On Sat. Aug. 25 on the 30th anniversary of
the executions of 30,000 political prisoners in Iran, a live international
assembly via internet was held in 20 capitals and major cities around the
world, in remembering the 30,000 fallen. The message of this conference which included
3 Canadian cities such as Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver, was
to end impunity and prosecute the perpetrators. The keynote speaker, Mrs Maryam
Rajavi the president-elect of the Iranian resistance and the only Democratic
Alternative said: “For three decades, the international community has been
silent over the massacre of political prisoners in Iran. As a result, the
mullahs have continued with impunity to violate human rights in Iran, crack
down on public protests, launch terrorist operations, and wage catastrophic
wars in the Middle East and other countries. Now, the time has come to end this
silence.” She urged the UN Security Council to prepare for the prosecution of
the Iranian regime’s leaders, those responsible for the 1988 massacre, and the
officials in charge of four decades of crimes against humanity in Iran and the
regime’s spies and mercenaries must be expelled from western countries, and all
relations must be terminated with the Iranian regime which takes advantage of
diplomatic resources to promote state-sponsored terrorism. She stressed that
the regime’s embassies must be shut down.
Mrs. Rajavi added, “The time has come for the world
community to stand by the people of Iran in their uprising against the
religious fascist regime ruling Iran and recognize their determination for
regime change.”
The conference sponsored by Iranian communities in 20
major capitals in France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway,
Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Romania and Canada,
joined together in a video conference.
The political dignitaries, representatives of Iranian
communities, witnesses to the 1988 massacre who spoke to the global video
conference urged the International Community to support the Iranian people’s
uprising for regime change and freedom, and adopt a decisive policy against the
theocratic regime ruling Iran.
They also called for condemnation of the Iranian
regime’s human rights abuses and terrorism, and prosecution of the masterminds
and perpetrators of the 1988 massacre who are presently among the highest
officials of the clerical regime and directly involved in the suppression of
the ongoing anti-government protests in Iran.
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According to state-run ISNA news agency Aug. 19, in
response to a question about the ban on women’s entrance to sports stadiums in
Iran, Makarem Shirazi replied, "The environment in the stadiums is not
suitable for the presence of women, and there is no doubt that the mixing of
youth and their freedom is a source of many moral and social problems.
Additionally, in some sports, men do not have appropriate attires in front of
women. Therefore, women need to refrain from attending such programs.
Especially since they can watch them from the media and their presence is
unnecessary.”
Officially, women are banned from entering stadiums and
watching men’s games in Iran.
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Three female relatives of a victim of the 1988 massacre
in Iran were detained along with several other family members by Iranian
regime’s agents in Gorgan, northern Iran. The fate and whereabouts of these
detainees are not known. The women Committee of the Iranian resistance said on
its website that in connection with the arrest of the three female relatives of
a victim of the 1988 massacre and his other detained family members, the
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran issued a statement
that stated, " In Gorgan, a number of family members of martyr Mohsen
Mehrani, including Dr. Mojtaba Mehrani, dentist and 67 years old, Masih
Mehrani, 62, and ladies Sousan Mehrani, 55, Mohaddaseh Mehrani, 50, and Elnaz,
28, (daughter of Mohaddaseh Mehrani), were arrested on July 19, 2018. There is
no news about the detainees." The Women’s Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran calls on all international authorities and
women's rights activists around the world to take action to save the lives of
the families of political prisoners massacred in 1988, who are currently in
captivity, and other detainees arrested during recent national protests in
Iran.
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In an interview with the state-run ISNA news agency in
Kurdistan on August 18, Hassan Sumi said, “Out of the 4,520 registered marriage
cases in the Kurdistan Province in the past four months of this year, 970 cases
for females were under the age of 18. Underage females made up 21 percent of
the total number of marriages in the province.” Sumi added, "According to
the report up to the date of registration until August 6, 2018, out of 970
marriages, 659 were urban and 311 were rural."
Official figures indicate that 180,000 early marriages
take place in Iran every year and comprise 24 percent of the total number of
marriages. “The largest number of registered marriages of 10-14 girl children
was in 2014 which amounted to 40,229. The number of girl children under 10 who
have gotten married was 220 in 2011; 187 in 2012; 201 in 2013; 176 in 2014; and
179 in 2015. These figures are probably higher because of unregistered
marriages,” said Batool Salimi Manesh, a social researcher.
She added, “As for the dispersal of child marriages in
various cities, Razavi Khorasan Province (northeastern Iran) tops the list,
followed by East Azerbaijan Province (northwestern Iran), and Sistan and
Baluchestan (southeastern Iran). Of course, Lorestan Province (western Iran)
also faces the problem of child marriages but their numbers are lower than
other provinces and there is a long way before this phenomenon is uprooted.”
(The state-run IRNA news agency - August 5, 2018)
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Facebook announced that it has removed more than 600
accounts, groups and pages that are linked to a propaganda operation in Iran. The
main aim of the disinformation campaign is to circulate fake news against
Israel and Saudi Arabia. The campaign was aimed towards numerous countries
including The United States, the United Kingdom and several countries in the
Middle East and Latin America. CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said that it
removed hundreds of pages because of “networks of accounts that were misleading
people about who they were and what they were doing”. He added: “We ban this
kind of behavior because authenticity matters. People need to be able to trust
the connections they make on Facebook. ”Social media group Twitter also said
that it had pinpointed a number of fake accounts coming from Iran. Almost 300
Twitter accounts have been suspended “for engaging in coordinated
manipulation”. The Iranian opposition has traditionally been a target of
misinformation campaigns, which is continuing to date, since A top priority of
Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) is the demonization of the
People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) to undercut its domestic and
international support. To discredit the resistance organization, the MOIS
publishes materials that falsely portray the organization's history,
aspirations, and achievements. It operates attack websites that daily spew
negative propaganda. And the Intelligence Ministry recruits former MEK
activists through bribery and coercive measures and then uses them as witnesses
to disseminate disinformation about the PMOI to government officials, NGO's,
and the media.
This article which was published on the English website
of NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran adds at the end that: “US
administration is working to curb Iranian regime’s influence and there is a
consensus among Iranian society that regime change is the only solution”.
