Truckers Join Iran's Expanding Labor Strikes

Right groups have described the promptness of the regime’s executions of Baluch prisoners in recent weeks as “an official policy to intimidate protesters in Sistan and Baluchistan province,” where anti-regime rallies have been held weekly since the "Women, Life, Freedom” protests began in September.

The Thursday execution was carried out at Mashhad Central Prison and there are unconfirmed reports that several other people from the minority group have been transferred to death rows.

As Sunni Muslims, Baluch citizens are both an ethnic and religious minority. Estimates of the Iranian Baluch population range from 1.5 to 2 million people.

The Baluch community – along with the Kurds -- has always been among the most persecuted minorities of Iran, and has the largest number of people executed in the country. Most of the Baluchs are executed over drug-related charges, but activists say their cases do not receive due process through a fair trial and that the regime uses drug charges as a pretext to avenge 30 consecutive weeks of widespread protests after their Friday prayers.

The region is among the most impoverished ones across Iran and given the high rate of unemployment and no proper infrastructure, smuggling fuel, goods and in some cases drugs are their only lifeline.

More than 110 people from the community have been reportedly executed during the past four months, with activists voicing worries that the number is higher and there are cases that have not been reported in the media.

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Journalist and activist Mehdi Nakhl-Ahmadi told Iran International that one of the common characteristics of these recent cases is the “unfair trials” and a “lack of due judicial process,” highlighting that a large number of these people do not have access to lawyers. “We are witnessing a rise in the number of executions in Sistan-Baluchestan, which, people believe, are meant to affect the public opinion of the residents of the province... particularly to put pressure on Sunni Leader Mowlavi Abdolhamid, several of whose aides as well other Sunni clerics have been arrested,” he said.

The Baloch campaign website, run by a group of ethnic rights activists, described “the new wave” of executions as a strategy by the regime to warn the people of the Sistan-Baluchestan province against holding further anti-government demonstrations, claiming that such measures have been taken by the regime before to crack down on earlier bouts of protests. Condemning the mass executions, the group also expressed concern about the violation of human rights as a form of "political game to put pressure on and create fear among the people."

Haalvsh website, a local news outlet that monitors rights violations in Iran's Baluchestan region, cited remarks by family members of the executed people, claiming that they confessed to crimes they had not committed under duress and that there were flaws and ambiguities in their cases, but the judiciary ignored them and carried out the death sentence anyway.

To raise awareness about the executions, Iranian social media users have launched a twitter campaign, denouncing the killings as a “Baluch genocide.”

Masih Alinejad, well-known journalist and political activist, warned Thursday that three Baluch citizens, all of them about 30 years of age, are in imminent danger of being executed, urging people to “be the voice of people of Baluchestan.” "They are the ones who chant death to the dictator on the streets after seven months of torture, imprisonment and bullets," she said.

According to a report released by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) in December, the number of the regime’s executions increased by over 88 percent in 2022. A glance at the rights group’s recent report clearly shows a sharp rise in reported human rights violations since mid-September when the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa (Jina) Amini died in the custody of the so-called “morality police” following which protests swept across the country.

Amnesty International also published a report early in March, revealing a “chilling execution spree with escalating use of the death penalty against persecuted ethnic minorities” by the regime. “The Iranian authorities have executed at least one Ahwazi Arab, 14 Kurds and 13 Baluchis following grossly unfair trials, and sentenced at least a dozen others to death since the start of the year,” the right group said, adding that the Islamic Republic “executed at least 94 people in January and February alone.”

Earlier in the day, 23 human rights organizations and four activists, along with the "Keep It On" coalition condemned the frequent internet disruptions in Sistan-Baluchestan province. Keep It On is a coalition of more than 300 organizations from 105 countries around the world that has been fighting internet shutdowns.

Every Friday when people of the province are set to begin their rallies, the regime shuts down the internet to stop people from uploading footage from the protests and communicating with each other.

A bid to "cover up human rights violations," the signatories said the repeated disruption of the Internet has led to "significant challenges for local communities that rely heavily on online communications for their daily activities".

Organ trafficking has become a major problem with people selling kidneys, liver, cornea, bone marrow, sperm, and ovum out of poverty.

Jahan-e-Sanat daily wrote Thursday that some middlemen send the prospective donors to neighboring countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Iraq to sell their body parts for $7,000 to $15,000.

This is the result of the country’s economic crisis, which has left many people struggling to survive. In some cases, people have even been forced to sell their organs to pay for medical bills or to support their families.

