Exiled Iranian Prince Says Sanctions On IRGC Individuals ‘Insufficient’

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken wrote in a tweet on Monday that the US remains “committed to supporting the people of Iran as they face brutal repression from the Iranian regime”.

Blinken reiterated that the Iranian officials targeted by the US and UK sanctions were involved in serious violations of human rights or censorship in Iran.

The US Treasury Department on Monday imposed sanctions on four senior Iranian law enforcement and military officials involved in crushing protests following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

The department said it was taking action against the new secretary of Iran's Supreme Council of Cyberspace (SCC), the authority responsible for Iran's cyberspace policy and blockage of popular websites.

Earlier in the day Britain and the European Union also announced fresh sanctions on Iranian officials for human rights violations.

The US Special Envoy for Iran, Robert Malley slammed the repression of Iranians protesting against the regime. “Iran’s brutal treatment of the people of Iran and its pervasive censorship of the internet should continue to alarm the entire world,” he said.

He said the sanctions are simply the latest in a series of actions taken in close consultation with Washington’s allies and partners and aimed at holding the Iranian regime accountable.

In an interview with the IRGC-linked Fars news agency, Ali Khanmohammadi, the spokesman for the Headquarters To Promote Virtues and Prohibit Vice, the jargon for the morality police, called hijab defiance "a worrying situation and an onslaught on Islamic rules." He called on government institutions, meaning the police and the IRGC, to stop the behavior.

Khanmohammadi further warned that if the compulsory hijab rules are undermined, soon respect for other laws will also disappear.

The clerical regime has made hijab an existential issue for itself, trying to enforce it almost at any cost, including running the risk of renewed protests.

Former Deputy Judiciary Chief Mohammad Javad Larijani said recently that "the presence of a few unveiled women is not the social reality in Iran." Meanwhile he called the behavior of women who remove their headscarves "sedition," an offence that entails punishments as harsh as the death sentence in an Islamic society.

On the other hand, a prominent reformist cleric told Rouiydad24 website that the country's officials have given up dealing with major problems and all they do is intervention in the people's lifestyle and invading their privacy.

This comes while ultraconservative lawmaker Javad Karimi Qoddusi said on Sunday, that forceful methods that the morality police uses no longer work in Iran because people have become emboldened because of recent protests.

Critics say that some clerics including the Friday Imam of Qeshm island have gone out of their way and shut down people's shops for allowing unveiled women to shop. He said this is strictly against the religion and the law. He characterized such behavior as radical and a disgrace to the religion.

A few clerics have told the media that trying to force people to accept religious rules will discourage even the pious from following the religion. They warn that radical behaviors against unveiled women can lead to public insecurity while the government's main responsibility is to keep society and people secure.

Although many Iranians have seen videos that show the Friday Imam of Qeshm shutting down shops and harassing shopkeepers and shoppers in the island's malls, Gholamreza Hajebi has denied doing what is seen in videos, and accused his critics of distorting reality.

Iranian lawyer Nemat Ahmadi has likened the cleric's behavior of medieval Muslim rulers who did not have any respect for justice and punished whoever they did not like on the spot without asking questions first. He added that the least the Friday Imam of Qeshm can be charged with is undermining the principle of separation of the executive, legislative and judiciary bodies. However, the cleric cannot be associated with any one of the three bodies of the government.

Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has spoken differently about the government's reaction to the resistance against hijab in his speeches. While at times insisting on the enforcement of hijab, at other times he has said that even those who do not cover their hair are his daughters. However, security forces and their vigilante agents are under Khamenei’s control.

While many have warned that strict measures against women might lead to confrontation between various groups, in his latest Eid al-Fitr sermon on Saturday, Khamenei advised government officials to avoid creating confrontations between citizens.

Some have interpreted this as Khamenei’s signal to relax hijab rule, but so far all the signs point at the opposite direction.

A video, posted on social media after the incident shows the woman, whose name has not been disclosed, on the ground and scuffles between people on the scene at the parking lot of Mahan Garden, a tourist attraction 25km from Kerman, capital of the Eastern Kerman Province. The woman died at a hospital later.

Social media users have reported that the deceased and her family members were visitors from the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.

The video was taken from inside a bus which carried the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) affiliated Basij militia members and their families who were in Kerman to visit the grave of slain Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani.

Apparently, the Basij members ordered a member of the woman’s family to cover her hair, leading to an argument and a scuffle.

“Let her die!”, one of the Basij women on the bus exclaims when another one points out that the woman on the ground has died.

Scuffle between Basijis and people at Mahan Garden’s parking after a woman collapsed.

