The flood catastrophe in the provinces of Golestan,
North Khorasan, Mazandaran and Mazandaran provinces of north and northeast
Iran, has led to immense damages. Dozens of villages are engulfed in water,
roads are blocked and the death of nine locals has left many Iranians,
especially in Golestan Province, in grief during the Noeurz (Iranian new year)
period.
Reports indicate nine people, including
children, losing their lives and one individual remains missing. Flood in
Mazandaran Province has taken the lives of five people and one individual is
reported missing. Two individuals have died in North Khorasan Province and two
others in Golestan Province.
The State sources are refusing to correctly report news
about the number of people killed and the scope of damages caused by the
extensive floods. Despite all this, one regime official in Golestan Province
acknowledged the fact that 70 percent of the town of Aq Qala, the flood
epicenter, is engulfed in water. Twelve villages around this city are reported
being completely under water and there are no means to provide any emergency
aid. Paths are blocked to more than 70 villages and electricity of around 50
villages is cut off. 7,900 houses in Golestan Province are severely damaged by
the floods, according to state media, and 23,000 locals are in need of urgent
aid. In the towns of Neka and Behshahr, landslides, snow and severe sleet have
blocked roads to around 70 local villages.
Following severe rains, roads and public paths
in the city of Gonbad Kavous in east of Golestan Province are completely
flooded. Reports show these floods are due to water bursting through local
dams.
Rainfall and the melting of winter snow are resulting in
overflowing of various dams, including Golestan and Boostan, and rivers
overflowing from their banks. More than 10,000 households in various areas of
Golestan Province have reported damages due to flood waters. Locals are
protesting incompetence in province officials, complaining about not receiving
any emergency aid.
Abdul-karim Javar, the Friday prayer imam of
Gonbad Kavous, acknowledged the people’s anger over this failure.
“Most of the people are complaining about
state media failing to properly broadcast the flood reports,” he admitted.
Furthermore, the weather forecast for Saturday is
reporting possible floods and river waters overflowing in Iran’s southern
provinces of Hormozgan, Sistan & Baluchistan and Kerman. Heavy spring rains
are expected from Sunday to Wednesday, leading to possible floods, river waters
overflowing and heavy damages to the infrastructure of vast areas across Iran.
Those actually managing to go on vacation during the Nowruz (Iranian calendar
new year) holidays will see their plans severely disrupted because of rains and
possible floods.
Reports by the regime’s own Interior Minister Abdolreza
Rahmani Fazli show him saying the Golestan Province governor has gone outside
of Iran for a month now on vacation.
Iranian opposition President-elect Maryam Rajavi of the
National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) sent a message expressing her
sincere condolences and sympathy with the flood stricken areas of Golestan
Province and family and friends of the flood victims.
“The harrowing deaths of a large number of people
including innocent children in the flood in Golestan Province has deeply hurt
the feelings of the people of Iran” she said. My heartfelt condolences and
sympathies to the survivors and the honourable people of Golestan. I urge the
public, particularly the youth, to rush to the aid of the flood victims. The
clerical regime’s destructive policies and plunder of Iranian people’s assets,
wasting them on terrorism and war, have left our people defenseless in the face
of natural disasters, afflicting them with damages and casualties much higher
than the world’s average.
******
One of the Iranian regime’s agencies has confiscated the
house belonging to political prisoners Fatemeh Mossanna and her imprisoned
husband, Hassan Sadeqi detained in Evin and Gohardasht prisons, respectively.
Ten days ago, the same agency seized the business
belonging to the couple.
Iman Sadeqi, the couple’s son, said, “After
confiscating a large portion of our properties, they have now confiscated our
family’s only place of residence. According to the Penal Code, the court cannot
seize a property the confiscation of which deprives the spouse, children and
other persons under the guardianship of a convict from food, clothing and
housing.”
Iman Sadeqi added that his parents suffer from
various illnesses and need to receive medical care, but judicial authorities do
not cooperate and do not allow his parents to go to hospital while he has
already made the arrangement at his own expense.
Fatemeh Mossanna and Hassan Sadeqi were supporters of
the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) before they got married
and both were imprisoned in the 1980s. Hassan
Sadeqi was only 15 when he was arrested and imprisoned for six years. Fatemeh
Mossanna, 13, and her mother, Ferdows Mahboubi, were arrested and imprisoned
for two and four years.
Fatemeh Mossanna’s brothers Ali, Mostafa and Morteza, as
well as her sister-in-law were sentenced to death and executed shortly after.
