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Mahsa Amini: Iranian Women Are Leading an Extraordinary Revolution

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The Death of Mahsa Amini Ignited a Wave of Protests Across Iran

The Death of Mahsa Amini Ignited an Unprecedented Wave of Protests Across Iran

On the 16th of September 2022, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, died in the custody of Iran’s morality police following her arrest for improper wear of hijab. Both Mahsa and her brother were beaten at the time of her arrest.

Iran’s morality police routinely arbitrarily detain women who do not comply with their discriminatory and compulsory veiling laws. The death of Mahsa Amini was the powder keg moment that ignited this most recent uprising resulting in seven weeks of protests. This has been the most significant threat the theocratic Iranian regime has witnessed since the 1979 revolution.

It is becoming apparent that this isn’t about reform; it’s about outright regime change. In the eyes of the Islamic Republic, the compulsory hijab is not just a mere piece of cloth. The hijab is one of the critical pillars of the ideology of this regime.

Women are protesting on the streets, removing their hijabs and setting them on fire while cutting their hair in protest. Many have been arrested and sent to psychological re-education centres, beaten, raped, and murdered. The most unprecedented part of these protests is that they’ve been led by women. This shows how courageous Iranian women are in leading an extraordinary revolution.

The Death of Mahsa Amini Ignited an Unprecedented Wave of Protests Across Iran
Caption: An Iranian woman holds a piece of her hair she cuts off, during a protest outside the Iranian Consulate following the death of Mahsa Amini, in Istanbul, Turkey. 26 September 2022. EPA-EFE/SEDAT SUNA.

Hundreds Have Been Brutally Murdered By Iranian Police After Masha Amini’s Death

The Islamic Republic does not allow its citizens the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. This right is guaranteed under Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Instead, the Islamic Republic kills protesters with batons and bullets. As of the 8th of November 2022, the death toll from the Islamic Republic’s crackdown on Iran’s 2022 protests increased to 304 people, including 41 children and 24 women. Repressive regimes lack transparency, so the actual number of protesters killed often goes vastly underreported.

Read also: Death of Mahsa Amini: How Governments Deny Women’s Right to Choice?

A Long History of Women’s Resistance in Iran

Mahsa Amini’s death follows decades of women’s resistance in Iran. Women played a critical role in Iranian society by establishing women’s associations, joining protests and supporting strikes. This is the first time since the inception of the theocracy in 1979 that people openly and fearlessly oppose Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Challenging Iran’s supreme leader is one of the most significant revolutions in modern-day history.

Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iranian women launched massive protests after hearing rumours regarding a mandatory hijab mandate. These protests were influential as they postponed its enactment. However, the mandate was eventually instated in 1983. Women showed their strength in actively protesting against the regime.

Comparatively, in recent times the enormous bravery of women like Sepideh Rashno, Mahsa Amini and Nika Shakarami against Iran’s restrictions on women’s rights has sparked a catalyst for change. The Iranian authorities have consistently dealt with waves of mass protests. Including those held in November 2019, January 2020, July 2021, August 2021, November 2021 and May 2022, with a militarized response.

The Establishment of the Woman-Life-Freedom” Movement

Following the death of Mahsa Amini, Iran has seen the rise of the “Women, Life, Freedom Movement”. This is a widespread protest that has now entered its fourth week. The movement’s slogan is a declaration of opposition to the Islamic Republic, a regime built on anti-woman, pro-martyrdom, and repressive ideologies.

Thousands of Iranians protest against the Islamic regime’s repressive treatment and continuous human rights violations. Iranians are speaking up against the regime carrying signs saying “Death to the dictator”. Young schoolgirls chanted, “we don’t want the Islamic Republic.” In recent weeks, Iranians have been actively fighting against security forces while tearing down billboards and burning pictures of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Although the protests initially started over the frustration of the mandatory hijab, they developed into representing a much broader movement of overthrowing the entire regime. These restrictions have intensified under President Raisi, who took office in August 2021, leading to further tension among Iranians.

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Report, Iran ranks 143 of 146 countries. The Islamic Republic exemplifies why countries with gender-discriminatory laws experience the most significant turmoil, compromising international peace and security.

