On Iran and More (Call it the "Iran Propaganda Thread" if you wish)

Pro-Freedom · May 11, 2017

JAILED HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER IN POOR HEALTH: ATENA DAEMI

09-05-2017:..Following 31 days of hunger strike in Tehran's Evin prison, Iranian human rights defender Atena Daemi is in poor health, and requires immediate hospitalization. She has been unjustly imprisoned for her human rights activities since November 2016.
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https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/6189/2017/en/

Mani · May 12, 2017

One of the candidates running in a small city north of Tehran. She's probably gonna get a lot of votes lol:

Mani · May 13, 2017

An Arab women has been appointed the governer of Ahvaz where most Iranian Arabs live. Arabs only make up less than 5% Iran's population, yet they have ministers, governors and the national security adviser portfolio in Rouhani's government.

Not to mention that you can not find an Arab woman governor in any Arab country, but you can find one in Iran where Arabs are a tiny minority, yet these Wahhabis are so shameless that they talk about Arab rights in Iran. If this Arab woman lived in Saudi Arabia, she couldn't even go out alone, vote or drive a car, let alone run a regional government.

اهالی «کارون» از انتخاب «معصومه خنفری» به عنوان فرماندار این شهر می‌گویند
از كانال تلگرام @mowlaverdi pic.twitter.com/wQt70lcZZ9
— blocked (@blockedbyalll) May 13, 2017

Mani · May 13, 2017

Women in Saudi Arabia = cattle owned by their Wahhabi husbands who can't even get out of the house without their "Male Guardian"...

Women in Iran = Vice-President, Ministers, Governors, Olympic medalists, Pilots, Members of Parliament, Warriors, Doctors, Lawyers , Writers, Musicians, Film Directors, Professors, and 60% of all the University Graduates...

Mani · May 14, 2017

One week to go until the Presidential and Local elections in Iran. Amazing scenes in Tehran:

Pro-Freedom · May 15, 2017

Iranian Kurds (non-PKK-affiliated) standing up to terrorists.

2 IRGC Members Wounded by Gunmen on Iraq-Iran Border

15-05-2017: Armed confrontations erupted between unidentified gunmen and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the early hours of Monday in the Kurdish border area of Hawraman, located on the Iraq-Iran borderline, while the IRGC soldiers attempted to attack the Kurdish border backpack couriers known as Kolbers.

Relying on local witnesses, the Kurdistan Voice website reported that two IRGC members were wounded while they were passing the borders of Iran-Iraq attempting to target the Kolbers.

Due to harsh economic situation of Kurds in Iran, thousands of people are risking their lives by transporting goods between Iran and Kurdistan Region for a living. The Kolbers are facing a real threat of being targeted by the Iranian border guards who regard them as smugglers.
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http://www.basnews.com/index.php/en/news/middle-east/350499

Iranian Monitor · May 15, 2017

Well, Tehran mayor Ghalibaf dropped from the race, to endorse Raisi. I would have preferred he wouldn't.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ions-tehran-mayor-drops-out-to-back-hardliner
Iran presidential elections: Tehran mayor drops out to back hardliner
Mohammad-Baghar Ghalibaf steps aside to boost campaign of Ebrahim Raisi against reformist incumbent Hassan Rouhani

Pro-Freedom · May 15, 2017

For Iran’s ethnic minorities, whoever wins the election they lose

With Iran’s presidential election soon taking place, media in the country are constantly reporting on tensions between Iranian hardliners and so-called reformists as contenders are vying for the leadership.

Whatever the outcome of the election, however, Iranian people are well aware that it is essentially a cosmetic exercise. In essence, the election is a contest to become the highest-ranking servant to the supreme leader. No candidate will be brave enough to address the injustices against the country’s ethnic minorities, which would be political suicide under the current regime.

Regardless of whether the candidate is a nominal reformist or hardliner, he would not be allowed to stand for election, let alone make leadership decisions once elected, without first obtaining Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s approval. The Guardian Council, whose members are also appointed by the supreme leader, vets all candidates’ applications.

The outside appearance of democracy, through a choice of different candidates, gives enough semblance of electoral choice to please Western countries.

In its census, taken every ten years, Iranian governments have avoided recording ethnicities to keep non-Persian communities in the dark about their true sizes, allowing the state to downplay their significance. Available figures are pretty much guesswork but estimates are: Up to 8 million Arabs, 10 million Kurds, 20 million Azeris and 40 million Persians. Smaller ethnic groups make up the rest of Iran’s population, which is estimated to be more than 80 million.

For Iran’s Ahwazi Arabs, as well as for other minorities, the choice is even more farcical. Elections in Iran, like the doctrine that shapes the country’s constitution, are based on a mixture of theocracy and Persian supremacy, with policy issues second to sect and ethnicity.

Kamil Alboshoka, a prominent Ahwazi rights activist asked: “How can Ahwazi people pin any hope on this election while they’re considered worthless by the [Iranian] regime, their language is banned, their identity denied and their environmental wealth destroyed and stolen?”

Reza Fathollanejad, an Iranian- Kurdish journalist, voiced similar scepticism about the value of the election.