Ali Mossanna was executed while his wife and two daughters aged 4 and 6 were in
prison.
Three decades later, the couple were arrested on January
28, 2013, along with their 16-year-old son and imprisoned in Evin. Their son
was released shortly after, but the couple remained under interrogation for a
long time for holding funeral ceremony for Hassan Sadeqi’s father who had died
at Camp Liberty, Iraq, where the PMOI members resided.
Fatemeh Mossanna and her husband, Hassan Sadeqi, were
each subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison, on April 9, 2014, by the
26th Branch of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran on the charge of having
contacts with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
******
Civil activist, Rezvaneh Ahmad Khan Beigi, was sentenced
to 4 years and five months in prison.
The first trial of Rezvaneh Ahmad Khan Beigi
was held on Sunday, February 17, 2019, in the 26th Branch of Tehran’s Court.
Health conditions of Rezvaneh Ahmad Khan Beigi have
deteriorated in prison as she has been suffering from seizures and epilepsy
before being detained.
The inspector of Branch 2 of Evin Prosecutor’s
Court, Mohammad Nassir-pour, has illegally refused to accept bail for this
civil activist and has extended her detention without allowing her lawyer to
get involved in the case.
The Iranian regime has stepped up pressure on political
prisoners including imprisoned civil activists, seeking to create an atmosphere
of fear and terrorize a disgruntled and restless society.
Sahar Kazemi, an environmental and civil activist and
sports coach from Sanandaj, was another one of women activists who has been
sentenced to five years in prison by a Sanandaj Court because of her
activities.
In early February, a former political prisoner, Mahin
Akbari, 57, was arrested in a raid on her residence and transferred to the
Lakan Prison of Rasht after lengthy interrogations and torture in the detention
center of the Intelligence Department of Rasht.
Massoumeh Askari, a retired teacher, was
sentenced to 5 years in prison on February 18, 2019.
Ms. Askari had been rearrested in December
2018 and held for one month in solitary confinement at Ward 209 of Evin Prison.
Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh was sentenced to 38
years in prison and 148 lashes after two grossly unfair trials. The 55-year-old
human rights lawyer has been detained for her peaceful human rights work,
including her defense of women activists and women protesting against the
compulsory veil.
The scale of arrests, imprisonments and
sentences issued for women activists in just 45 days and their cruel treatment
reveal the extreme lengths the Iranian regime has gone to crack down on
peaceful dissent.
******
On the eve of the New Persian Year, a girl child laborer
dies under the rubble of her home. On Sunday night, March 17, 2019, a 9-year-old girl child laborer by the name of Sadouri and her brother, Rashid, 11, died under the debris when
their home was destroyed under heavy rain. The harrowing incident took place in south Tehran, in
the farmlands near Shahr-e Rey. The 11-year-old Rashid used to farm as his
sister, Sadouri, was a girl child labourer peddling on the streets to help
their family earn their living.
After the heavy rain on Sunday night, their home
collapsed. Their mother and siblings ran out, but Sadouri and her brother
remained under the rubles.
More than 200 families live in the desert-like
area surrounding these farmlands for over 30 years. The houses built in this
area are made of mud and wood and are not resistant to rain and snow. There is
no potable water. Living conditions are very harsh for children. Poverty and
unemployment are the main problems of the families residing in this area.
The children who live in these homes are
essentially child laborers and earn living by pan handling or peddling on the
streets.
NGOs had already informed the municipality,
governorate and Welfare Organization of the conditions of these children and
the fact that they need help. Nonetheless, no action has been taken, so far.
Once, the municipality agents destroyed a public bathroom built for the
residents with the help of charities. They said nothing must be built in this
area because it is unofficial! (the state-run ROKNA news agency – March 18,
2019)
The regime needs to take immediate action to
prevent more children from becoming victims of such incidents and alleviate the
problems they face in such non-standard housings.
******
On March 16, 2019, an Iranian official website
reported an acid attack on a woman in Tehran. According to the state-run website, on
Wednesday, March 13, 2019, a masked man sprayed acid on a woman in the
Tehransar area. The 38-year-old woman who is a deputy in one of the girls’ high
schools in Punak, was heading to the high school on the morning of the acid
attack. According to the physicians at Motahhari Hospital in Tehran, due to the
acid attack, the woman has a 5% burn on the face area and one of her eyes has
seen the most damage. (The state-run Davat Online website – March 16, 2019)
Honour killing in Kermanshah Province: A man
hanged his wife in Sonqor city on Thursday, March 7, 2019. The young woman,
Maryam Mohebi, had two children. After returning home, Maryam was faced with
her husband’s insults, harassment, and abuse as to why she was late and
subsequently hanged by her husband only because she was home late.