The Islamic Republic Detained Thousands of Protesters and Activists

Thousands of protesters and human rights activists are now facing unfair trials, with some facing the risk of the death penalty for protesting against Mahsa Amini’s death.

Human Rights Watch has reported on security forces’ unlawful use of excessive or lethal force. Moreover, on October 31, 2022, the Tehran Province’s judiciary held that it had issued approximately 1,000 indictments against protesters and activists.

Furthermore, the Iranian authorities have subjected detainees to various forms of physical and psychological torture and other ill-treatment. Two female detainees arrested in Kurdistan reported that Iranian police tortured them with batons, electric shocks, sexual and verbal assault, and threats.

“Iran’s vicious security apparatus is using every tactic in its book, including lethal force against protesters, arresting and slandering human rights defenders and journalists, and sham trials to crush widespread dissent,”

Tara Sepehri Far, senior Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Iranian authorities have arrested 308 university students and 44 children. Security forces have targeted universities with excessive use of force and arbitrarily detained students.

According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, the protests have reached 133 cities and 129 universities, as well as several secondary schools.

International Response to Iran’s Uprisings

Solidarity protests in support of Iranian women’s rights have erupted across Europe, the United States, and parts of the Middle East.

The Death of Mahsa Amini Ignited an Unprecedented Wave of Protests Across Iran
Caption: Supporters hold posters with the image of Mahsa Amini outside the United Nations in New York © Stephanie Keith/Getty Images.

According to Amnesty International, more than one million people across 218 countries have signed their petition. This petition demanded an establishment of an independent UN mechanism to conduct an investigation in Iran. Therefore, this would ensure Iran faces the consequences for committing some of the most serious crimes listed under international law.

Failing to establish accountability encourages impunity, further emboldening the Iranian authorities to continue to intensify human rights violations. The United Nations Human Rights Council should urgently hold a special session on Iran.

Read also: The US and Israel are Weaponizing Iran Protests.

Concluding Thoughts

The protests over Mahsa’s death and the officials’ refusal to be held accountable have resulted in frustration and resentment over the political status quo. This has increased demands for democracy.

It takes immense courage and bravery for any woman to participate in this extraordinary revolution happening in Iran. Young girls risk arrest, school expulsion, and death when exercising their freedom of expression.

The world’s silence on this issue enables continued human rights abuses in Iran. The international community must stand up against the Islamic Republic and demand its adherence to binding human rights obligations.

Politics, money and states’ interests continue to come before human rights. The United Nations has repeatedly failed to adequately address human rights violations committed by authoritarian regimes. Despite this, we must rebuild our trust in this global governance mechanism. The United Nations intends to protect states regardless of geographical borders, race, religion, ethnicity, gender or social class.

This begs the question; will the United Nations stand with the women of Iran in upholding their human rights?

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Muslims have more reasons to hate the US than the other way around

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Muslims hate the US

I don’t think that most Muslims hate ordinary Americans who believe in the general principle of “live and let live.” Moreover I don’t think that most Americans would unhesitatingly embrace Israeli Nazism if they had the chance to know the truth about Israel e.g. that it is a criminal state par excellence based on ethnic cleansing land theft and racist and religious discrimination.

Unfortunately most Americans are spoon-fed Jewish propaganda from early childhood. This creates a virtual reality in America’s collective mind about Israel a virtual reality that is nearly completely disconnected from the real reality in Israel-Palestine.

For example many Americans are made to think that Israel and America have much in common in terms of democracy. However the truth is that democracy in Israel is more or less confined to Jews while non-Jews are systematically discriminated against. Their land is confiscated their homes are demolished and their rights and dignity are trampled upon.

And when they seek redress at Jewish courts they discover that non-Jews can’t possibly hope for true justice and equality under Jewish rule. Ask non-Jewish Americans who have been living in Israel and you will hear a lot of hair-raising stories about the Israeli “democracy.”

Some Americans are so brainwashed that they are willing to claim that Muslims hate America for its freedoms.  This is what Georg W. Bush probably the most ignorant President America has ever had once claimed.

