Banks In Iran Urged To Avoid Serving Women Without Hijab

"The Islamic Republic has completely militarized Kordestan,” said Hengaw in a tweet on Sunday, warning of what it called the "consequences of the military movements of the Islamic Republic in Kordestan province".

According to unofficial reports, the Islamic Republic's deadline for the authorities of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to disarm the opposition groups of the Islamic Republic is coming to an end and if the Iranian authorities are not satisfied with the actions, there might be a new round of attacks against these groups based in northern Iraq.

In March, Ali Shamkhani, the then Secretary of Iranian Supreme National Security Council, signed a security agreement with Iraq during his trip to the Arab country to end the activities of the opponents of the Islamic Republic in the Kurdistan Region.

Two months before that, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, in a meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in Tehran said "Unfortunately, this is happening in some areas of Iraq, and the only solution is for the central government of Iraq to exercise its authority in those areas as well".

Since October last year, the IRGC has bombed the positions of Kurds opposing the Islamic Republic in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan on several occasions.

These attacks came as Tehran accused Kurdish opposition groups of inciting nationwide protests in Iran.

Videos show security and law enforcement forces surrounded the cemetery of the city an hour before a scheduled ceremony and closed the entrances.

Although the roads to the cemetery were blocked, a group of people gathered near the location holding the pictures of those executed on June 2, 1983. They also carried the photos of those killed during “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests since September 2022.

The protesters chanted slogans like "The Dictator Is Afraid of Us" and "The Martyr Never Dies".

On June 2, 1983, the Iranian regime executed 59 people in the Kurdish-majority city of Mahabad for suspected opposition and based on unknown charges.

Since the establishment of Islamic republic, the regime has mounted massive military, economic, cultural, social and psychological pressures against ethnic Kurds.

Mahsa Amini who died after being arrested by the morality police in September 2022 for "improper hijab" was a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman. Her death ignited the largest and longest anti-regime nationwide protests in Iran.

The massacre of the prisoner took just a few minutes, while they had no chance to appeal for pardon while some of them were under 18.

The Islamic Republic calls the Kurdish armed groups in the western provinces of Iran, "terrorist groups" or "anti-revolutionary" but these groups say that the goal of their armed campaign is "defending the rights of the Kurds".

Human right groups reported on Saturday that the regime buried the Baha’i citizen without the consent of his family.

Based on the report, the relatives held the funeral ceremony behind closed doors on Friday.

Within the past months, activists of the Baha'i community and human rights organizations have repeatedly reported that Iranian government officials have buried some of the deceased in the Khavaran cemetery without the knowledge of their families.

The Khavaran cemetery in southeast Tehran is an unmarked mass graveyard where dozens of executed prisoners in the 1980s are buried.

Earlier, Iran Human Rights Organization quoted an informed source as saying that some people who are not from the Baha'i community are interfering in their religious practices.

Baha'i cemeteries in Iranian cities and villages have also been confiscated and destroyed, and new buildings have been constructed on the burial grounds to leave no traces of the remains of Baha'is.

The 1979 constitution of the Islamic Republic recognizes only Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has on several occasions called the Baha'i faith a cult and in a religious fatwa in 2018 forbade contact, including business dealings, with followers of the faith.

Baha'is, who number around 300,000 in Iran, say their rights are systematically violated and they are often harassed, forced to leave their homes and businesses, and are deprived of government jobs and university education.

“Since its establishment, the Islamic Republic has drawn daggers against the workers,” said Shahabi in the letter published on social media.

Shahabi, a member of the Workers Syndicate of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Sherkat-e Vahed), was arrested following a strike and protests by Tehran bus drivers last year.

He was arrested May 12, 2022 as Tehran’s bus drivers began a strike over unpaid wages, creating chaos across the city with security forces in the streets and the government wary of possible protests over rising food prices.

Addressing the International Labor Organization, he stated in his letter that since its establishment, the Islamic Republic has tried to replace the labor councils, trade unions and independent labor organizations with state organizations whose members are appointed by the regime.

“These organizations all operate under the supervision of the regime and act like secret police in factories and workshops and do not allow the workers to protest. They identify the protesting workers and report them to the security forces or the management.”

In the end, this labor activist urged ILO members to "pay attention to the request of the oppressed workers of Iran, who are just trying to survive in unequal conditions with minimum resources."

Shahabi also confirmed that a new security case has been filed against him, as well as Keyvan Mohtadi and Hassan Saeedi to mount pressure on labor activists.

In 2012, Shahabi was jailed for seven years on security charges - "assembly and collusion against state security" and "spreading propaganda against the system – two years after he was first imprisoned.

“Clerics must be independent and have their own opinions to be able to speak the truth and call the government to enjoin what is good and forbid it from doing what is wrong,” Abdolhamid said in yet another fiery Friday sermon in the southeastern city of Zahedan. 

Abdolhamid who has proven to be the unofficial voice of the country’s Sunni population told his congregation that he has on many occasions warned that seminary students and teachers must not receive salaries from the government and seminaries should not be funded by the government. 

The Sunni cleric has somewhat become popular even among Shiites for standing up to the regime.

The outspoken cleric stressed that he believes people should be responsible for funding and managing religious institutions. “It’s a great mistake to allocate a budget to seminaries and religious scholars.” 

Salaried religious scholars will be dependent on the government and “their mouths will be shut like they have adopted silence [about what the government is doing] now,” he said. 

Iran's government annually allocates tens of millions of dollars to religious seminaries and other religious institutions that play the role of its propaganda arm. 

In his sermon Abdolhamid also referred to the recent revelations of former director of the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, Hossein Mortazavi-Zanjani, who on April 29 had alleged that President Ebrahim Raisi, then the deputy prosecutor of Tehran, was directly involved in the killing of political prisoners in 1988.

Mortazavi-Zanjani had also said that virgin female prisoners were forcibly married to jailers and raped by them before being executed to stop them from being admitted to heaven on account of their virginity when they died. 

“I was shocked by what I heard,” he said, adding that religious scholars (senior clergy) must not remain silent about this matter and the atrocities happening in Iranian prisons now. 

The executions were carried out based on a fatwa by Iran's then supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, against the MEK (The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran) which carried out a wave of bombings in Iran and struck an alliance with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 war.

Most victims were linked to the MEK but there were also others with links to leftist and secular groups such as Fadaiyan Khalq Organization (FKO) and the Tudeh Party as well as some Kurdish groups such as Komala and the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran. 

In his sermon, Abdolhamid once again brought up the issue of a referendum to allow the people of Iran to express their views about clerical rule. 

“It was our fault that they don’t want Islam and they should not be hit in the head to accept a certain thing now that they are dissatisfied [with the Islamic Republic],” he said, adding that everyone, whether religious or non-religious, should be allowed to live peacefully together and build the country’s future. 

“The religious should be allowed to pray and those without religion should be able to do whatever they want. That’s why there should be referendum to find out what the absolute majority of people want and accept,” he said. 

Abdolhamid was among the first regime critics who called for a constitutional referendum about 50 days into the wave of protests following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has flatly dismissed the possibility of a referendum and suggested that people lack the faculties required for making decisions about important matters.

After the prayers, Abdolhamid’s congregation took to the streets of Zahedan for the 35th consecutive week and chanted slogans against the regime. Residents have been protesting every Friday since September 30, when security forces opened fire on civilians, killing nearly 90 protesters. The incident has come to be known as the Bloody Friday of Zahedan. 

Sunnis constitute at least 10% of Iran's 88 million population and Zahedan, where thousands attend Abdolhamid’s Friday prayers every week is one of the few Sunni-majority cities in predominantly Shiite Iran.