US State Department Providing VPNs For Iranians

People in the city poured onto streets Thursday night over the mysterious death of a protester, Bamshad Soleiman-Khani, who was released from prison earlier in the week.

Soleiman-Khani, a 21-year-old mechanical engineering student was reportedly arrested during earlier rallies in the city. Suffering from a headache after his release, he was taken to hospital immediately, but died on Sunday night.

It was not the first time that a protester died only days after being released from prison. The chief justice of the province, Omran Ali-Mohammadi, said Thursday that Soleiman-Khani committed suicide by taking pills, prompting his fellow citizens to hold the protests on Thursday night rebutting what they see as a regime cover-up similar to scores of others before.

In May, Amir-Hossein Tarval-Iman was pardoned and released after eight months of detention but died following a heart attack a few days later. A month earlier, 19-year-old Yalda Aghafazli died after being released from prison without any medical preconditions. Hospital tests indicated a significant amount of narcotics in her blood system, likely forcefully administered while she was in detention.

In November, Arshia Emamgholizadeh, 16, was arrested in East Azarbaijan province for throwing the turban of a cleric. He was kept in prison for ten days and released on bail. He was said to have committed suicide two days later.

Since protests began last year, regime agents have arrested 20-30,000 Iranians.

The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization announced in its latest report on Thursday that the figure is the highest monthly executions since 2015, averaging five people hanged each day across the country during May.

According to the report, the regime has executed at least 307 people in the first five months of 2023, indicating a 76-percent year on year rise.

In addition to the first public execution of the year, 78 people were executed for drug-related charges, about 30 of whom were from the Baluch minority, perhaps the most persecuted community in Iran.

According to the data collected by the IHR, 59 percent – or 180 people -- of the 307 executions so far in 2023 were hanged over drug-related charges.

“As well as increasing drug-related executions, the Islamic Republic has also expanded the scope of charges it uses to carry out the death penalty by executing two people for blasphemy charges and one for adultery,” added the report.

The group reiterated warnings about the escalation of executions, calling on the international community “to stop the Islamic Republic’s killing machine with a strong reaction and practical punitive steps.”

IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam told Iran International, “The purpose of the Islamic Republic’s intensification of arbitrary executions is to spread fear in society to intimidate people against holding further protests, thus prolonging its rule.”

He added that “if the international community doesn’t show a stronger reaction to the current wave of executions, hundreds more will fall victim to their killing machine in the coming months.”

Amiry-Moghaddam noted that the figures announced by the group are likely much lower than the real number of executions due to the secretive nature of the regime.

He noted that the Islamic Republic is not executing people to fight crime but to guarantee its rule as the regime is facing the boldest challenge it has ever faced since its establishment. “We are talking about a regime struggling with one of its biggest crises ever; it cannot solve the problems therefore it has to intimidate people to prevent further protests, and execution is the biggest tool for intimidation” he said.

Parastou Fatemi, a human rights expert, also believes that the rise in executions is a tactic to push back protesters from streets to their homes, saying that whenever the regime faces street protests, it expedites the execution processes to instigate fear among people. 

On Monday, Islamic Republic Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei defended the hanging of protesters, saying "The [death] sentences of those [protesters] who were/are supposed to be executed for their crimes during the riots have either been or will be carried out without any consideration.”

The Islamic Republic has intensified its killing trend in recent weeks, fueling further protests across the country. At least 259 Iranians have been executed since January alone, according to the United Nations.

Amid a spike in executions since late April, on May 19, authorities arbitrarily executed three tortured protesters, Majid Kazemi, Saeed Yaghoubi and Saleh Mirhashemi who were unjustly convicted and sentenced to death in Isfahan (Esfahan).

The deaths brought to at least seven the number of protesters hanged since nationwide protests broke out in September 2022 following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The unrest posed the biggest internal challenge to the Islamic Republic since its establishment in 1979.

Earlier in March, Amnesty International said at least seven individuals in Iran face the death sentence in connection with protests, while dozens of others are at risk of being sentenced to death.

So far, around 750 civilians have been killed by security forces and at least 30,000 arrested. While many have been released, around 1,500 face criminal charges, and at least 80 detainees face the death sentence for the “moharebeh” and “corruption on earth”, Islamic-Arabic terms meaning to go against the will of God. Both carry the death penalty.

Mizan, the Judiciary News Agency, reported Thursday that a delegation of 36 diplomats visited the penitentiary on Wednesday without citing the names of either the organizations or countries represented.

The visit comes about a month after the transfer of political prisoners from the prison and a few days after several detained female protesters revealed sexual assaults in Gharchak and Evin prisons.

"The women's penitentiary was chosen so that foreign guests can see the unique and diverse services and facilities for female inmates and get a correct understanding of the principles of Islamic prisons," claimed Kazem Gharibabadi, Secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights.

Pointing out that about 700 women are incarcerated in Gharchak prison, Gharibabadi claimed that women make up about 2.5% of Iran's prison population, which indicates "a very low rate of crime among Iranian women compared to the global rate."

In the past few days, several Iranian female political activists have spoken up about prison guards forcing them to strip naked, even in front of cameras, to humiliate them. Others have spoken of full sexual assault and rape. 

Anti-compulsory hijab activist, Mozhgan Keshavarz, told Iran International that she was first strip-searched after her arrest in April 2019 and detention at Vozara Detention Center in Tehran where the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in custody on September 16 last year.

Since her revelations, other female activists including Zeynab Zaman, Nasibeh Shamsaei, Shaparak Shajarizadeh and actress Mahnaz Afshar who were subjected to the same humiliation have also come forward with their stories.

Olivier Vandecasteele said that after 15 months of arbitrary detention he was finally released and is doing fine.

“Having had no direct access to outside information for the entire duration of my detention in solitary confinement (i.e., 13 consecutive months), I was miles away from imagining the extent of the citizen mobilization - which all of you have worn day after day - across the country and across borders,” read his letter, published on Twitter.

He also thanked the efforts of the Belgian government while calling on governments to continue efforts to release further hostages held around the world.

“Let us bring active support to projects that carry the values of humanity, solidarity, and hope. This world, which is unfortunately often terribly cynical, needs it now more than ever,” he wrote.

Activists were outraged over an Oman-brokered swap deal according to which Iranian diplomat Assadollah Asadi who was convicted of terrorism, was freed in exchange for Vandecasteele.

Assadi, a former attaché at the Iranian embassy in Austria who was convicted of plotting to bomb a gathering of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) near Paris on June 30, 2018, was released and arrived in Tehran on Friday.

Vandecasteele, who was detained last year and sentenced to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for alleged “spying and cooperation with the United States, money laundering and smuggling $500,000 out of Iran,” was also released as part of the deal.

Morteza Aghatehrani, the chairman of the Parliament's Cultural Committee, went as far as to say that all legislation should follow the orders of God.

His remarks come amidst mass rebellion against regime mandated hijab, with women refusing to wear them in public and burning them on the streets.

Meanwhile, Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi, an ultraconservative commentator who usually speaks on Iranian national television as a member of the Cultural Revolution Council, claimed on Thursday that "the removal of hijab is because they [enemies] want to return us to the pre-revolution era.”

He further claimed that the 'enemies', referring to the likes of the US and Israel, want to turn the celebrities of the Shah’s time into heroes for today's generation.

The regime continues to enforce the hijab both covertly and overtly, with the likes of hijab patrols and surveillance techniques across the country as it fights the ongoing hijab rebellion, sparked by the death in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old was arrested for the 'improper' wearing of her hijab in September, sparking a nationwide uprising.