Ali Babaei, governor of Kerman, confirmed the death of the 59-year-old woman and injury of several others in the group fight, which he claimed had been “personal”. He added that those responsible for the incident were arrested by the police but did not offer further details.

A judiciary official, Yousef Sobhani, has said that an investigation has been launched into the incident and “any possible crime would be seriously dealt with.”

The footage was initially widely shared by hardliners on social media because it showed a few people attacking the Basijis and throwing stones at the bus but was later removed from most accounts as it appeared to have backfired.

In the past few weeks, hardliners have intensified their efforts to enforce veiling laws more forcefully to put a stop to women’s increasing defiance of the compulsory hijab. Since popular protests after Mahsa Amini died at the hands of the morality police in September, many women walk in the streets without hijab. The clerical regime is determined not to allow unveiled women to appear outside their homes and prevent more women from flouting hijab rules in as the hot summer season arrives.

Such efforts include encouragement of hardliners to take the matter into their own hands and carry out their religious duty of “calling to virtue and forbidding wrong”. This includes shutting businesses for their customers’ defiance of hijab, and “hijab warning” text messages sent by the police to nearly everyone who uses a mobile phone, including some men.

Warning ‘hijab-less’ women, however, in several cases has gone well beyond “verbal” and ended in violence.

Emergency responders attending to a woman who had a panic attack during a hijab fight at shopping arcade in Babol.

A video from the CCTV of a convenience store in Shandiz near the religious city of Mashhad went viral on social media in early April that showed a man dumping a large tub of yogurt on the head of a ‘hijab-less’ woman and her mother, after an argument as he demanded from her to cover her head.

Some of the people present on the scene came to the defense of the mother and daughter. The attacker was also a member of the Basij.

Another video that became viral on social media in mid-April showed a young woman having a panic attack at a shopping arcade in Babol in northern Iran. The incident happened as a fight broke out when Basij militia tried to arrest some shopkeepers over hijab and fired their guns into the air during the scuffle.

The police later denied that shots had been fired or the hijab incident had caused the young woman’s panic attack.

Hijab incidents are now becoming a daily occurrence. At Tehran University on Monday students staged a rally outside the campus security office after a fight broke out between them and guards who had used violence against female students over hijab. The security detained two female students but later released them.

Many say on social media that women will not allow to be bullied again into wearing the hijab.

Though total numbers of the expulsions are unclear due to the secretive nature of the regime, it has become a widespread punishment for educators seen to encourage the tide of unrest.

Professor Ali Sharifi Zarchi announced in a tweet on Monday that Arash Raisi-Nejad had been dismissed. Raisi-Nejad himself also confirmed the news by retweeting his colleague’s post wishing for the day when the Iranian families live a prosperous, happy, and dignified life.

Back in March, Iranian media reported the suspension of Raisi-Nejad saying that the Ministry of Science informed the University of Tehran that the professor’s contract must not be renewed.

Raisi-Nejad is a graduate of Florida International University and has published articles and books on regional geopolitical issues.

Despite numerous reports on the dismissal of university professors for supporting protests, Iranian officials deny the claims.

Morteza Farrokhi, the Legal Deputy of the Science Ministry, told ISNA that "if there are any cases of dismissal, it has been due to their academic incompetence."

This is not the first time that reports have been published about the dismissal of Iranian university professors for supporting protesters.

Hasan Baqerinia, a professor at Hakim Sabzevari University, was dismissed in February for supporting the protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Before that, Amir Maziar, a faculty member of Tehran University's Faculty of Theoretical Sciences and Advanced Art Studies, announced his suspension as well as the suspension of another professor of the university, Kourosh Golnari.

Iranian media reported in early February that nine professors of Tehran Azad University have been forced into early retirement because of expressing critical views against the Islamic Republic.

Workers in the oil, gas and steel industries stood up against low wages as industrial action continued to cause disruption to the country’s main sources of revenue.

Videos published on social media show staff at Madkoush steel company in the southern city of Bandar Abbas have stopped working. Contract workers in Shadegan Steel Complex in the south also went on strike in action which began on Saturday.

Major companies were hit by the action including engineering giant Imensazan, blacklisted by the US, Jahanpars companies in the Sarcheshemeh Copper Complex, electricians at the Gachsaran Petrochemical Project and contract workers in the Daralu Copper Concentrate Plant in Kerman.

Iran International revealed in an exclusive report that security forces are threatening the workers and their families to stop the strike.

However, labor activists believe this time the nationwide strikes are not the same as the previous ones and warn that society is on the verge of explosion. Experts say there is no end in sight as tensions rise amidst a crumbling economy and the biggest anti-regime sentiment in years. It remains to be seen how the government will react to it.