The truth of the matter however is that most Muslims hate the US government for embracing tyrannical Arab and Muslim regimes that torment their own people by denying them natural freedoms and civil liberties as well as the right to freely elect their own governments. This is in addition of course to backing and supporting Israel’s Nazi-like policies including ethnic cleansing and settlement expansion at the expense of the native Palestinians.

It is really scandalous that while Americans boasts bout their First Amendment freedoms successive American governments have consistently embraced despotic regimes abroad. In many instances the US intervened either brazenly or behind the scenes to destabilize or overthrow democratically elected governments such as in Iran Chile and the occupied Palestinian territory.

Of courser America’s days of infamy are too numerous to be counted. For example we all tend to view Adolph Hitler as the ultimate embodiment of evil. However it is historically true that the US its allies Stalin Mao murdered more people than the Third Reich ever did.

America wanted to be looked upon as a moral example to be followed. But the beacon of light eventually turned into a ruthless beastly power where military might took priority over moral power.

Take for example America’s stand over Israel. For decades the United States enabled Israel to violate every international law and norm and commit every conceivable crime under the sun including murdering children by raining on them White phosphorus.

This is the same America that allows herself to judge the world for human rights violations while enabling Israel diplomatically politically and mainly militarily to pursue decidedly Nazi-like policies against the Peoples of the Middle East.

Watch the ongoing genocidal onslaught which against our helpless and unprotected people in the Gaza Strip. Some of you might be prompted to think that I am indulging in excessive exaggeration when I speak of a genocidal onslaught.

But I am not. Otherwise, how else can we describe a condition where hundreds of ultra-advanced war planes rain missiles and laser-guided bombs from high altitudes on apartment buildings, homes, and civilian neighborhoods packed with men, women and children? Yet, this is exactly what Israel has done¸ murdering , maiming and incinerating thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians and utterly destroying tens of thousands of buildings.

Read Also: Jewish Nazism is reality not fiction

Israel effectively destroyed Gaza, murdering and maiming untold numbers of civilians. Gaza, more or less, became the Dresden of Palestine. And the whole world looked on rather passively as if the killing-field and the shockingly pornographic destruction of life and property were occurring on a distant galaxy. we are not really talking about war, even an asymmetrical war. We are actually talking about a real massacre, a massacre that is reminiscent of the time when the Nazis ganged up on European Jewry 70 years ago.

The macabre scenes of decapitated and badly-mutilated children were too shocking to be described in words. Reporters at the site of the carnage lost their composure and collapsed as they couldn’t cope with the gruesomeness of the pornographic bloodbath.

In 2006, the Nazi government of Israel dropped 2-3 million cluster bomblets over Lebanon enough to kill or maim 2-3 million Lebanese children. And instead of denouncing the manifestly nefarious act the US government declared that “Israel has the right to defend itself.”

Today there is an anti-Islamic hysteria in the United States. The main reason for this hysteria is the fact that the United States can’t live normally with itself without an external enemy. In short there has to be an enemy in order to keep the American psyche intact. There has to be an enemy in order to keep the military industrial complex functioning. In short capitalism can’t function without war.

In fact Muslims don’t view themselves as enemies of the United States as the vast bulk of Muslims are peaceable people who are mainly interested in the pursuance of their daily life enhancing their daily living improving their standard of living and making ends meet.

Yes there are violent groups here and there but these are tiny groups which in no way represent the Muslims of the world.

I think many Americans are ignorant of these facts. I also think that many other Americans would condemn Muslims right or wrong. I am  talking about people who would burn the Muslim Holy scripture the Quran in order to highlight their hatred of Islam a religion with more than 1.6 billion  people.

Well to those I say one thing: the dogs will keep barking and the caravan will keep going.

Besides if you have one reason to hate us we have a thousand reasons to hate you.

None the less unlike you we are not willing to allow our primitive impulses to decide our behaviors. Our religion the source of our morality and behavior doesn’t allow us to behave the way they do.

This is why we will not burn copies of the New Testament we will not attack churches and we will not call Christianity bad names.

