Iranian President Spews Vitriol at the UN and a “Barrage of Gunfire” into Student Protesters
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have been protesting their government every day this week, yet the Biden Administration permitted the Iranian President a visa to enter the United States.
“We are the defenders of a fight against injustice,” President Ebrahim Raisi told the UN General assembly, today, in a ranting speech that combined extreme Islamist overtones with political rhetoric.
Prior to his address in New York, Iranian-Americans along with eight members of Congress, called for the Biden Administration to refuse his request for visa to enter the United States. Rasi has been accused of crimes against humanity by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for his role in the execution of 5,000 political prisoners, and violent crackdowns to political opposition since—including current student uprisings throughout his country.
While Rasi spewed vitriol about “double standards” in the West, protests are ongoing—initiated by outrage at the beating death of Mahsa Amini by regime “morality police”, for improperly covering her hair.
Amini, 22 years old, died four days ago.
Reports of the nature of her injuries went viral on social media, leading to protests on the streets of major cities throughout Iran.
With little on the ground sourcing, and gathering assessment that Amini’s death was the match to an already burning conflagration, I turned to two experts covering the events.
Communicating via direct messaging with Robert Spencer, author and director of JihadWatch.org, I asked if my assessment of the origins of these protests were over target. “The Iranian protests have been touched off by the killing of Mahsa Amini for not wearing her hijab properly, but they have become the occasion for expression of the Iranians’ general dissatisfaction with the Islamic regime.” He responded. “The Biden administration has taken only perfunctory and cursory notice, as they’re still pursuing the illusion that they can pacify Iran by means of a new nuclear deal.”
This intrigued me. Are we seeing yet another opportunity for Western spotlight and support, not unlike that of the Green Student movement, under the Obama Administration?
Spencer replied in the affirmative.
“In this (nuclear deal) the Biden Administration is betraying the people of Iran just as Obama did when he refused to support popular protests during his administration, for fear of harming his negotiations with the mullahs”, he wrote.
Exiled activist and author Heshmat Alavi was once vilified and temporarily suspended online due to an article by The Intercept (citing anonymous “high ranking sources”) claiming his was a fake account handled by multiple members of “MEK Opposition”. The article was disproved, and his account restored. Alavi, in exile somewhere in Europe, has taken to Twitter over the last week to post constant reports and videos out of Iran.
“Why is Mahsa’s death the catalyst for change?” I asked Alavi in correspondence.
“I believe this is a social issue that touches every Iranian. The nation is fed up with the mullahs’ rule and their oppressive policies.” He wrote. “The mullahs have imposed their oppression, such as mandatory hijab, through cruel measures and the Mahsa’s murder was the straw that broke the camel's back for the Iranian people. They are saying enough is enough and will not tolerate neither the regime’s mandatory hijab nor any other policies.”
What is the goal? “They want this regime gone and are launching protests to bring the entire system down to establish a free, democratic, and secular republic based on the people’s vote.” Alavi responded.
Are the students the leaders? In some ways, yes, he confirmed, but “the real leaders, however, I believe are groups of young Iranian women that are encouraging the people to join their ranks and voicing specific anti-regime slogans. There are many videos where one can hear a group of 3-4 young women chanting political slogans such as:
“Death to Khamenei!” – “Death to the dictator!” – “Death to oppressors! Be it the Shah or [Khamenei]!”
“Who are these women associated with?” I asked. Alavi wrote, “My experience shows these groups of young women are mostly, if not all, members of the network of “Resistance Units” associated to the Iranian opposition—People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
In their latest annual gathering in July the PMOI/MEK showed footages of 5,000 such Resistance Units members in Iran. So, this opposition has quite a network capable of leading protests in Iran.”
Continuing this line of thought, I asked Alavi if, along with the Green Student movement in 2009 and aging religious leaders, Iranians have had enough of the extreme policies?
He responded, “The Iranian people have long wanted an end to the mullahs’ regime after they hijacked the 1979 revolution. The first “Death to Khomeini!” slogans were chanted in demonstrations back in 1981,” he wrote. “There have been a long list of uprisings through the past four decades where the Iranian people have shown their utter hatred of the mullahs’ regime.”
Alavi continued, “However, thanks to the West’s appeasement policies, especially during the eight years of Obama in the White House, the Iranian regime has been able to impose its deadly crackdown with impunity.”
When asked if competition with their Arab neighbors wouldn’t impact their policies against women (and the West), Alavi responded, “In this regard, the Iranian regime’s senior figures have never looked to other countries. The mullahs ruling Iran have established their rule based on domestic crackdown and foreign terrorism/warmongering. Any decrease in domestic crackdown will be the beginning of the end for the mullahs’ regime.”
He continued, “They saw this vividly in the November 2019 uprisings— how people began torching all the regime’s banks and other government buildings (later to do the same in 2020, responding to COVID policies and severe austerity measures). Khamenei himself ordered his forces to open fire on the (2019) protesters and quell the demonstrations at all costs.”
“If the international community continues to provide impunity for the mullahs’ atrocious human rights violations,” Alavi wrote to me, “The mullahs will feel confident to launch more massive crackdown measures against Iran’s brave protesters.”
Later this evening, reports have surfaced that the regime has begun their violent retaliation. Amnesty International reports. tonight, that government security forces fired indiscriminately into protestors. “A barrage of gunfire unleashed on protesters has left at least eight people dead and hundreds injured,” it wrote on its website.
I asked Alavi why the Mainstream Media has all-but refused to cover the ongoing protests. “Western media are following…this modus operandi as to not anger the mullahs’ regime, especially since the Biden administration is focused on entering a new—and highly flawed—nuclear deal with Tehran.” He responded. “And, as we saw in 2015, the first and foremost victim of this appeasement policy is (and will be) the Iranian people.”