Activists Pressured For Slamming Green Movement Leaders' House Arrest

The Iranian Oil Ministry's Shana news agency said the incident occurred late on September 22 during emergency repairs, adding that five maintenance workers were hurt, with one worker succumbing to his injuries later.

"During the emergency repair operation in one of the process units of this refinery, five people were injured, and one of the injured died on Monday," an official from Bandar Abbas refinery told state media.

The Bandar Abbas oil refinery project was launched in 1992 and became operational in 1997. It is currently operating under the name of Bandar Abbas Oil Refining Company.

The nominal capacity of the facility is 350,000 barrels of crude oil and gas condensates per day, which accounts for 18% of Iran's petroleum products.

A similar incident happened in July in an oil facility in Bandar Abbas. Three petroleum product reservoirs belonging to the Aftab Oil Refining company caught fire with unspecified degree of damage.

Numerous unexplained explosions and fires have occurred at various Iranian military, nuclear, and industrial facilities, including pipelines and refineries, since mid-2020.

On January 28, a huge fire erupted at an Iranian military industry factory following a suspected drone strike in Esfahan.

Although authorities have not provided full explanations for the incidents, they have attributed a series of high-profile sabotage attacks on facilities to Israel. It's worth noting that Israel has not claimed responsibility for any of these events.

In institutions such as Amirkabir and Tehran Universities, female students are no longer allowed to wear patterned clothing, high-heeled shoes, or artificial nails, or expose tattoos.

Additionally, male students are subject to regulations prohibiting long hair, beards, or mustaches, as well as the wearing of jewelry and piercings.

Recent reports received by Iran International indicate that security forces, Basij militia members, and plainclothes personnel are actively involved in monitoring the entry and exit of students.

The hacktivist group Uprising till Overthrow, which is affiliated to the Albania-based opposition Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) organization, announced on Saturday that they infiltrated 500 servers, computers, and websites affiliated with the Ministry of Science, gaining access to a cache of over 20,000 documents.

One of these documents disclosed plans for the installation of 740 active cameras in the Science and Industry University in Tehran, along with the implementation of an initial phase of facial recognition software.

Both students and professors who oppose such measures have consistently emphasized that the university should not be treated as a military institution. They assert that the disciplinary actions, expulsions, and suspensions carried out by the Islamic Republic cannot stifle their voices.

In a joint statement issued on Saturday, the student unions from 12 universities across the country declared that, one year after the people's uprising, the student movement has entered a new phase of activism that will undermine the suppressive efforts of the government.

Amid media reports suggesting negligence as the cause of Faramarz Javidzad's death, the Tehran Province Prison Administration issued a statement denying the allegations. Some media reports suggest that he was a Jewish-Iranian.

Javidzad’s health had been deteriorating for several days before he was transferred to the prison clinic on Friday night. However, following an initial medical examination, he was returned to his cell, purportedly at the discretion of prison authorities who prevented his hospitalization, as reported by IranWire.

Responding to the concerns raised, the Tehran Prisons Administration said, "The inmate was transferred to the infirmary immediately on Saturday, and CPR procedures were performed in the presence of a physician, nurse, and emergency personnel. Unfortunately, despite all efforts made, the inmate passed away."

The prison authorities maintain Javidzad underwent a surgical procedure during his custody and was subsequently discharged from the hospital with his personal consent.

“The individual in question was sent to external medical facilities on five occasions during his time in prison due to a pre-existing gastrointestinal condition,” they added.

Javidzad, 60, had resided in the United States for two decades before returning to Iran a few years ago.

The Iranian regime also announced that Javidzad faced charges related to "the transfer of illicit funds, involvement in the formation of a counterfeit and fraudulent network."

The development comes in the wake of the Biden administration decision to approve the release of $6 billion to Iran's regime as part of a five-for-five prisoner exchange. Concerns have been raised by families, including Javidzad's, regarding the omission of their loved ones from the agreement.

Jamileh Alamolhoda, wife of Ebrahim Raisi, spoke to some of the world’s top media, including ABC and Newsweek as the pair embarked on a prolific propaganda effort.

To Newsweek, Alamolhoda, the daughter of a hardline cleric, spoke of the alleged “women’s rights” enjoyed by Iranian women, who for the last year have been protesting the oppressive conditions of living under the regime under the Women, Life, Freedom movement. Thousands remain in Iranian jails for protesting while hijab rebels remain locked out of public places including transport and education.

Alamolhoda -- who firmly believes a woman’s place is as a mother and wife — claimed Western feminism has no place in Iran where she says women are the center of life and society. Meanwhile, women are on the streets burning the hijab and morality police continue to punish them for not complying with mandatory hijab rules. Just last week, new laws to introduce harsher punishments for these women were passed in parliament as the battle against the rebellion continues to flounder.

