Tehran Protest Youth Group Urges Coalition Of Opposition Abroad

The campaign initiated by the founding members of “Iranians for Justice and Human Rights” called on the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and Italy to immediately designate the ambassadors or other representatives of the Islamic Republic in their countries.

The signatories urge G7 countries to designate the envoys personae non grata and order their expulsion in protest to the illegal and inhumane treatment of protesters in Iran.

The petition also calls on the countries to forcefully and unequivocally demand the release of all prisoners of conscience in Iran.

“The brutal crackdown and violence by …Islamic regime in Iran has resulted in countless deaths, injuries, and incarcerations. It is evident that the Islamic regime in Iran intends to continue and escalate the inhumane violence against its own citizens,” reads the petition.

Since the beginning of the protests after Mahsa Amini's death in the custody of ‘hijab police’, many young and under-age protesters have been apprehended and interrogated. Some were found dead after security forces arrested them in the streets or shot during demonstrations.

Over 18,000 people have been arrested during the recent protests. However, the Iranian regime denies providing any official information about the number of detainees.

Many Iranians enraged by the execution of 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari held protests in many cities, starting their rallies in silence but broke into chanting slogans after security forces attacked the crowds. 

People in several neighborhoods of the capital Tehran, such as Narmak, Naziabad and Sattarkhan, held rallies and chanted slogans against the regime and the crackdown on protesters. People also chanted slogans in support of Mohsen Shekari, who has become a new codename for protests after Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman whose death ignited the current round of antigovernment protests. 

People in several Iranian cities, including Qazvin, Tabriz, Karaj, Roudsar, and Esfahan also held rallies and candlelight vigil for in honor of Shekari. People chanted slogans against his execution, and in support of other protesters who are sentenced to death. 

University students on many campuses also held demonstrations in honor of the executed protester, and security forces attacked the gatherings to disperse them. The university of Sanandaj was the scene of clashes between security forces and students. 

People from the Iranian diaspora communities also held protests in condemnation of Shekari’s execution in many countries, including Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Britain, Hungary, Denmark, Japan, Australia, Italy, Turkey, and Belgium.

Iranians in Washington DC also held a gathering in solidarity with protesters in Iran and against the Islamic Republic.

US Republican Senator from Idaho Jim Risch said, "Recent peaceful protests in Iran show the strength of Iranian people in their demands for basic rights like speech, press, religion, assembly and more. The regime’s brutal crackdowns reinforce its status as a pariah state as Iranian people demand change."

Iran’s exiled queen Farah Pahlavi and prince Reza Pahlavi have also expressed sorrow over the execution of Iranian protester Mohsen Shekari asking the people to preserve their unity. "On this Human Rights Day, Iranians seek further international solidarity in support of efforts to save all prisoners of conscience in Iran and secure their immediate and unconditional release," Reza Pahlavi said. 

There are reports of fires in military barracks and bases of Basij paramilitary forces across Iran apparently as acts of arson by antigovernment protesters. 

Videos published on social networks Saturday show a massive fire in one of the major Basij bases in the city of Ahvaz, located in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, called ‘Imam Hussein base’.

The base is one of the main centers to organize security forces and dispatch them to nearby cities to quell the ongoing protests, ignited by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in mid-September. 

There are also reports of similar incidents in several Basij bases in different cities, including a massive fire in the Basij base of Razvanshahr in the northern Gilan province and the burning of a Basij base in the religious city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran. 

In the footage of the fire at the Basij base in Mashhad, someone describes the fire as a protest against the execution of Mohsen Shekari, a young protester hanged for injuring a security guard with a knife and closing off a street in the capital Tehran. 

Another fire burned down the basij base of Tehran’s Sharif University on Friday night. An official working at the base, Abolfazl Hajizadeh, told reporters that two people entered the university in the middle of the night and set the base on fire with two bottles containing an inflammable substance. 

Setting fire to basij bases, where repression agents are normally stationed, and the seminaries of cities and state buildings have become a recurring phenomenon during the past three months. Mosques and basij bases in several cities such as Gorgan, Orumiyeh (Urmia), Kazerun, and Zanjan were set on fire by the protesters since the current wave of protests began. 

In November, the ancestral home of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini in the city of Khomein in the western Markazi province was also set ablaze with crowds of jubilant protesters marching past. 