In another incident, a 17-year-old girl, Yasra
Fathi, hanged herself and ended her life in Javanrud, Kermanshah Province, on
Thursday, March 14, 2019.
Also, in Zeynabad, a district in Dehloran,
Ilam Province, after a dispute with her father, a 16-year-old teenage girl,
Zaynab Azadi, shot and killed herself with her father’s gun on February 18,
2019, while her father was in the bathroom.
According to a report from Urmia, recently in
March, a mother who was not able to buy some meat for her children due to
poverty, hanged herself in front of them.
The mother, whose children had not eaten meat
for a few months, went to a butcher to buy some meat but, with the amount of
money she had, they would not sell any meat to her. A man who witnessed this
scene bought some meat in order to help her and followed the woman to her
house. He knocked on the door of the house and told the child who opened the
door, “Call your mother, I have an important thing to tell her”. However, the
little child tells him, “Uncle, my mother is swinging!” When the man goes into
the house, he sees that the deprived woman had hanged herself.
******
In recent days, various strata of society,
including nurses, defrauded investors, municipality employees, and university
graduates held protests against the misconduct and mismanagement of the ruling
clerical regime of Iran. A large number of women participated in the protests.
On Wednesday, March 13, 2019, nurses from
Beheshti Hospital in Kashan held a protest rally against the nonpayment of
their overtime and 11 months of wages. Since the beginning of the year, no
overtime has been paid to the nurses of the Beheshti Hospital in Kashan.
On the same day, nurses from the Babol
University of Medical Sciences protested in front of the office of the head of
the university against the failure to pay their salary.
On Wednesday, March 13, 2019, the defrauded
clients of the Padideh Shandiz Institute in Mashhad. The protest rally which
was held in front of the prosecutor’s office in Mashhad was attacked by law
enforcement forces.
On the same day, a number of exhibitors at the
women’s empowerment exhibition in Mashhad protested against the high cost of
exhibiting booths and low advertising. The exhibition was disadvantageous to
the participants due to the mismanagement of government bodies.
On Wednesday, March 13, 2019, a group of
employees of the Sarableh Municipality in Ilam province gathered in front of
the municipality to protest against the nonpayment of their salaries and
benefits.
On Tuesday, March 12, 2019, a group of
defrauded clients of Sekkey-e Samen financial company, Caspian Credit
Institute, and Alborz Iranian financial company gathered in front of the
Judiciary building in Tehran to protest against the looting of their deposited
money and assets.
On Monday, March 11, 2019, a group of employed
experts in Clinical Laboratory Sciences in Tehran held a protest gathering
against the policies of the Ministry of Health and in order to demonstrate
their protest, ripped their academic qualifications, which was stamped by the
Ministry of Health.
The protest of engineers held in front of the
Ministry of Science and Technology Research building also continued for the
14th day on Monday, March 11, 2019.
******
The Iranian women’s football league is being
held under deplorable conditions.
The Azarakhsh football team of Tehran which is
the only team representing the capital in the league is struggling.
Tehran women’s football team of Azarakhsh does
not have a suitable field for its practices. They play in a field which is smaller
than the standard football field. They do not do any body building. They do not
receive any support from sports institutions and it is not clear how long they
will be able to stay in the Iranian women’s football league.
Khodayar, CEO of Azarakhsh club, explained the
team’s problems. “Unfortunately, we do not have any sponsor. We cannot add a
few effective players. We have a lot of financial problems. We are strangers in
Tehran. Neither the municipality nor the parliament, back us. We have time and
again explained our financial problems, but no one cares a bit. We do not even have a standard field. Every
day, we are practicing in a new place. On the one hand are our financial
problems and on the other, there is the problem of injustice.”
In addition, in the 12th week of the Iranian
women’s football league, the Southern Pars Team of Bushehr sent only nine
players, instead of 11, to play in the games. Southern Pars represents Bushehr
Province in the league. It participated without its main coach and was accompanied
only by a supervisor.
Iranian women’s football league
Somayyeh Bashi, the assistant coach of
Southern Pars, said on March 11, “We played with nine players. We did not have
a goal keeper, so one of the players stood in front of the gate. This was because
one of our goal keepers could not participate due to a problem for her kid.
Another could not come because of family problems.”
Due to financial problems, the Southern Pars
players boarded on a van to go to Kerman to play their game in the Iranian women’s
football league. (The state-run ISNA news agency – March 11, 2019)