“If you look at all of the past presidential elections, the Kurdish people have always chosen two options. The first is voting for the candidate who is said not to be the leader’s favourite and the second is to boycott the election,” he explained. “The boycott choice has always been a significant option in Kurdistan compared to the other regions of Iran based on the official statistics and, even then, Kurds have said that the level of participation is far lower than the level shown by the government.”

Babek Chalabiyanli, the spokesman of the Azerbaijan National Resistance Organisation, was also contemptuous, calling the election a “sham.” Chalabiyanli said the regime’s brutal repression and imprisonment of Turkish Azeri human rights activists mean that the wisest course is to boycott the election rather than taking part in an undemocratic, predetermined vote.

With no possible benefit from voting, particularly for Ahwazis or other minority groups in Iran, there is a persuasive argument that the best way for ethnic minority voters to register their unhappiness about this farcical situation and lack of choice is to simply refuse to vote. A widespread lack of public participation is a safe way for minorities to express their frustration at a system that marginalises and oppresses them.

Under the current grim reality in Iran, ethnic minorities suffer systematic oppression and denial of their most basic human rights under a fundamentalist theocracy whose sole concern is maintaining its own power.

The election in Iran is a public relations exercise, a piece of political theatre that has nothing to do with Iranians’ lives but that sends a message to the rest of the world promoting the regime’s favourite lie that it has acquired the characteristics of democracy and moderation.
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http://www.thearabweekly.com/Opinio...norities,-whoever-wins-the-election-they-lose

Iranian Monitor · May 15, 2017

The Iraqi Kurdish site, ruddow, which often posts anti Iran articles, had this article which speaks volumes about the effort to have the Kurds boycott Iran's elections.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iran/14052017
Record number of candidates run for city councils in Iran’s Kurdistan

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region— Over 83,000 candidates have registered in Iran’s Kurdistan to run for offices in city and provincial councils as the country goes to polls on Friday.
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Mani · May 15, 2017

Even the biggest separatist Kurdish party, the Iranian offshoot of PKK, is encouraging people in the Iranian Kurdistan to vote in the elections this time, and yet we have a Wahhabi here telling us that elections don't matter in Iran. lol

Mani · May 15, 2017

If only someone someday could run on a promise to improve women's rights in Saudi Arabia, as these candidates are promising to do for animal rights in Iran. Oh wait, Saudi Arabia doesn't have any elections. And nowadays, animals have more representation and rights in Iran, than women do in Saudi Arabia. True story.

Mani · May 15, 2017

Young Iranians campaign for Rouhani on the streets carrying big signs that read: We are in the middle of the way and won't go back... pic.twitter.com/eh2Jg8D0Ln
— Negar Mortazavi نگار مرتضوی (@NegarMortazavi) May 13, 2017

Pro-Freedom · May 15, 2017

Ahwazi National Resistance Took the Responsibility of Today’s Operation

15-05-2017:..According to Rojikurd, in an operation carried out by an armed group affiliated to Ahwazi National Resistance on an Iranian headquarter in Ahwaz, two Iranian officers Ali Bakhsh Hasanwand and Aizollah Bahmani were killed and a soldier Hossein Albobald was wounded.
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https://kurdistanvoice.net/2017/05/...-took-the-responsibility-of-todays-operation/

Mani · May 16, 2017

The poor oppressed Arabs of Ahwaz seen at a Rouhani election rally. They look so sad.

ستاد انتخاباتی روحانی #خرمشهر شهر خون و قیام :)#انتخابات96 pic.twitter.com/oySjyRDRi4
— AmiR Rashidi (@Ammir) May 16, 2017

Oh and look at these Azeri Turks at another Rouhani election rally in the Iranian Azerbaijan, they look even more oppressed.

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Iranian Monitor · May 16, 2017

In the neighborhood I live, I don't see any posters, signs, or anyone who supports Raisi (all posters and signs are from Rouhani supporters) but yesterday there was a huge rally in favor of Raisi in Terhan. The most interesting aspect of the video to me was the Raisi supporters being interviewed in the video, many of whom women whose appearance and their "hijab" (or lack thereof) would never paint them as Raisi supporters in my mind. I think the choice of interviewing such people is an intentional effort by the Raisi campaign to allay fears that if he is elected, he will be after enforcing stricter hijab and the like.

p.s.
below is an campaign video against Rouhani by the Raisi campaign with interesting background music.

Iranian Monitor · May 17, 2017

Mani has already posted videos of Rouhani campaign rallies, but since I have posted videos from the Raisi campaign, here is a video from the Rouhani camp:

p.s.
I support neither candidate, but enjoy the atmosphere from the Rouhani rallies a lot more, with better use of music in particular.
Maybe Iran doesn't have any good choices and I will end up voting for Rouhani (or maybe even Raisi), but the truth is that unlike in 1997 or 2005, I just don't see the choice as being all that meaningful. The only reason for me to vote is to say I don't want anyone to think I am in favor of plunging Iran into chaos and civil war and the like.

