Iran, which sits on the world's fourth-largest oil reserves, was a key oil supplier to South Korea, and a main importer of goods such as industrial equipment, household appliances and vehicle parts. Seoul stopped purchasing Iranian oil in May 2019 due to US sanctions that ban the Islamic republic's oil exports.

Bilateral relations between Seoul and Teheran remain frayed after two South Korean banks locked $7-9 billion of Iranian funds owed for oil imports because of US banking sanctions, which were reimposed after former President Donald Trump in 2018 withdrew from the deal.

Referring to the “increasing suppression” by regime forces, the 12 medical professional groups called the current situation in Iran a “human catastrophe” and asked the German federal government to do everything in its power to put an end to this.

“We write to you as medical professionals who are gravely concerned about the human rights and medical situation facing the civilian population of Iran. Since the violent death of Mahsa Amini…people from various social groups across the country have put their lives at risk to gather in protest against the Islamic Republic; among those protesting are many medical students and practitioners,” reads the letter published on twitter.

They added that the regime is attempting to suppress these protests by any means including rape and torture.

“It is extremely concerning to see the start of criminal trials against political prisoners in these times. Since political prisoners can face execution in Iran, we fear that the lives of countless people are acutely at risk,” adds the letter.

In another part of the letter, the signatories warned about the “treacherous nature of the security service’s violence against medical professionals,” saying that “doctors have been forced to treat their patients secretly, often outside of health centers; and the medical professionals have, themselves, become the target of repression.”

They also expressed solidarity with medical colleagues in Iran demanding that they are permitted to continue practicing their necessary work in accordance with the Geneva Convention for the protection and wellbeing of their patients.

This comes after Hamid Ghareh Hasanlou, a radiologist doctor, and his wife, Farzaneh, were sentenced to death on charges of collaborating in the killing of a Basiji member in Karaj, west of Tehran, and the suspicious death of Aida Rostami, a young doctor living in Tehran.

While the Islamic Republic claims a young female doctor, Aida Rostami, died after “falling from an overpass,” her family told the media that signs of harassment, torture and assault were observed on Rostami's body. Security agents have told her family that they should announce she had died in an accident.

Some sources and social media users have stated that Aida Rostami was killed because she helped injured protesters.

Earlier, in a letter to Iranian PresidentEbrahim Raisi, the World Medical Association demanded safe working conditions for physicians and other health personnel in the pursuit of their mission as well as full access to health care to all those in need.

It also called for immediate and unconditional end of violence and the establishment of a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

“We are profoundly shocked to hear that an increasing number of health professionals are threatened, arrested, and tortured in Iran, just because they do their work. According to the ethical rules of our profession, physicians have an obligation to treat those wounded or ill, without any other consideration. Likewise, prisoners must receive the necessary medical care by a health professional, without influence from the authorities,” stressed the World Medical Association.

Several videos have surfaced on social media showing people quarreling with bank clerks or officials who say they do not have enough cash for withdrawals. 

Having lost their trust on the Islamic Republic’s embattled currency after a steep fall with no prospect of bouncing back, many Iranians want to remove their money from banks to exchange them for foreign currencies or gold.

Iranian political activist, lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi urged people on Sunday to join the campaign of withdrawing money from banks, noting that state-controlled banks in Iran are not institutions to serve the people and only act as the economic arm of the “killing Republic” referring to the clerical regime. "Now it has been proven to everyone that there is no will in the regime to accept the demands of the people," she said, adding that the campaign to shun banks in daily transactions can deal a "fundamental blow" to the government.

Criticizing the government’s economic policies, Iran's former central banker, Abdolnaser Hemmati, said Tuesday that the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi was so sure about the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal that it moved to stop the indirect subsidy for essential goods, triggering more inflation. He said that now that the deal seems doomed to fail and the currency has lost its value dramatically, the authorities are looking for ways to remedy the dire situation. 

The government stopped offering cheap dollars to importers of essential goods earlier this year to save around $15 billion annually. The move immediately doubled and tripled food prices and led to shortages of medicines, medical equipment and animal feed.

Hemmati, who was a presidential candidate in the 2021 election and held heated debates with Raisi, addressed him, saying that “if you knew the problems and had solutions for them, why don’t you do anything? And if you just want to blame your predecessors, why did you even bother to run for office?”

Unfortunately for Raisi, the famous anecdote about an outgoing manager imparting his wisdom to the new one in the form of three sealed envelopes would not work here. The outgoing manager told the new one that the first time things go wrong, open the first letter. Open the second letter for the second incident and open the third letter for the third incident. “Blame Your Predecessor!” was written in the first letter, which Raisi has been doing since the day he took office. “Blame Your Employees!”, read the second one, which is a strategy exhausted by the current administration. The third letter instructed the manager to “Prepare three Letters!”, something Raisi has not done yet because he has no scapegoat ready yet as the next election is in more than two years. 

In addition to critics of the government, a 25-percent fall in the value of Iran’s currency in three months and a more than 50-percent drop in 15 months has led to sharp criticism even among conservatives. Conservative politician Mansoor Haqiqatpur has accused Raisi of sharply reducing the value of assets held by rich and ordinary Iranians.

“Less than 18 months ago, when Raisi took office as the President of the Islamic Republic one US dollar was equal to 230,000 rials in Tehran markets. Now the value of every US dollar is over 380,000 rials. The devaluating Iranian currency is now as cheap as straw. This means Iranians have lost half of their assets during this period." In fact, since Haqiqatpur spoke the rial has dropped further and on Tuesday it was close to 400,000 against the US dollar.

Ehsan Khandozi, the government spokesman for economic affairs who doubles as the minister of economic and financial affairs, said on Tuesday that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has agreed to dedicate 11 trillion rials (or about $31.4 million) from the National Development Fund to the government’s treasury to be used for its unfinished projects. He added Ali Khamenei has also given the go-ahead to bartering oil in exchange for railroad and transit projects across the country.