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. Zendegi. Azadi revolution.
16 February 2023 | By Gino d'Artali
And also
Read all about the assasination of the 22 year young Jina Mahsa Amini (Kurdistan-Iran) and the start of the Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Women, life, freedom) revolution in Iran  2022-'23
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When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali.

Jailed Iranian Activist Armita Pavir says "Hope. Don't lose hope."

Iranwire - 23 Nov 2023 - by ROGHAYEH REZAEI
<<Jailed Iranian Activist Armita Pavir on New Hunger Strike
Armita Pavir, a 29-year-old Iranian activist imprisoned in the northwestern city of Tabriz, says she has been on a hunger strike for 10 days, and holds the Islamic Republic accountable for any harm that may befall her. In an audio file received by IranWire, Pavir says launched her hunger strike on November 12, the second since her arrest on September 13, emphasizing that her dreams, life and career have all been taken from her. Speaking with a weak voice, she is interrupted every few minutes by a message saying, <This call is from Tabriz prison.> The activist says she will not relent, declaring that she cannot ignore the countless grieving families and the blood spilled in the authorities' crackdown on dissent. Recent reports emerged from Tabriz prison indicating that Pavir was hospitalized due to her deteriorating health. The young woman was first detained during protests in Tabriz on October 31 last year. Before that, she was suspended and then banned from university for her student activism. Pavir ran a Telegram channel where he shared her daily experiences and emphasized the need to keep up the resistance against the Islamic Republic to bring changes in her country. Security agents have retained her mobile phone and electronic devices and pressured her to sign a letter of apology to justify her arrest. The judiciary claims to have arrested her for <financial> reasons, citing a debt she allegedly owed the university for running a cafe at Tabriz Madani University. However, an informed source has told IranWire that this is merely a pretext, as she remains incarcerated despite having paid the debt and damages. In the audio file, Pavir confirms that the financial accusations are fabricated and describes being pressured to sign a <letter of repentance> since the first day of her detention. According to Pavir, the city's prosecutor forced her into a meeting in Tabriz prison. <They told me to write a letter of repentance and express regret... but I explicitly stated that I'm not sorry or regretful, and if given the chance again, I would take the same actions,> she says. <Our discussion continued, and the prosecutor bluntly declared that anyone who opposes this system [the Islamic Republic] is a traitor,> she adds. <He was so enraged and narrow-minded that he shouted in the hallway that 'no one has the right to assist this woman.'> In response, she shouted that <no one desires assistance from you or your kind.> Pavir details the harassment she has faced since her arrest, stating that <from the moment I arrived, various officials spoke to me repeatedly to persuade me to write a letter of repentance.> She explains that her refusal to sign the letter and her interaction with the prosecutor led to the extension of her detention. While similar cases typically take 10 to 15 days to reach court, this process took three months in Pavir's case. During this time, a judge ruled she should remain incarcerated.
Pavir explains that after observing her positive interactions with other inmates, prison officials transferred her to a cell on a separate floor reserved for minors. However, she says the cell also houses a woman accused of murder and another who faces the death penalty for drug trafficking.
<If I am a financial prisoner, why am I not in a financial ward [of the prison]?> she asks. Pavir said she first went on a hunger strike to protest her transfer to a cell outside the general and financial crimes ward and the relentless pressure she endured. <They didn't allow me to shop on my own,> she says. <I had to write a list and have other people buy things for me. As time went on, they increased the psychological pressure. The prison warden confiscated my notebook for no reason, even though I was using it to learn handicraft skills. When I walk in the yard, people constantly follow me around, eavesdropping on my conversations with others.> <This system, despite its arsenal of weapons, media outlets and despite its use of punishments, threats, and all forms of repression, feels so weak that it fears a women activist like me,> she continued. <If I talk to a fellow prisoner for five minutes, the prison's order is disrupted.> Pavir reveals that she ended her first hunger strike after receiving promises from prison authorities that she would be transferred to the ward housing financial prisoners by November 10. <They didn't keep their promise, so I resumed my hunger strike and will not end it under any circumstances,> she says. <With each passing day, I become increasingly aware of my capacity for resilience and bravery.> <The end of this path is clear to me, not only for me but for all of us,> according to the activist, who ends her audio message by saying: <Hope. Don't lose hope.> >>
Source:
https://iranwire.com/en/women/122793-jailed-iranian-activist-armita-pavir-on-new-hunger-strike/

