Women are crucial to resisting Iran's regime

September 12, 2019 by Maria Ryan; The Hill 

Iran’s leadership has denied basic human rights to the people of Iran, especially women. For 40 years, Iran’s pro-democracy movement has remained active, despite frequent and often severe reprisals by the regime. The international community has witnessed hints of this movement’s potential at various historical moments, such as the 2009 protests and the nationwide uprising that spread across every major city of Iran in early 2018.

That Iranian women have played a unique role in these uprisings is not a coincidence. The sharp edge of the mullahs’ repression has targeted many of them with repressive, misogynistic laws and execution.

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Americans must support the right of the Iranian people to overthrow their government

June 21, 2019 by Homeira Hesami; the Dallas Morning News

As Washington debates its reaction to Iran downing a U.S. surveillance drone this week, it's vital to remember that the Iranian people overwhelmingly reject the clerical regime. Many people inside Iran and members of the diaspora, especially their compatriots in the U.S., see the entire theocracy as incapable of "reform" or behavior change. The people rose up last year in 160 cities, chanted "death to dictatorship" and called for the regime's downfall.

This is exactly the message that thousands of Iranians will echo in Washington this week. On Friday, the Iranian-American Community of North Texas will join a rally outside the State Department in Washington to call for democratic change in Iran, a message echoed by thousands of Iranians in Brussels over the weekend.

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Yes, the Iran regime has a viable alternative

April 10, 2019 by Tom Ridge; The Washington Times

I have been asked about the regime’s alleged moderation. Let’s look at Iranian elections in contrast to the Democratic candidacies this year, or the Republican primary last time around dozens of candidates. They don’t do that under the moderate regime in Iran. Everyone is vetted, and unless you are approved by the mullahs you can’t be a candidate.

How about our First Amendment? We have more than 100 networks and television stations, free to roam, and newspapers everywhere. Freedom of press in Iran? Are they free to roam, to pepper officials with questions, to confront President Rouhani about his conduct, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ conduct, and political prisoners? Simple answer. No.

Assembly? There have been 8,000 t0 10,000 people arrested since the uprisings erupted nationwide in December 2017. And freedom of speech? The very notion of protecting political dissent is a non-entity.

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International Condemnation of Iran Must Be Backed With Action

November 20, 2018 by Ken Blackwell;  Town Hall

The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on November 15, condemning the Iranian regime’s systematic human rights violations. The censure goes next to the UN General Assembly for a vote in December.

The regime’s record of severe abuse stretches back over decades. During Iran’s “summer of blood” in 1988, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini launched a campaign to wipe out the opposition, ordering the execution of leftists and members of the principal opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK). Over a period of just five months, some 30,000 Iranians were slaughtered.

This year’s resolution, the 65th such U.N. censure of Iranian abuse, referenced various accounts and reports of Tehran’s breaches, some produced by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and UN Special Rapporteur Javid Rehman: “The reports of the UN Secretary-General and his Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran indicate that the human rights situation in Iran has worsened since last year and the systematic repression of demonstrators, journalists and users of social networks has increased.”

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Why Russia is slowly abandoning Iran

Aug 22, 2018 by Tom Rogan; The Washington Examiner

Russian President Vladimir Putin is slowly but systemically reducing his support for Iranian interests in Syria.

We gained the newest evidence for this when John Bolton met with Israeli officials on Wednesday. Speaking in Jerusalem, President Trump’s national security adviser claimed that Putin had told Trump “that he would be content to see Iranian forces all sent back to Iran.” Bolton added that Putin had offered the caveat, “I can’t do it myself.”

For once, I think Putin is telling the truth here. The key is that Putin’s interests in Syria are now increasingly divergent from those of Iran.

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