Iranian Rally In Berlin Brings Out A Crowd Of 80,000

Rioters take part in the protests because they are well-fed," added Assembly of Experts member Mohsen Haydari, another Iranian cleric who enjoys a luxurious life without having worked for even one day in his lifetime, while the middle class has been wiped out due to 40-percent inflation in the past three years.

These are just two examples of what Iranian pro-government clerics who are paid by the Islamic Republic regime to echo Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's arrogant rhetoric against his own people, many of whom no longer want to submit to his dictatorship

But they are not alone in bragging against the protests. Some military figures also spoke about the uprising on Friday. Brigadier General Hamid Abazari, an adviser to the commander of the IRGC opined that young women and men taking part in the protests have been deceived by "the enemy," which means the United States in the Islamic Republic's political jargon.

All this, and more, have been said while, an Iranian sociologist, Mohammad Reza Javadi Yeganeh, has warned that the window of opportunity for the regime to open a dialogue with the country's angry youths is not going to remain open for long as the regime increasingly isolates itself within its hard core.

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In the meantime, others such as the Tehran Province Governor Mohsen Mansouri have tried to help the regime out of its biggest crisis in 43 years by offering to allocate certain places in big cities where people can protest. Mansouri has made the remark in the disguise of a lawful and democratic proposal. However, Iranian protesters believe this is a trick to make sure that the security forces are aware of all the demonstrations beforehand and can practice various ways to crackdown based on the specifications of every location.

The current protests take place at different locations during daytime and night and gatherings are fairly mobile in a bid to evade dangerous confrontation with security forces who are willing with no reservation to shoot to kill.

In his interview with ISNA, Mansouri said that his office has considered the requests for holding protest gatherings and has responded to those requests. However, it is clear that no such permit has been issued so far even for pro-government "reformist" parties that have recently complained that the Governor's Office and the Interior Ministry have ignored all of their requests.

At the same time, some political figures appear to be fishing in troubled waters by trying to garner support for the next parliamentary election. Mohammad Hassan Asafari, a lawmaker from Arak in the Central Province, told the press that taking part in the protests is a lawful activity, adding that protesters come to his office and talk with him about the situation. He is probably referring to another country as most lawmakers, including Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf are known for their opposition to the protests and their comments about cracking down on dissent.

Asafari, however, has acknowledged that people have grievances about the government's economic and foreign policies. This comes while Sociologist Yeganeh, who agrees with the lawmaker on the causes of the protests, wrote in a series of tweets on Thursday that the regime should "recognize the protests and stop behavior that irritates the people," or a gloomy future is s possibility.

A video obtained by Iran International shows workers at Aidin chocolate factory in Tabriz, northwest of Iran, have gone on strike chanting anti-government slogans in a large demonstration.

As in previous weeks, businesses in the big cities of Kordestan province including Sanandaj, Marivan, Banehand Saqqez also went on strike.

In Bukan, in West Azerbaijan Province people closed their shops to show anger at the brutal crackdown of the Islamic Republic against against protesters.

Nationwide protests schedules for Saturday also got underway around noon, led first by demonstrations in universities.

In another development, The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations called on all teachers and students to refuse to attend classes on October 23 and 24.

The union also asked school principles to participate in the strikes, asking them not to stand against the strikers and resist attacks by the plainclothes agents on students.

During the past days the regime agents have intensified violence against protesting children at schools and arrested teachers and cultural activists.

The bill which would “impose sanctions on the supreme leader of Iran and the president of Iran and their respective offices for human rights abuses and support for terrorism.”

The Mahsa Amini Act, named after the 22-year-old woman who was killed in the custody of Iran’s hijab police, would block the assets of all officials of the Islamic Republic, including Khamenei and Raisi who can be considered the main decision makers in human rights abuses.

Such legislation would have a symbolic impact on the Iranian leaders, but any additional sanctions would mean further isolation for the Islamic Republic and make it harder for the Biden Administration to make a new nuclear deal with Tehran.

“The supreme leader holds ultimate authority over Iran’s judiciary and security apparatus, including the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, law enforcement forces under the Interior Ministry, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the Basij, a nationwide volunteer paramilitary group subordinate to the IRGC, all of which have engaged in human rights abuses in Iran,” states the legislation.

The bill further says that “the IRGC, a United States designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, which reports to the supreme leader, continues to perpetrate terrorism around the globe, including attempts to kill and kidnap American citizens on United States soil.”

It also expresses “the sense of Congress that the United States shall stand with and support the people of Iran in their demand for fundamental human rights.”

Congressional sources told the Washington Free Beacon that the bill was presented to the offices of every Democratic member of the House of Representatives, but none of them supported the plan.

Claudia Tenney the Republican lawmaker says Congress must not lose the chance to help protesters by increasing sanctions on the Iranian regime.

“The Iranian regime’s heartless murder of Mahsa Amini once again exposed the reality that Iran’s government abuses and subjugates women,” said Tenney adding that “the brutal crackdown on protesters has shown their disdain for basic human rights and underscores the need for a more permanent sanctions regime against the Iranian government.”

Likewise, Republican Michael Waltz, who is one of the coauthors of the bill, says “We’re nearly two years into the Biden administration and it’s clear their appeasement policy towards Iran isn’t working.”

“The Iran regime continues to export terrorism, repress its people, directly aid Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, and is closer to a nuclear weapon than ever before. We need to stand up for our national security and the people of Iran by reimposing crippling sanctions on the Iran Regime,” underlined Waltz.