Read Also: The futility of counting on the U.S. to pressure Israel

It is often claimed that the religion Jesus founded is based on Love. But any fleeting view of your “religion” caricatures a hate-based cult that has very little to do with Jesus and the authentic messages he preached.

Did Jesus ever call children “murderers” as you did recently in Texas? In fact I dare say that you and people who subscribe to your cultist hatefulness are a cancer upon the conscience of Christ.

So you hate us because of the 9/11 events. Well 99% of Muslims condemned in the strongest terms these terrorist acts. And we are sorry for the umpteenth time for the death of dozens of hundreds of innocent Americans including Muslims in these terrorist attacks.

None the less your democratic elected government has been responsible for the death of millions of Muslims. In Iraq alone the United States has killed or caused the death of at least two million Muslims in the past two decades. Hundreds of thousands of other Muslims have been killed in Afghanistan. These are just two examples of America’s genocidal wars against the Muslim world.

Hence if you have the right to cite one 9/11 we can cite hundreds and thousands of 9/11s. And don’t you ever think that your lives are worth more than our lives. All human beings were created by the same God and are equal if only because there is no such a thing as a lesser God.

One day the oppressed will have their day and there will be no spin no hasbara and no propaganda.  And the New York Times and Fox News  and AIPAC and all other organs of lie  will have been evaporated into nonexistence.

God is just.

Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist and political commentator , we lost him on account of natural reasons on 12th of July last year in the Occupied Palestine

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Jewish Nazism is reality not fiction

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Jewish Nazism

I realize that the title of this article might offend and provoke many people, especially those adhering to the Judaic faith. I do know that Jews, like everyone else, are not carbon copies of each other. There are many conscientious Jews who believe in fairness and basic human equality regardless of color, race and faith, and strongly reject racism and chauvinism in any form. Also, I will no longer be using euphemistic language in reference to Jewish Nazism especially in light of the latest Dresden-like bombing of Gaza by the Judeo-Nazi state also known as Israel.

Read Also: No forgiveness for Jewish Nazism

These people I salute for their rectitude, humanity and morality. They are our natural partners for peace and a better tomorrow for our children and their children.

But there are numerous other Jews who don’t believe in human equality and justice for all. Indeed, there are many Jews, e.g. followers of the hateful Chabad sect, who don’t even ascribe full humanity to people who are not members of the Jewish faith.

Needless to say, the venomous ideology adopted by these racist fanatics has much in common with Aryan Nazism.

Read Also: The futility of counting on the U.S. to pressure Israel

What else can be said to describe an ideology that teaches adherents that the life of a non-Jew has no sanctity and that goyem can be murdered without the slightest compunction or feeling of guilt?

The shocking reactions by the Israeli government, rabbis, and community leaders to the latest abduction, murder and subsequent burning of a Palestinian kids in Gaza are very telling.

In a certain sense, these reactions and attitudes can be compared to the reactions and attitudes of many Germans to the pogroms carried out against Jews by the Nazis prior to and during the Second World War.

The gleefully despicable embrace of the brashly hideous crime by the bulk of the Israeli Jewish society underscores the fact that millions of Jews in Israel and abroad do harbor certain Nazi tendencies, especially against the Palestinian people. These tendencies are too real and too tangible to be overstated.

However, we must call the spade a spade, even at the expense of upsetting the huge Zionist propaganda machine which habitually alters the black into white and the blatant big lie into a “truth” glorified by sheepish westerners who have long been brainwashed into believing that Israel is a modern, civilized and democratic state.

In the final analysis, when Jews (or anyone else) think, behave and act like the Nazis thought, behaved and acted, they simply become Nazis. Pure and simple.

Today, there are numerous Jews who openly call for the physical annihilation of Palestinians as retaliation for the abduction and killing of three Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

Saber-rattling rabbis speak menacingly of the need to adopt “the Biblical way” to combat the Palestinians.

For those not versed in Jewish phraseology, “Biblical way” is euphemism for genocide.

Today, the Israeli media reported that some army personnel openly appealed to the government to “give us the green light to annihilate them.”!!!

