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JINA MAHSA AMINI
The face of Iran's protests. Her life, her dreams
and her death.
In memory of Jina 'Mahsa' Amini, the cornerstone of the 'Zan.
Zendagi. Azadi revolution.
16 February 2023 | By Gino d'Artali
And also
Read all about the assasination of the 22 year young Jhina Mahsa
Amini or Zhina Mahsa Amini (Kurdistan-Iran) and the start of the Zan,
Zendagi, Azadi (Women, life, freedom) revolution in Iran
2022
and the latest news about the 'Women Live Freedom' Revolution per month in 2023:
October 31 - 16 --
October
15 - 1
--
September 30 - 16
--
September 17 - 1
--
August 31
- 18 --
August 15
- 1--
July 31 - 16
--July
15 -1--June
30 - 15--June 15-1--May 31 -16--
May 15-1--April--March--Feb--Jan
And
For all topics below that may hopefully interest you click on the
image:
all updates October 20, 2023
'BIOLOGICAL |
'BLINDING |
BIOLOGICAL TERROR ATTACKS |
BLINDING AS A WEAPON |
<Persian social media is full of young people who say they were shot in the eye
by security forces>
Iranwire - October 14, 2023 - By AIDA
GHAJAR
<<Blinding as a Weapon: An Iranian-German Eye Surgeon's Dedication to Help His
Compatriots
Professor Amir Mobarez Parasta, an Iranian-German eye surgeon and head of Munich
Eye Center, has dedicated a major part of his life to helping Iranians who lost
one or both eyes during the 2022 nationwide protests. After protester were
killed and maimed all throughout the <Woman, Life, Freedom> movement, Dr.
Parasta and his colleagues in the Munich Circle, a non-profit human rights
organization, helped a number of injured protesters seek asylum in Germany on
humanitarian grounds. But this is not the whole story. In Germany, we
accompanied Dr. Parasta on a visit to his father's graveside where he told us
about his father, who had died a few months earlier, and his reasons for
choosing eye surgery as a profession and as to redeem what he saw as a debt to
his family and his country of birth. Supporting protesters who have suffered eye
injuries, and feeling their pain, has given Dr. Parasta a new motive to seek
justice for them. He hopes for a day when the culprits of these injuries are put
on trial in a just court, and to be able to testify in that court, as an eye
doctor and medical expert. There is no shortage of psychological stress
involved. Imagine it: people who have been injured in one or both eyes during
the bloody crackdown of protests by the Islamic Republic have now reached Munich
in Germany and Dr. Presta's clinic. They pass through the corridor and sit,
anxiously, in the waiting room. They anticipate about his diagnosis, sit behind
the machine, and are examined. Their whole being turns into their eyes and ears
waiting to learn what the doctor has to say.
Will their damaged eye or eyes ever see again? Or will the damaged organs need
to be taken out?
In the examination room, this was the first question I asked Dr. Parasta; what
happens to his patients? He seemed to feel that saving all lost eyes is now his
responsibility. With his own eyes red and a lump in his throat, he paused and
said: <It's too hard, but I have to tell them the truth without obfuscation.
This kind of injury is not only a physical injury but also a psychological
injury, a life injury, because it significantly affects their lives. These
people took to the street to save their future and what happened had a very bad
effect on their future.> He took a breath. He spoke about one of the eye injury
victims, who dreamed of becoming a pilot, a dream that now cannot come true.
<Many of the dreams [of these people] will not come true after what happened to
them. But they had not gone to the street to protest just to end up here. They
still hope that they can follow their dreams.>
Deliberate, Not Accidental
Government authorities blinding the eyes of protesters is considered mutilation
- something that international conventions refer to as a form of torture.
Medical documents and analyses by experts in this field are important legal
evidence. Dr. Parasta has reviewed the medical cases of many protesters who have
been injured in the eye - both those who are still inside Iran and those who
have left their country. Now he tells IranWire confidently that the injuries
have not been accidents but the result of deliberate and targeted shootings.
<The state of the injuries shows that [the assailant] made a decision as to
which eye to shoot at and sometimes targeted both eyes and has fired twice,>
says Dr. Parasta.