and


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS IN IRAN
NCRI - Womens committee - 23 Nov 2023 - in Podcast, Women's News
<<State-sponsored and Institutionalized Violence against Women and Girls in Iran
With the International Day to Eliminate Violence against Women and Girls approaching, we're shedding light on the disturbing reality of violence against women and girls in Iran. It’s crucial to underscore that what women endure isn't just sporadic; it's state-sponsored and institutionalized violence.
Violence against women persists globally. How does it differ in Iran?
In Iran, the government not only fails to protect women from violence but actively endorses it through laws and actions. This endorsement has led to a drastic rise in violence against women and girls, including shocking instances of beheadings by husbands and fathers. Research indicates an alarming prevalence, with statistics suggesting a disturbing trend, often unreported due to lack of transparency.
In 2020, an Iranian expert, a sociologist, said Iran ranks first in the world as far as domestic violence against women is concerned. Another research said two out of every three Iranian women experience domestic violence in Iran. This figure is double the world average which is one in every three women are victims of domestic violence. The clerical regime systematically promotes various forms of violence against women and girls, perpetuating physical, mental, economic, and political abuse. The lack of comprehensive prosecution further exacerbates this dire situation.
How is violence against women institutionalized within Iranian law?
Iranian laws, disturbingly, facilitate violence.
For instance, the legal age of marriage for girls is shockingly young, enabling early and forced marriages at 13 and even younger with the permission of the father or paternal grandfather. The laws empower men within households, even allowing them to perpetrate violence without repercussions. When a battered woman calls for help, the police is not allowed to enter the house. The judges are also instructed to return the battered woman or girl to their family, instead of providing her shelter and protection from the abusive father or husband. A stark example is that of the 14-year-old girl Romina Ashrafi who had run away. She pleaded to the judge not to be returned home, but the judge did not heed her pleas, and she was subsequently beheaded by her father. Shockingly, before committing this heinous crime, her father had checked with a lawyer making sure that he would not be executed for killing his daughter. The law sanctions a father’s murder of his children, saying that he owns their blood. Instances like Romina Ashrafi's tragic story highlight how the law fails to protect women and girls, enabling heinous acts and disregarding their safety. The law not only fails to protect but condones these atrocities, granting impunity to perpetrators. It’s critical to note the dire absence of women's voices and rights in these matters. One of the most distressing forms of state-sponsored and institutionalized violence against Iranian women arises during encounters with authorities enforcing Hijab laws. The mandate of guidance patrols (Morality Police) is to apprehend women not adhering to proper hair covering and transport them to a detention center in downtown Tehran. Unfortunately, these arrests are never peaceful. Women often resist, and the patrols resort to violent means to take them away. In the detention center, women are abused and mistreated to sign written commitments to cover their hair properly.

JINA AMINI
Before Mahsa Amini, a sick woman with a heart condition was taken to that detention center and died after release. Then came Mahsa’s tragic incident with Mahsa Amini, sparking a nationwide uproar lasting six months. Later, an elderly woman passed away at a tourist site in Kerman after harassment by Bassij agents in the area.

ARMITA GEVARAND
And most recently, in October, we saw the case of 17-year-old Armita Geravand. Like Mahsa, she suffered a brain hemorrhage and brain death due to trauma inflicted by Hijab patrols on a metro train. We've delved into the societal aspects of state-sponsored and institutionalized violence against women and girls in Iran. However, the scope extends to the execution of women, rampant flogging, and stoning as punishments for exercising basic human rights. When the regime is brutal towards ordinary women, I can only imagine the horrors faced by those actively opposing the regime through protests and leadership. The atrocities against female protesters last year were chilling. What more can you tell us about that? Those opposing the regime face vicious violence. Last year, the regime callously killed young women on the streets, surrounding and fatally beating them with batons.

