Iran Targets Physicians, Nurses as Nascent Revolution Reaches Six-Month Mark

March 9, 2023 by Azadeh Sami; Defense Opinion

As the relentless protests in Iran enter their sixth month, the government’s tactics are shifting to a recurring pattern of violence and intensive crackdown against the physicians and nurses treating the wounded protesters. To date, more than 750 protesters have been killed and several thousand arrested with many facing torture and execution. The merciless regime thugs have targeted all members of society, including women and children.

According to Amnesty International’s statement on Feb. 24, Dr. Ebrahim Rigi died at a police station within an hour of his arrest by plain clothes security forces. Dr. Rigi was “beaten upon arrest in the street” and “initial forensic assessment of his body points to subsequent beatings while in custody at the police station.” In his last social media posting, Dr. Rigi emphasized that he was not afraid of death or execution, but rather said he would continue to help the wounded protesters who launch massive anti-regime protests every Friday in Baluchistan.

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I am a former political prisoner in Iran. I worry the regime will execute female activists

Verbal condemnations of the regime must be reinforced by actions from the international community.

January 30, 2023 by Homeira Hesami; Dallas Morning News

It all sounded too familiar.

The Islamic Republic of Iran executed two more protesters in early January, despite persistent international outcry over two similar executions that were carried out in December. The latest killings sparked a fresh outpouring of public condemnation, as well as new threats of economic sanctions. Yet the following day, the regime’s judiciary proceeded to issue three more death sentences. To me, as a former political prisoner in Iran, this was like déjà vu.

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Iran’s most powerful weapon isn’t working

January 10, 2023 by Frida Ghitis; CNN 

“Dad, my sentence is death,” Mohammad Mehdi Karami informed his father in a phone call from prison last month. Then, last Saturday, the 21-year-old karate champion was executed by the Iranian regime. Karami, an Iranian Kurd, was hanged on the same day as Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, a volunteer children’s coach who was just 20. Both were accused of killing a member of the Basij paramilitary force. In the phone call, the younger Karami reportedly told his father he was tortured into making a false confession. All 16 accused in that case have denied the charges.

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Women rising up after decades of Iran regime’s oppression. They need the world’s support

October 21, 2022 by Homeira Hesami; Fort Worth Star-Telegram

A few weeks after it began, the scale and intensity of Iran’s uprising are tangibly diminishing an already weak regime in Tehran.

Women, who for more than four decades bore the brunt of the mullahs’ inequities and misogyny, are braving bullets and demanding a similarly unprecedented response from Western powers. Choosing the path of least resistance, the free world has typically been ambivalent. But courageous actions of women, brutal murders of the innocent and the persistence of Iranian resistance promise to change that calculus.

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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visits the opposition and alternative to theocracy in Iran

June 3, 2022 by Saeid Saadi; Yahoo News

On New Year’s Eve 1978, when President Jimmy Carter arrived in Tehran, he described during a state dinner Iran under the Shah as “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.”

Little did President Carter know that the Shah was going to be overthrown in less than 14 months in the course of one of the most unprecedented revolutions in modern history.

Forty-four years later, on May 15, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Maryam Rajavi, the leader of main Iranian opposition movement, at the resistance’s HQ in Albania. No one understands the significance of this visit better than the theocracy in Iran.

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