As we approach the Iranian New Year Noeruz on March 20th,
Iranian people are still struggling to make ends meet.
On Saturday, March 9, a group of medical personnel of
Parsian Hospital in the Iranian capital, Tehran held a protest demanding their
unpaid salaries.
- The defrauded investors of Samen-ol Hojaj financial
institute also held a protest on Saturday, outside the Central Bank in Tehran.
On the same day, a group of employees of Saham-e Edalat Company held a protest
outside the Welfare Organization in protest of the undetermined status of their
employment and their unpaid salaries. Some 1500 of the employees of this
company have not received their wages and salaries. They also complain of the
company’s offensive treatment of a number of disabled employees in the company.
On Wednesday, March 6, a group of female workers of
Dasht-e Naz Company, located east of Sari, capital of Mazandaran Province in
northern Iran, held a protest against the undetermined status of their
employment and the company’s failure to pay their salaries. These workers
include a number of heads of household who will suffer badly if they are laid
off.
According to Women’s committee of the NCRI(National
Council of Resistance of Iran) Iranian women participated in at least 1499
protests from March 2018 to the end of February 2019. Defrauded women
participated in at least 249 protests last year, and nurses and medical
personnel held at least 42 protests, last year.
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A young woman who was hanged by her husband died in a
hospital after 24 hours in a coma on Saturday, March 2.
Monireh Aabu (Mehrnia), 35, from Bukan, was hanged by
her husband, Mohammad Mahmoudi, over a family disputes. She was eight months
pregnant. The 8-month-old embryo also died while the 35-year-old woman died in
a health center after one day in a coma.
This innocent young woman had previously gone
to her father’s house because of family disputes and had returned to her
husband about three months ago. After this hideous crime, the husband of this
young woman fled and has not yet been arrested.
It is worth noting that the father or
ancestors from the father’s side, are considered to be ‘avengers of blood’ and
the ones to have the right to their murdered children. Article 301 states that
retaliation is only proved when the perpetrator is not the father or ancestors
from the father’s side of the suspect.
According to article 550 of the Islamic Penal Code, the
Diya (blood money) of murdering a Muslim woman (whether deliberate or
involuntary) is half that of a Muslim man.
In another report on Saturday, March 2, as a result of a
mine explosion in the Dasht-e Abbas region in Dehloran in the Iranian Ilam
province, a 15-year-old girl encountered an anti-personnel mine and so far the
identity of the girl has not been discovered. This young girl was from a
migrating nomad of the Nasr village in the Dasht-e-Abbas region in Dehloran.
The deputy commander of the law enforcement in Dehloran, Mojtaba Mahdian, while
confirming the news, said that the cause of the incident is under investigation.
(The state-run Mehr News Agency – March 2, 2019)
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On Friday March 8, International Women’s Day, the Iranians
from more than 40 states across the US gathered in Freedom Plaza, Washington DC,
to join the Iran Freedom March, a rally in support of popular protests in Iran.
The demonstrators also voiced support for the National Council of Resistance of
Iran (NCRI), the main Iranian opposition coalition which has been calling for
the toppling of the tyrannical regime of mullahs ruling Iran and the establishment
of a secular and democratic state.
The rally took place as the past 15 months have seen
ongoing protests across Iran. People from all walks of life, all segments of
the Iranian society and all corners of the country have been holding demonstrations,
strikes and sit-ins for their most basic rights, trampled by the ruling mullahs
for four decades. The people are holding the regime in its entirety for
deteriorating economic conditions and lack of political and social freedom.
This rally was organized by OIAC, The Organization of Iranian-American
Communities. The American and Iranian-American dignitaries spoke at this rally.
Mrs Maryam Rajavi the President-elect of the NCRI also sent her message via
video. She underlined how the Iranian regime has driven the lives of the
Iranian people into poverty, unemployment, inflation and a rash of economic,
social and environmental crises. She said: “So long as the clerical regime is
in power, none of these ills will be resolved. The ruling mullahs will become
ever more dependent on their devastating policies, namely the suppression of
Iranian society, warmongering and destructive meddling in the region, money
laundering, terrorism in Europe and the United States, and plundering the
assets of the people of Iran”.
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Ali Khamenei, Iranian regime’s supreme leader, appointed
Ebrahim Raisi, a member of the Death Committee in the massacre of 30,000
political prisoners in 1988, and a devoted supporter of the supreme leader, as
head of Iran’s judiciary.
Raisi should be subjected to international prosecution
for committing crimes against humanity in the massacre of political prisoners
in 1988, and tried for genocide of PMOI(People’s Mojahedin of Iran)members,
stated the Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran(NCRI) on
March 7. His appointment as the highest judicial authority of the clerical
regime signals a hard turn to even more repression by the clerical regime
against the Iranian people and resistance. Khamenei described his appointment
as a "new era" and the “second stage” of the regime’s so-called
revolution, and ordered Raisi not “to pay heed to outsiders when dealing with
judicial matters.”
In 1988, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khomeini’s
successor at the time, and a higher-ranking cleric than Khamenei and his
minions, summoned members of the Death Committee including Raisi and addressed
them in a meeting that was recorded and later published, stating, “The greatest
crime committed under the Islamic Republic, for which history will condemn us,
has been committed by you. Your (names) will in the future be etched in the
annals of history as criminals.”
In addition to committing a major crime in the 1988
massacre, Raisi is a low ranking cleric without adequate religious credentials.
He is under the control of Khamenei and has been serving in the regime's
repressive agencies since the age of twenty writes the NCRI. Appointing him as
the head of the regime's judiciary will prove unacceptable for many
government-affiliated clerics. During the sham presidential elections in May
2017, the regime’s rank-and-file clerics refused to support Raisi despite
coercive pressure by Khamenei. Rouhani, who competed against Raisi during the
sham elections, said of Raisi that he was one of those who “only knew execution
and prisons for 38 years."
Khamenei, who was deeply concerned about the
public reception of Raisi’s appointment, prepared the grounds by disseminating
rumors for a while. Despite negative domestic and international reactions,
however, he ordered the appointment of Raisi as the head of the regime's
judiciary.
Raisi’s appointment by Khamenei proves once
again that as the head of the crisis-stricken theocratic regime, he finds no
other solution than a hard turn towards further repression in order to contain
the crisis of the coming new Iranian year (staring March 21, 2019). Khamenei
thus wants to barricade his clerical regime against the uprising of the Iranian
people and their organized resistance for justice and freedom in Iran.
