Relatives Of 80s Iran Victims Insist On Expulsion Of Oberlin Professor

Iran Human Rights group in a tweet immediately on Sunday announced that the amnesty claim is a “deceitful” step by Khamenei, demanding that all protesters should be freed “unconditionally”, and instead those responsible for repression should be tried in courts.

Protesters were exercising their right to peacefully demonstrate and arresting them had no legal bases, Iran Human Rights said.

Government media reported Sunday that Khamenei had “agreed” with a proposal by the country’s Judiciary to free those who were “misled” and took part in protests.

It is still not clear how many or which prisoners will be pardoned and whose sentences will be reduced. While thousands of young and teenage protesters were arrested in street demonstrations, hundreds of political activists, journalists and writers or artists have also been detained.

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Khamenei’s move came days before the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Republic, as a move to rescue the regime’s image amid a grim economic crisis and mass public rejection of the political system he presides over.

The hardliner judiciary has attached so many pre-conditions for any prisoner pardon, that no one knows how many will be freed, while some state media claimed “tens of thousands” will be released.

Some of the conditions for being pardoned were mentioned in the announcement, including no record of spying for a foreign country, no connection with foreign intelligence services, not facing a charge of murder and no accusation of destroying public property. The regime’s security forces and courts, meanwhile, have held thousands of detainees exactly based on these sorts of charges.

A lawyer defending several detained protesters tweeted that Khamenei’s move was nothing more than “imposing the fake version of reality by the regime,” which attempts to switch the guilt from itself to the victims.

Almost all court proceedings have been held behind closed doors, after many detainees were tortured to confess to trumped-up charges. Also, in most cases defendants were not allowed to have their lawyers in the court or even have access to case files.

A former political prisoner Hossein Qashqai tweeted, “It is us who should issue pardons, not you, who carry the blood of our dearest and best children on your hands. We will never forget and forgive.”

Prison interrogators often demand that detainees to sign self-incriminating apologies and pledge not to engage in antigovernment activities. Shahriar Shams, a former prisoner, quoted one his friends who is still behind bars that if the authorities free them unconditionally, it would be fine, but if they demand any letter of remorse “we will not give them anything. We should be the ones to pardon them.”

A Dutch member of the European Parliament tweeted Monday that “Freedom shouldn’t depend on a dictator’s whims. This is hypocrisy and we won’t be fooled.”

European countries have exhibited tough reactions, compared to the past, to Islamic Republic’s bloody suppression and the hanging of four protesters after sham trials. The European Parliament last month passed a resolution demanding Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to be listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union.

Some Iranian conservative supporters of Khamenei have been surprised by the international backlash and admit that the regime is now more isolated. But Khamenei seems to be determined to make no real concession. In one of his recent speeches he said, “In the old days when wounds did not heal, they cauterized them.”

This is the second time that Benjamin Brière refuses to eat since his incarceration in May 2020.

Brière’s sister Blandine Brier said Monday that her brother “had no other choice.”

He stopped eating on January 28, his sister noted in a statement, saying "It's the only weapon he has."

The 37-year-old is being held on espionage charges. Philippe Valent, Brière's France-based lawyer, called the espionage charges against his client a "fiction" and his trial "a parody staged by the Revolutionary Guard".

Valent went on to say that Brière is worn out by months of captivity in a "gloomy" prison known to be a center for the extrajudicial elimination of opponents of the Tehran regime.

Sentenced to eight years behind bars, Brière is one of seven French and more than two dozen foreign nationals who campaigners say Iran has held hostage to get concessions from the West.

In the past decade, Iran's Revolutionary Guard have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on unproven allegations of espionage and breach of security, in what human rights organizations have said is essentially hostage taking.

Thijs Reuten said in a tweet Monday that “freedom should not depend on the whims of a dictator. This is hypocrisy and we will not be fooled.”

He further called on the dictatorial ruler of Iran to release all protesters and stop executions immediately.

Reuten also addressed the European Union, urging them to sanction Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi and blacklist the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group.

He also demanded the EU to show support for Iran’s democratic opposition.

Ali Khamenei on Sunday agreed to pardon some prisoners and reduce sentences for those arrested during antigovernment protests in recent months.

The proposal was made by the country’s Judiciary to take what appears to be a political step to show clemency after hundreds were killed and around 19,000 arrested.

It is not clear how many or which prisoners will be pardoned and whose sentences will be reduced. While thousands of young and teenage protesters were arrested in street demonstrations, hundreds of political activists, journalists and writers or artists have also been detained.

Khamenei's move comes at the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Republic, as a move to rescue the image of the regime amid a grim economic crisis and mass public rejection of the political system he presides over.

During a session on Monday, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (Qalibaf) defended the plan that is criticized by many lawmakers who oppose granting immunity to the seven-man team responsible for its implementation.

The Government decided to sell public properties in November 2022 to raise money amid financial crisis and a large budget deficit. Similar past schemes implemented without proper rules and transparency have ended in scandals.

According to reports, the new privatization plan -- approved by the heads of the three powers of the government, President Ebrahim Raisi, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei and Ghalibaf -- bars critics of disclosing details of transactions and suspends for two years all legislation that might prevent these transactions.

The transactions are going to take place under the supervision of a seven-man team, comprised of Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, Roads Minister Mehrdad Bazrpash, Planning and Budget Chief Massoud Mirkazemi, Parliament Speaker’s representative Pejman Pashmchizadeh and a representative to be appointed by the Judiciary Chief. The members of the taskforce are said to have absolute judicial immunity.