The execution of Mohsen Shekari, as the first protester who was hanged, has fueled more protests in Iran and led to worldwide condemnations by governments and public personalities. The United States, Canada, Australia, and the European Union imposed additional sanctions or are considering punitive measures against the Islamic Republic. Many people have described Mohsen Shekari as the most significant name in the revolt against the regime, second only to Mahsa Amini. 

Most Iranians and foreign officials have described his execution as a futile attempt by the Islamic Republic to intimidate the people not to participate in further protests, but the propaganda stunt seems to have backfired as it has made people more determined. Many Iranians say they are now certain that if they stop the protests and strikes, more people will be killed by the regime. 

The protesters at universities demanded the release of imprisoned students, lifting of harassment against others and slammed the execution of the 23-year-old protester Mohsen Shekari.

In Tehran’s Beheshti University they held a protest rally in silence amid the strong presence of plainclothes regime agents and security forces.

Reports from Allameh University in Tehran say over 100 students have been banned from entering the campus after they called for a protest over the suspicious death of their colleague, Shahabuddin Hashemi.

The hanged body of Shahabuddin Hashemi was found in the dormitory of Allameh University on Thursday, but state media claimed he committed suicide as a result of his mental problems.

However, his brother, Mehdi Hashemi denied the claims on social media as “dirty lies”, saying his brother's “suspicious murder” is reported as a “fake suicide by legal authorities.”

In western city of Sanandaj, security forces attacked protesting students at a technical college while the female students were setting fire to the Islamic Republic’s flag.

Security forces have repeatedly raided campuses and faced off with student protesters. Over 140 universities have been the scene of anti-regime protests nationwide and nearly 600 students have been detained as of Thursday, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

Amnesty said it had identified 13 cases in which security forces had “subjected them to coercion including arbitrary arrest and detention” or had made “ threats to bury the bodies of their loved ones in [an] unidentified location.” There had also been “been threats to kill, rape, detain or otherwise harm bereaved parents and their surviving children.”

Forty-four under-18s – children and teenagers had been killed either as protestors or bystanders, the group said Friday. This was 14 percent of a total 300 deaths Amnesty refers to, a figure that appeared not to include the 61 dead members of security forces or state employees given by Norway-based group HRANA this week. HRANA put the number of dead protestors at 475.

Of the 44 under-18s killed, said Amnesty 18 were Baluchi, of which 13 were killed on September 30 in Zahedan, when violence broke out around a Sunni mosque. Ten of the under 18s were Kurds. Over half therefore – 60 percent – were from the most restive parts of Iran, where non-Persians are also part of the minority Sunni sect. The other 16 were killed in six provinces elsewhere in Iran.

Amnesty quoted a relative of a young person killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province saying the testimonies of witnesses were deemed “worthless” as Baluchis were not considered human. In nine cases of under-18s killed in Sistan-Baluchistan, Iran has told the United National Human Rights Council there was no record of their deaths.

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Victims overwhelmingly male

The 44 under-18 victims verified by Amnesty were overwhelmingly (39) male, with the youngest aged two. Of the five females, one was 17, three 16, and one aged six. Thirty-four were shot with live ammunition, four killed by metal pellets, “five died from injuries consistent with fatal beatings, and one girl was killed after being struck on the head with a tear gas canister.”

Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said a UN fact-finding mission on authorities’ actions during the protests, set up in November, should lead “all states to exercise universal jurisdiction to criminally investigate Iranian officials involved in militarized attacks on demonstrators, including children.”

Javaid Rahman, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, has also called for the application of universal jurisdiction against individuals by both national and international courts. But there is widespread international skepticism of the UN probe, partly due to its main sponsor the US having a long history of opposition to international jurisdiction, and little expectation it will lead to judicial proceedings.

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Immunity to prosecution?

While Washington had levied further sanctions on Iran over ‘human rights,’ it has long refused to join the International Criminal Court. The Biden administration recently told a US court that Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, believed by US intelligence to have ordered the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, is “immune from prosecution” as Saudi prime minister.

Twitter posts Friday alleged attendance was restricted at the funeral of a 23-year-old man hanged in Iran the previous day after conviction in a Revolutionary Court over a knife attack on a member of a Basji security group. Social media also carried footage said to be people in the man’s neighborhood chanting they would “kill the one who killed out brother” and threatening the death of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.