On ABC, she continued to reiterate the regime’s lies that the tragic fate of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, whose death in morality police custody for the ‘inappropriate’ wearing of her hijab sparked protests in which more than 500 civilians were murdered by the security forces, was due to pre-existing illnesses, in spite ample evidence showing she died of blows to the head.

It has sparked a huge backlash across the globe. Activist in exile, Nazanin Boniadi, wrote on X of her disgust at the airtime given to the First Lady when anyone living in Iran speaking out against the regime is silenced, including hundreds of people such as journalists and academics now in prison for their dissenting views.

“Islamic Republic officials crush dissent at home and use Western media and democratic institutions to legitimize themselves, spew their propaganda and whitewash their crimes. Appalling. We should instead give airtime to those who are risking their lives for freedom and are stuck between a homeland that is trying to destroy them and an international community that platforms and negotiates with their oppressors,” she wrote.

US-based Sarah Raviani also called on the world’s media to stop giving a platform to the Raisis whose attendance at the United Nations General Assembly came on the back of a prisoner swap deal releasing five American-Iranian hostages in Iran in exchange for regime agents in the US, and the freeing up $6bn of frozen Iranian funds in South Korea, to be managed by Qatar.

In a powerful open letter to American media and journalists, Raviani wrote on X that media has “become a conduit for the regime's agenda” while hundreds of voices inside and outside of Iran are begging to be heard.

“I hear from the families of the fallen freedom fighters, crying out for the international community to take notice of them as their homes and lives are destroyed by regime security forces. I hear from the families of American hostages abandoned in Iran, begging the media to take notice of their loved ones dire situation. How do you think they feel as you prop up those who are responsible for the death and suppression of their family members?”

UK-based activist and academic, Kasra Aarabi, called the latest propaganda mission a bid “to demoralize Iranians abroad to stop us from mobilizing”. Writing on X, he said, “This won’t work, it’ll only make us more determined”, slamming the decision of ABC to allow the First Lady airtime. “Very sad to see @ThisWeekABC fall into the regime’s propaganda trap.”

The President himself also made the most of the world watching, suggesting some high level orchestration happening behind the scenes, though no PR organization has so far been revealed for its part in the drama.

Not only did Raisi use the UNGA stage to air his views on the Saudi betrayal of the Palestinian people should the nation normalize ties with Israel, and deny his obstruction to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, he spoke to CNN and denied the country’s nuclear ambitions.

Earlier this year, the UN nuclear watchdog claimed that Iran's stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity, close to weapons grade, continues to grow. Just this month, the regime also banned one third of the IAEA’s inspectors. Speaking to CNN, Raisi claimed that “Iran has cooperated fully with the IAEA”, denying the reports announced by Director General Raphael Grossi who made a rare public criticism of the regime for its latest stonewalling.

In his latest bizarre claims, in spite of years of pursuing a potentially dangerous nuclear program and stockpiling highly enriched uranium, he even said, “we have stated many times that nuclear weapons have no place in Iran's defense doctrine, because we neither need them nor believe in nuclear weapons”.

Turning to Islam to defend his claims, he added, “In our opinion and based on the fatwa of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, nuclear weapons are among the weapons of mass destruction, and therefore both their production and storage are forbidden, and we adhere to this fatwa. This approach obligates us from a jurisprudential and Islamic point of view not to pursue the production of nuclear weapons in any way, and so far no reason has been found that the Islamic Republic of Iran has acted against this belief”.

Jason Brodsky, United Against A Nuclear Iran, said Raisi's administration is clearly trying to “normalize him in the West”. Writing on X, he said, “I hope @ThisWeekABC invites someone on the show who is actually representative of the people of #Iran and the Woman, Life, Freedom movement to respond to Jamileh after this interview.”

Activist Abbas Vahedian Shahroodi released an audio file in which he explains that the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet are suffering from extreme peeling, and he is forced to constantly remove excess skin with a nail clipper.

The condition is currently so dire that due to the skin's peeling, he is suffering constant bleeding but facing medical neglect he is suffering, and his condition remains undiagnosed.

Vahedian, a teacher and writer, is one of 14 civil and political activists inside Iran who, on June 11, 2019, published an open letter demanding the resignation of Iran's ruler Ali Khamenei and fundamental changes to the constitution.

Vahedian, who was also detained and sentenced in 2018 for his civil and political activities, was tried in the Mashhad Revolutionary Court after the publication of the letter. He has been sentenced to a total of 21 years of imprisonment on charges such as "acting against national security" and "collaboration with opposition groups."

Iran’s judiciary says individuals with medical problems cannot be detained. However, this comes in the wake of numerous reports indicating that Iranian authorities have deliberately denied medical care to political prisoners, leading to fatalities and suffering, including Faramarz Javidzad, an Iranian-American citizen, who died in the notorious Evin Prison on Saturday as his physical health deteriorated due to a lack of medical attention.