Making a paradoxical remark, Ghalibaf said "Immunity does not mean that the members on this board can commit crimes,” and added that “there will definitely be supervision on this board."

The team is headed by Mokhber, who practically runs the administration and is closely linked with the office of the country’s ruler Ali Khamenei. Since the plan does not specify any supervision mechanism and grants legal immunity, it is not clear who will supervise Mokhber.

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Without elaborating on his role in the ratification of the measure, Ghalibaf assigned Pashmchizadeh as his representative on the board on Monday. Early in January, Pashmchizadeh did not manage to garner the needed votes for the Supreme Audit Court of Iran. 

Former lawmaker Mohammad Khoshchehreh, an economics professor at Tehran University, criticized the immunity, saying that “influential people can lead the board astray."

Denouncing the plan, Iranian investigative journalist and historian Hossein Dehbashi quipped that the plan can be described as “the distribution of the spoils” of war. 

On Sunday, hardliner politician Ahmad Tavakkoli rebuked the plan to liquidate public assets with no supervision or a clear process in a letter addressed to the heads of the three government branches. Himself a regime insider and a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, Tavakkoli noted that the measure is in obvious violation of the country’s constitution. He argued that this manner of running the government is similar to the behavior of a drug addict who cannot afford to buy his drugs and decides to sell off its belongings to support his addiction.

"At the beginning of the addiction, the addict spends his income on buying drugs, but after the income is not enough, he starts selling his properties and furniture,” Tavakokoli did not mince his words.

Many former officials and the media have expressed deep concerns over the plan. Mohammad Reza Salehi, a logistics chief of former President Hassan Rouhani’s office, in a speech at a meeting of former officials earlier this month argued that the so-called privatization would give rise to massive corruption, degenerate the regime from within and eventually cause its collapse.

Reza Gheibi, an economic journalist, told Iran International that the liquidation of assets would not help the government to overcome the economic crisis it is grappling with. “In the best-case scenario, it may balance some of the budget deficit,” he said, adding that transferring these assets to individuals and entities connected with Khamenei’s office, who would be the likely beneficiaries, would give them control over the economy.

In a tweet last Wednesday (February 1), Iran's exiled prince, Reza Pahlavi, accused Khamenei of plundering the country’s national wealth “greedily” with the so-called privatization plan. “Plunderers should be aware that legal immunity will not help them, and the plundered assets of the Iranian nation should [one day] be restored to the treasury of the nation,” he wrote.

The shady privatization plan, which is promulgated to improve generation of wealth and production in Iran, has been met with a lot of skepticism by the public, who have seen corrupt “privatization” in the past 15 years, when state properties were sold at ridiculously low prices to well-connected individuals.

The clerical regime – struggling with domestic unrest and grappling with rising inflation on the backdrop of global isolation – is in desperate need of money. People are terrified that the plan is the Islamic Republic’s last-ditch effort to liquidate public assets to keep itself afloat.

Before its award for Best Song for Social Change at the Grammys 2023, a new category at the gala, Shervin’s creation had touched millions of Iranians who are protesting against the Islamic Republic for about five months now. The single had also become a viral sensation even among non-Persian-speaking music fans who were in support of the protests.

Lauding the track, Jill Biden added that the new award was put in place to recognize a tune that “responds to the social issues of our time and has the potential for positive global impact," and said she was "honored" to announce the first winner in the category. She also noted that more than 130,000 people sent their submissions for the song.

According to Variety in October, 95,000 of the submissions were made for Hajipour’s song. Describing the song as "stirring," Biden said, “This song became the anthem of the Mahsa Amini protests, a powerful and poetic poem for freedom and women’s rights."

The song, which was released in the early days of protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini in 'hijab police' custody, was viewed more than 40 million times in two days on Shervin’s Instagram account, and has since become the unofficial anthem of the women-led uprising. It soon became one of the most covered songs by professional singers such as Rana Mansour and a myriad of amateur Iranians. In October, British indie band Coldplay also made headlines after the group invited Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani to perform the song onstage with them in Buenos Aires.

The word ‘baraye,’ which is translated from Persian as “for …” or “for the sake of”, is repeated at the start of every line of the song, which is composed of a collection of tweets by Iranians bemoaning the situation in their country: “For dancing in the streets; for the fear of kissing; for the students and their future”, and “for women, life, freedom”.

After the impactful song went viral and rocked social media, Shervin was arrested by the regime’s agents and the song was removed from his page. He was released on bail in October after he published a forced confession and an apology on his Instagram page. His case is still going through the 'legal' process, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Hajipour, who had gained relative popularity in 2019 when he appeared as a contestant in the Iranian television talent show, New Era, now is among the favorite singers of the Iranian protests, along with rap artists Toomaj Salehi and Saman Seydi, whose stage name is Yasin.

After winning the Grammy, Hajipour simply wrote on Instagram, "We won." However, a large number of Iranians from all around the world congratulated him for the award, calling it a triumph for the antigovernment protests. Another Iranian Grammy award winner Kayhan Kalhor‌ posted a story and wished success for Hajipour while German member of European Parliament, Hannah Neumann, tweeted “Beyoncé may have won 32 Grammys -- but this one surely is the most important one this year.”

Women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad said that “Once, if we were killed on streets, or hanged, no one would hear us. But now, our cry of protest, our music and art, has crossed the borders of the world.”

Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion who has so far organized several rounds of worldwide protest rallies against the Islamic Republic, also posted to mark Hajipour’s victory and paid a tribute to all the artists that were killed by the Islamic Republic.