Terrorizing people and paralyzing activists are among the goals of targeted
shootings at the eyes of protesters. <Many are willing to die but not be
blinded,> Dr. Parasta says. <A person who loses both their eyes questions their
life. Behind this feeling of depression lies a loss of energy and a loss of the
will to live. It means that you have completely paralyzed a person and all
members of their family. When [the injured person] cannot have a life, they are
paralyzed as well.> All over the world, when there are anti-government
demonstrations, the authorities might use violence and firearms to deal suppress
them; but what happened in Iran was a level of brutality and savagery that was
unbelievable for many. <Everywhere in the world, the police may get involved in
dealing with demonstrations but, personally, I did not expect that we would
reach this level of cruelty in Iran,> says Dr. Parasta. <It started with
shooting paintballs, which is an international practice, but then it evolved
into shooting metal pellets and bullets that are used in forestry and
controlling wildlife. They have used bullets that are used to hunt wild
animals.> <It cannot be denied that paintballs can cause blindness as well,> Dr.
Parasta add. <But when we move from paintballs to pellets, blindness is almost
inevitable if the eye is hit. When the paintball hits the eye from close range,
the eyeball is ruptured, because the paintball is flexible; but when pellets are
used, they go through the eyeball and invariably hit the retina and the nerve.
As a result, blindness is almost inevitable. [Such eye injuries] often have the
same pattern. The cornea and the lens are damaged, and the retina is torn
apart.>
The Attempted Assassination of Dr. Parasta's Brother and His Blindness
But is there another story hidden behind the selfless dedication and work of
this doctor? According to Dr. Parasta, his father, Mohammad Javad, was a lawyer,
a religious intellectual and an advisor to a cabinet minister. Before the 1979
Islamic Revolution, he believed he could propose a constitution for Iran that
would conform with Islamic tenets. After the Revolution, the Islamic Republican
Party asked him work with them as a legal scholar. But Mohammad Javad saw that
his idea of Islam in power was different from the goal of Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, founder of this regime, and other members of the Islamic Republican
Party. What they wanted was a religious dictatorship that they called Velayat-e
Faqih or the <Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist>. When Mohammad Javad refused
to agree with them, he was banned from teaching at the university; when he
resorted to printing and distributing statements, the threats over the telephone
began. Finally, one morning, an attempt was made on the life Amir Mojahed, Dr.
Parasta's elder brother. The attempted assassination was unsuccessful, but its
physical and psychological aftereffects turned the life of the family
upside-down. Dr. Parasta's older brother, who was 16 years old at the time, was
on his way to school and wanted to cross the highway between Tehran and Karaj. A
truck without a license plate was waiting in ambush and drove towards him and
struck him down. Amir Mojahed fell on the highway. But at that same moment, a
certain Colonel Ghavami, who was driving to work, arrived and like an angel of
mercy took him to hospital. The doctors took the young man to the ICU and said
he might be braindead.
Dr. Parasta's brother survived - but he did have serious brain and eye injuries.
After two months, he was released from the hospital, alive but blind in one eye.
He and his father left Iran, seeking further treatment abroad. And then, in
September 1980, the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq started. With the
emotional and financial support of their mother, the other two brothers left
Iran as well, on a plane where all passengers were under 18 years old. The
moment that the plane left Iranian airspace, they started congratulating each
other, like prisoners who had been released from jail, because they knew that
would not be sent to the front and, unlike thousands of other young people, they
would not be sacrificed to the autocracy of the despots Ayatollah Khomeini and
Saddam Hussein.
<I Will Testify in Court>
The family had difficult years in Germany. They had left their mother back in
Iran and the two brothers, one of whom was suffering from the physical
disabilities of the injury inflicted on him by the Islamic Republic, lived in a
small room and continued their studies. They also had to work to survive, while
studying, which made life even more difficult. Dr. Parasta succeeded in becoming
an eye surgeon, one of the most difficult medical fields, and he later founded
one of Germany's most important eye clinics. But he never imagined that the
Islamic Republic would once again invade his life in such a manner. Now it was
his turn to save his compatriots from the brutality of a government which had
never done anything for them except make their lives a living hell. <When I see
these people, it is exactly like witnessing my brother's story, both in the
methods used and the damage done to them,> Dr. Parasta says. With this life
experience and his horrifying, firsthand observations of the crimes committed by
the Islamic Republic, Dr. Parasta has reached a point where he cannot but add
another goal to his mission in life. <Anywhere in the world where there is an
honest legal system, each of these cases [eye injuries] should be dealt with. We
have had these cases across the country. It must stop at some point and some day
it must be dealt with in court. On that day, you can rest assured that I will be
one of the witnesses and, as an expert, I will tell the justice system what I
have seen.> >>
Source:
https://iranwire.com/en/blinding-as-a-weapon/121515-blinding-as-a-weapon-an-iranian-german-eye-surgeons-dedication-to-help-his-compatriots/
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Liberation Front 2019/cryfreedom.net 2023