Mani · May 17, 2017

The biggest election news is how Raisi has accepted the endorsement of , and met with a notorious "bad boy" Iranian Rapper "Tataloo" who has 5 million followers on Instagram. This has given Rouhani supporters a golden chance to mock the morality of conservatives in Iran , and how low these hardliners can go to get more votes, and how little they really care about "conservative values" they push.

#تتلو:همه فکر می‌کنن«امام رضا» فقط مال آدم‌های مذهبیه.مال همه ایرانه!#رئیسی از پاسخ می‌ماند 😂 pic.twitter.com/8lihEc6kAv
— Farin Assemi (@FareenAssemi) May 17, 2017

آقا:)))) pic.twitter.com/eJBjpY2s2J
— nima dehghani (@nimadehghani) May 17, 2017

Iranian Monitor · May 18, 2017

I am thrilled that Raisi has met with Tataloo, as any movement towards further relaxation of social restrictions in Iran, is going to be far more significant and lasting if undertaken by conservatives and principalists than by reformists.

Tatataloo, incidentally, had initially backed Ghalibaf and is now endorsing Raisi!

Pro-Freedom · May 18, 2017

MASS GRAVE FOUND IN AHWAZ CITY, BELIEVED TO HOLD VICTIMS OF REGIME’S 1980 MASS EXECUTIONS

17-05-2017: Dozens of bodies were reportedly uncovered in a mass grave discovered by municipal workers in the city of Ahwaz before Iranian regime security forces rushed to the scene and demanded that the workers reinter the bodies and not report the discovery.

Iranian regime orders workers to reinter bodies, remain silent on tragic discovery
The bodies were found while the construction workers were using excavation equipment in an area of the regional capital to widen the road there.

The mass grave is believed to contain the bodies of some of the hundreds of Ahwazi dissidents and human rights activists who disappeared in the 1980s when the regime carried out a massive campaign of mass killings in an effort to terrorise the persecuted Ahwazi minority into silence. According to eyewitnesses, the bodies were subsequently covered in a layer of concrete, making it difficult to identify the already largely skeletal remains.

The witnesses reported that the regime security personnel appeared at the scene rapidly following the horrific discovery, demanding that the graves be filled in and ordering the municipal workers not to discuss what they had found. The regime refuses to bury the bodies of dissidents in normal graveyards and typically refuses to allow their families to organise commemorative events to mourn their loved ones. The latest discovery has promoted further anguish amongst many families in the region who had for decades clung onto the slender hope of the eventual return of loved ones who disappeared during the regime’s mass arrests and killings in the 1980s, with many now fearing that their children are among those whose remains are in the mass grave.
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http://www.ahwazmonitor.info/new/ma...hold-victims-of-regimes-1980-mass-executions/

Mani · May 18, 2017

Iranian Monitor said: ↑

I am thrilled that Raisi has met with Tataloo, as any movement towards further relaxation of social restrictions in Iran, is going to be far more significant and lasting if undertaken by conservatives and principalists than by reformists.

Tatataloo, incidentally, had initially backed Ghalibaf and is now endorsing Raisi!
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That's another way of looking at it.

Policy positions and language that were taboo even for reformists 10 years ago, are now common amongst conservatives who have had no choice but to shift their stance to catch up with society. And that means reform is setting the tone on social, political and cultural issues.

Mani · May 18, 2017

Amazing video from Rouhani's rally in Tabriz. Thousands singling along with pictures of Rouhani, Mousavi and Khatami.

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Mani · May 18, 2017

One of the biggest Iranian movie stars, who is an Iranian Kurd, has published a message in Kurdish endorsing Rouhani and asking Iranian Kurds to vote for him.

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Mani · May 18, 2017

First group of Iranians have officially cast their votes, in New Zealand. Polling stations in Tehran will open in less than an hour.

عكسهاى اولين ايرانيانى كه در انتخابات رياست جمهورى امسال راى دادند. دانشگاه #اوكلند، #نیوزیلند. (مرسى از فرستنده) pic.twitter.com/uzTeXNQ7Qr
— بهمن كلباسى (@bbckalbasi) May 19, 2017

There was a party atmosphere all over Iran last night.

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Mani · May 19, 2017

Mani · May 19, 2017

Fantastic pic from a polling station in Tehran. #IranElections2017 have got under way around the world. pic.twitter.com/L6IuHhuU1O
— Farshad Kashani (@FarKashani) May 19, 2017

Been covering #Iran elections for years. Never seen such enthusiasm among expatriates. LA now: #iranElection2017 pic.twitter.com/0tFRTelINI
— Bahman Kalbasi (@BahmanKalbasi) May 19, 2017

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An Iranian voter in Cambridge MA, one of 55 places where Iranians can vote in the US today. #iranelections2017 pic.twitter.com/a2FzXSMA9U
— Jason Rezaian (@jrezaian) May 19, 2017

"We're full of pain, but will never go back. Hopefully on Saturday, we can say we have repeated (our victory)." viral song on #IranElections pic.twitter.com/ViQzxKtJtR
— Bozorgmehr Sharafedin (@bozorgmehr) May 19, 2017