The organ trafficking industry has been estimated to be worth millions of dollars, with organs being sold to wealthy individuals. The organs are usually obtained through coercion or deception, with some being promised money and then never receiving it once the organ has been taken out.

Although Iranian law prohibits the sale or purchase of body organs, the online market is booming, and no one is taking action.

“My blood type is O negative, and I am 22 years old. I will sell my kidney for 5 billion rials (10,000 USD). Due to my financial issues, I have no choice but to sell my kidney. If you want my liver, I will sell a part of it for 2 billion rials (4,000 USD),” a young man told Jahan-e-Sanat.

According to government figures, more than 1,480 people receive a kidney transplant from a living donor in Iran annually, which is about 55 percent of the total of 2,700 transplants each year.

Media in Tehran and other cities are reporting dozens of similar cases as no one actually knows how much the annual inflation rate is after the government stopped publishing its monthly statistics.

Aftab News, a website which dares to be more critical of the authoritarian regime, quipped Wednesday that President Ebrahim Raisi still insists, “The progress by Iran has angered the enemies,” meaning the United States and its allies.

Mehr News Agency, a conservative website and a supporter of Iran’s hardliners reported that families share rented apartments, as they cannot afford the soaring security deposit and monthly rent.

Others simply must move to cheaper and cheaper areas, getting farther than the cities and have to commute somehow if they do not own a car. Vehicles have also become unaffordable for many with the cheapest options costing billions of rials.

Ordinary Iranian salaries are less than $200 a month, while rents for simple apartments have soared to beyond $300. Couples must work two jobs just to pay the rent.

Although Iranians have been losing their purchasing power since 2018 when their currency nosedived, the situation took a turn for the worse last September as the rial began to fall further, losing half its value. The US dollar rose from around 260,000 rials last August to near 550,000 in late April.

The minimum monthly income needed for bare necessities for a family of 3.3 people remains at around $500 a month, but the rials a family earns buys much less each week.

The political leadership, however, continues its nuclear program and its anti-West policies, so far refusing to compromise with the United States.

Even some real estate agents will soon be forced to go out of business as they cannot sell properties overpriced for the impoverished population. Some agencies close just one deal a month and cannot even afford rent for their own office.

Etemad newspaper reported that people who just a few months ago were helping others in need are now unable to afford their own groceries. Prices for eggs, milk, meat and rice have doubled in less than a year.

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“Until a few months ago there were upper middle-class people who were quietly leaving some money with neighborhood stores so that they could give out food to needy customers who were asking to buy things on credit,” Etemad wrote, “but in the last 6-7 months these philanthropists have disappeared.”

One such person who went to the butcher to pay the debts of those who could not pay, realized that most people were buying only chicken skin and bones, the newspaper reported.

One kilogram of chicken fillet now costs 1.8 million rials, while an ordinary salary is around 70,000 rials. A few months ago, the same chicken meat was sold at 630,000 rials. Now, people are forced to buy the cheaper parts, such as skin or stripped bones.

In poorer Tehran neighborhoods, even butchers are opting to close shop and start another business as far fewer people can afford beef or chicken.

Desperate people try to barter homemade jams or pickles for protein foods.

As million of people are becoming impoverished, Aftab News quotes psychologists and doctors about the damage inflicted by malnutrition on children and adults alike. While mothers have to breastfeed babies with intake of nutritious food, adults face more health problems, such as cancer, that many say has spiked in recent years.

Khamenei had been speaking at an event for the Islamic Republic’s National Teachers’ Day with a cherry picked group of teachers. During the meeting, Khamenei discussed the country’s education system but fell short of even mentioning the months of gas attacks against the schools across Iran which have left thousands of schoolgirls sick and hospitalized.

Instead of addressing one of the biggest human rights violations of recent months, affecting over 130 schools, Khamenei talked about pushing the regime’s extremist brand of Islam in the country’s education system.

He voiced the necessity of keeping schools under state control, encouraging students to attend religious ceremonies at mosques and praised the old generation of Iranian teachers who made students go to war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988. According to Khamenei's statistics, this led to “the martyrdom of 36,000 students”.

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The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers' Trade Associations reacted quickly and issued an outraged statement on Tuesday, calling on teachers and educators to protest outside Education Ministry branches across the country and outside the parliament in Tehran on Tuesday..

The rallies were scheduled for May 9 as a tribute to Jabbar Baghcheban, also known as Mirza Jabbar Asgarzadeh, an Iranian inventor and educator born on May 9, 1886, who established the first Iranian kindergarten and the first deaf school.