Just read what thousands of Jewish youths have been writing on their Facebook pages! It is outrageous, disgusting and sheer evil.

To put it in a nutshell, Nazism is being regurgitated and exuded all over Israel. This is happening in broad daylight while professional liars like Binyamin Netanyahu are filling the ether with all sorts of shameless lies about Israel being victimized by the Palestinians.

Seventy-six years have passed since Kristalnacht. Today Jewish settlers in the west Bank, in close cooperation and coordination, with the Israeli army could very well carry out a huge pogrom against an innocent and helpless community which really finds itself very much in the same precarious and vulnerable position that European Jewry experienced prior to WWII.

I am not a prophet of doom and gloom, but the signs are unmistakably bleak.

A final point, the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are surviving thanks to the good-will of the international public opinion. Should the international community go into a brief slumber, God forbid, Israel and its own Wehrmacht, SS, Gestapo and Hitler Youth might embark on the unthinkable. Don’t you ever say Jews can’t carry out a holocaust against their victims, the Palestinians?

Words can kill; words do kill.

Unfortunately, the chilling words we are hearing from many Israeli Jews these days leave no room for optimism.

Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist and political commentator , we lost him on account of natural reasons on 12th of July last year in the Occupied Palestine

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I’m most definitely Palestinian!

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Palestinian

In-your-face brutality, unending genocide, unending atrocities, mass slaughter directed against one’s people, one’s brethren, causes the most strong and unimaginable reaction, in response to the oppressor’s horrendous and barbaric deeds. The autocratic, despotic, tyrannical Israeli-hand systematically and with pre-planned engineered precision, massacres, annihilates, eliminates the young and the old Palestinian alike – in the most inhumane and most despicable of ways. Slaughters men, women and children in broad daylight. Bares its blood-thirsty intentions, its monstrous objectives in the most unashamed of ways. Mercy to none – not to the living, not to the severely wounded and dying; no mercy even on the dead or their lifeless remains.

The constant fear of being bombed anytime, rained down with missiles and all manner of munitions from within the vast arsenal of the Israeli side; definitely stockpiled high, with enough buffer inventory of munitions, deadly and lethal stockpile, to blow the receiving side multiple times over; so as not to leave a “shred” of evidence of your original physical-self on the surface of the land, which your people, generations and generations of your ancestors, since time immemorial have dwelt on.

Read Also: The age-old Palestinian-fear (of the Israeli thirst)

The inexplicable terror of seeing Israeli drones constantly “floating about” unopposed, in the skies above your unsheltered head. Drones with eyes like that of a greedy dog. Electronic pixels wanting to cast an evil eye, an evil-spell upon your very being. Eyeing upon your existence, wanting to blow-up, tear-up your physical being, seemingly wanting to devour your flesh and body; all by way of a few computer clicks / even the manual computer-clicks now, seemingly, are being replaced by more automated ways of executing these most evil deeds. Software, coded software, written programs to execute on the most Evil-intentions. Evil-intentions of the most evil amongst the human race.

Everybody knows, the Israelis have exterminated with their weaponry, uncountable numbers of Palestinians across a 40, 50km stretch of land, in front of the whole world, over the past so many weeks and months. And retain the capacity, the ability, the power, the means to slaughter, devour many, many more innocent ones, day in, day out.

The Israelis possess American technology, American weapons – the bedrock of their faith, the foundation stone of their belief in their never-ending invincibility. The Palestinians have their faith in Allah; that Allah will redeem his faithful people, from the clutches of these war-mongers, who rain down terror, day and night on the most innocent, the most vulnerable.

Most definitely, the Moslem spirit in me, the Palestinian spirit in me is not defeated; quite to the contrary, it’s rekindled, stronger than ever.

I’m definitely Palestinian, in every sense of the word, and Allah will save us, Allah will have mercy on us, Allah will guide us.

(Note: Azhaar Amayreh is a marketer stuck in war-ravaged Rafah with her child.)The following article is part of a campaign to raise money to help MZEMO contributor Azhaar Amayreh and her family leave Gaza. Please give what you can.

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