The Biden Administration has taken several steps since the protests in Iran began in mid-September. It has issued sanctions against some officials and entities and has signaled that nuclear talks with Iran have been put on the backburner. But its lax enforcement of oil export sanctions since early 2021, has allowed China to import more Iranian crude, which has somewhat boosted the regime’s income.

According to the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights Organization at least 215 people, including 27 children have been killed with excessive and lethal force throughout Iran during the current antigovernment protests.

The group calling itself the Black Reward claimed on Friday that the internal email system of Iran's Nuclear Power Production and Development Company was hacked.

Black Reward warned that it will publish the data it has obtained within 24 hours unless the Islamic Republic releases all political prisoners and detained protesters.

There has been no reaction from the government so far.

The hacktivist group said the Islamic Republic’s officials well know what impact the release of these hacked data will have on their “sloppy nuclear program.”

“There's no solution but giving in to the popular demands, which means the end of the Islamic Republic,” said Black Reward.

Earlier in the week, the group also announced that it hacked the emails of managers and employees of Press TV, the government’s international English news channel.

Black Reward asked the journalists of this network to be the “voice of the people” while the Islamic Republic is cracking down the anti-government protests.

Several other hacktivist groups including Anonymous launched cyberattacks on government institutions since the beginning of protests to topple the regime.

There is a limited degree of discussion in websites and newspapers about how to deal with the protest movement by pundits who are allowed to speak with the media, but these discussions are also limited to opinions that do not cross the regime’s red lines.

The most important red line they do not cross is stating that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei controls all major security decisions and actions in Iran. And this is no surprise. If a media outlet calls the Supreme Leader out on any issue, its managers and reporters will be arrested. So, when the reformist Arman-e Melli daily suggests that "It is time to listen rather than to dictate," it needs to address that to Khamenei, but the media are so intimidated by his power that they do not even implicitly refer to him in such a context.

Prominent Iranian photojournalist Hassan Sarbakhshaian, in a series of tweets on 12 October, listed the names of 38 Iranian journalists who have been arrested by security forces between September 16 and October 10. Sarbakhshaian said the list is verified by the Committee for Protection of Journalists.

Since Sarbakhshian's tweet, a few of those arrested have been released and a few more journalists have been detained, so the figure must have remained around 40. This number is alarming enough for other journalists and media managers to thread carefully. In the meantime, some centrist papers whose reporters are already in jail have even changed their slant in favor of regime’s rhetoric at the expense of annoying their readers.

According to Arman-e Melli, some reformist parties have written to President Ebrahim Raisi demanding permission to hold peaceful demonstrations, but Raisi has not responded, and no party, reformist or otherwise, is brave enough to write to the Supreme Leader. He is unreachable, untouchable and unaccountable.

Many observers in Iran have noted that political parties, as shock absorbers that could protect the government from serious street challenges, are non-existent in Iran. At another level, the president could have acted as a safety net between protesters and the Supreme Leader. But Khamenei has made the role of the President irrelevant. As a result, few protesters even mention Raisi’s name and direct all strongly worded and often derogatory slogans at Khamenei.

Not only the 83-year-old ruler has not done anything to make it possible for top officials to engage with and try to pacify the demonstrators, but he has prevented such dialogues. Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei last week called for dialogue with protesters, but in less than a day, Khamenei forced him to change his word and resume the usual non-compromising and threatening rhetoric.

Even on Thursday, some politicians such as Mohammad Ali Namazi renewed the call for national reconciliation, but Khamenei and the hardliner media supporting him shunned the idea.

Arman-e Melli quoted sociologist Taqi Azad Armaki as saying that "the new generation of Iranians are calling on the regime to pay attention to them. Otherwise, they are not 'revolutionaries' as foreign-based media call them. What Armaki ignored is that many media outlets in Iran would have also called them 'revolutionaries' if they were ever allowed to describe the country's situation as it is.

List of detained journalists as of October 12 -

1. Yalda Moayeri (photojournalist),
2. Nilufar Hamedi (Sharq daily),
3. Iman Behpasand,
4. Ruhollah Nakhaei,
5. Alireza Khoshbakht,
6. Zahra Tohidi,
7. Fatemeh Rajabi,
8. Mojtaba Rahimi,
9. Majid Tavakoli,
10. Marzieh Talai,
11. Massoud Kordpour,
12. Khosrow Kordpour,
13. Elaheh Mohammadi (Ham Mihan daily), her twin sister Elnaz Mohammadi (Ham Mihan daily),
14. Vida Rabbani,
15. Hamed Shafiei,
16. Ahmad Reza Halabisaz (photojournalist),
17. Sarvenaz Ahmadi,
18. Hassan Ronaghi Maleki,
19. Elmira Bahmani,
20. Batul Balali,
21. Samir Alinejad,
22. Jabbar Dastyar,
23. Mehrnoush Taghian,
24. Farshid Ghorbanpour (7 Sobh daily),
25. Arya Jafari (photojournalist)
26. Mobin Baluch,
27. Javad Shaker (editor of Sharif University's newspaper),
28. Alborz Nezami (Donya-ye Eqtesad daily),
29. Alireza Jabbari Darestani (Mehr news agency),
30. Siavash Soleimani,
31. Ali Khatibzadeh,
32. Shahram Azmoudeh,
33. Ali Salem (Sharq daily),
34. Sepideh Salarvand (documentary filmmaker),
35. Fardin Kamangar,
36. Mohammad Zare Fumani (Seda-ye Edalat daily),
37. Saba Sherdoust,
38. Milad Fadai Asl (who was arrested together with his wife).