The council stressed the necessity of ending the "dominance of the ruling totalitarian ideology" in Iranian schools, claiming the current incompetent managers of the educational system should be replaced by those educated under more modern, secular pedagogy.

In addition to their usual demands such as better salaries and working conditions, the teachers’ council reiterated that Iran’s education system will not improve without a fundamental change.

"Without a deep and critical review of the intellectual and political foundations of the ruling ideology; without critical restructuring in school governance and management practices; without accepting the individual, cultural and social differences of students; … and without fundamental changes in the existing and failed mechanisms of school administration, the education system in the country will not bear fruits,” read their statement.

They also voiced support for the recent wave of protests by teachers and families of students who have been victims of mysterious chemical attacks on schools, which have been going on for at least six months.

While Khamenei was delivering his speech, more videos surfaced on social media of at least six schools that were attacked by an unknown chemical that has affected scores of mostly girls’ schools, since November.

In the videos, parents are seen anxiously comforting their children suffering from symptoms such as nausea and dizziness, while other videos showed ambulances taking students to hospital. Similar attacks were also reported both a day before Khamenei’s speech and a day after it on Monday and Wednesday.

The attacks have been condemned on the global stage by the likes of the UN and US, with calls for the regime to find the culprits, though it is unlikely attacks of such a scale could be perpetrated without the tacit approval of Tehran.

One of the schools in the Kurdish-majority of Sanandaj was raided by security forces after the latest attack, not to arrest the assailants but to beat the students and parents who showed anger at the regime’s handling of the issue.

In one video showing people running with panic through the corridors of a hospital, a woman is heard saying the girl filmed was hit on the head with a baton. Over 500 civilians have died at the hands of such brutality since protests against the regime began in September, with thousands more imprisoned.

In her campaign, coinciding with World Press Freedom Day, she called upon the UK to sponsor the resolution in a bid to recognize the threats made to Iran International journalists who in February, were forced to evacuate the London offices and relocate to Washington after being warned that authorities could no longer protect them from threats originating with Iranian agents.

"The UK government actually asked one of the biggest [broadcasters], Iran International TV, to stop its activities and to move from the UK. It was advice. So, I want to call on you, the UK government … and the General Assembly to pass this [resolution]," Alinejad told delegations in attendance in the General Assembly Hall.

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The appeal comes just days after it was revealed that Iran is the world’s second worst country, only after China, for the repression and imprisonment of journalists.

Worsened by revolutionary unrest, Iran jailed three times the number of writers in 2022 than 2021 as it cracked down on voices of dissent. The findings, from PEN America’s latest Freedom To Write Index, showed the extent of oppression haunting the country’s writers and journalists, heightened after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September.

Alinejad, who was forced into exile in 2009, is an outspoken critic of the Islamic Republic, and the founder of a campaign against gender apartheid practices in that country, where women who choose to appear in public without a hijab risk fines, arrest, imprisonment, and death.

In 2021, the US Department of Justice announced conspiracy charges against Iranian agents that sought to kidnap Alinejad from New York and rendition her to the Islamic Republic. Earlier this year, the Justice Department filed charges in a murder-for-hire plot directed against her by the Iranian regime.

Within Iran, the Intelligence Ministry has reportedly ordered journalists and activists to remove posts on social media about chemical attacks perpetrated against schoolgirls, and dozens of journalists have been arrested over the last seven months because they reported on nationwide anti-regime protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody for allegedly violating the compulsory hijab laws.

Alinejad has long been a proponent for oppressed journalists who are living in fear both at home and abroad as the Iran International case proved. She said that with more than 70 journalists currently in jail in Iran, the risks continue.

She recently said: "The Islamic Republic uses the tools of the state – surveillance, intimidation, violence, and a corrupt judiciary – to browbeat people into submission, but they are failing. Even though being a journalist in Iran can land you in jail, can get you killed, can get you tortured, they are failing. But they cannot be left to fight alone.”

Some of the country’s leading voices have been severely punished in recent months including Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was threatened with being returned to jail after speaking to or writing for international media outlets; author and activist Narges Mohammadi, who bravely continued to speak out from Evin prison; and writer Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, arrested in September.

Last week, Karin Deutsch Karlekar, PEN America’s director of Free Expression at Risk Programs, said: “Iran’s creative community—long at the forefront of fighting for free expression and human rights—was singled out as part of a broader crackdown on dissent in 2022. Alongside the dozens of writers and artists detained, the harsh sentences handed down and custodial abuse faced by some prisoners were an attempt to warn others to keep silent.”