NIKA SHAKARAMI
Nika Shakarami, Sarina Esmailzadeh, Sarina Saedi, Mahak Hashemi, Ghazaleh Qassemi, Sadaf Movahhed-just a few among many who met this fate. Kidnappings and abductions of female protesters, even doctors aiding them, resulted in rape and torturous deaths. Dr. Ayda Rostami's family revealed her horrifying injuries-her eye enucleated, nose and cheek bones smashed. It's meant to instill fear and deter protests, rather than addressing the public's grievances. Repression and economic crises persist, fueling discontent, yet these brutal methods are the regime's response. They knowingly pay the price for freedom. Like the previous generation who resisted the regime’s repression in the 1980s. Thousands of women from the opposition MEK and other groups were killed under torture or executed by firing squads. From 10 and 13 years olds to elderly mothers, and pregnant women. This ruthless history persists in today's methods of torture, echoing the regime's brutal past, impacting Iran's history and fostering a spirit of resistance among the younger generations.
Source:
https://women.ncr-iran.org/2023/11/23/state-sponsored-and-institutionalized-violence/

Iranwire - 23 Nov 2023
<<HRW Denounces Patterns of Abuses in Iran's Baluchistan
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission investigating rights violations in Iran to probe the use of excessive force by security forces on protesters, particularly in areas with large ethnic and religious minorities such as the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan. <Security forces fired <birdshot> shotgun pellets, rubber bullets, and tear gas and beat and otherwise assaulted protesters on September 29, 2023, and again on October 20> in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan, the New York-based human rights watchdog said in a statement on November 22. The protests commemorated the deadly repression on September 30, 2022, in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan, which is home to Iran's Sunni Baluch minority of up to 2 million people. On this day, known as Zahedan's Bloody Friday, security forces employed unlawful lethal force, resulting in the deaths of nearly 100 people, the largest number of casualties on any day during the anti-establishment protests that rocked Iran last year. <Iranian authorities are as committed as ever to brutally crushing protests of their own people who demand fundamental change,> said Tara Sepehri Far, senior Iran researcher at HRW. <Security forces also appear to deploy excessive and lethal force even more quickly in cities like Zahedan that have large ethnic and religious minority groups.> HRW said it had interviewed four witnesses to this year's September 29 and October 20 protests and verified 14 videos posted to Telegram between September 29 and October 5. <These show that on September 29, security forces were armed with shotguns and machine guns and deployed tear gas against protesters, beating them with batons> outside Zahedan's Makki Mosque, HRW said. The group quoted witnesses as saying that <security forces shot at protesters with birdshot and paintball pellets to their upper bodies, beat them with batons, and arrested large numbers of protesters, including children.> Photos shared by activists show tear gas and shotgun cartridges marked as originating from Maham Manufacturing, HRW said, adding that munitions from this company were <commonly used during the crackdown> on last year’s widespread protests. Witnesses said that in the days leading up to the anniversary of Bloody Friday, security forces in Zahedan positioned themselves on streets and intersections and arbitrarily stopped people heading toward Makki Mosque for Friday prayers, checking their identification papers and inspecting their mobile phones to find any videos or photos related to the previous protests. According to the human rights group Haalvsh, which reports on violations in Sistan and Baluchistan, security forces arrested at least 216 people, including dozens of children, in the cities of Zahedan, Khaash, Mirjaveh, and Chabahar in Sistan and Baluchistan between September 29 and October 1. Security forces beat many of those arrested, Haalvsh found. After authorities violently cracked down on protests between September 29 and October 1, Haalvsh said that military and security forces blocked off all streets and alleys surrounding the Makki Mosque on October 20. The group reported that security forces beat protesters with batons, reportedly arrested hundreds of people, including many older people and children, and took them to detention centers. On October 24, Amnesty International reported that on October 20, hundreds of people, among them dozens of children as young as 10, were forcefully apprehended, and that a significant number remained unaccounted for. The London-based group said that detainees, both children and adults, have experienced torture and other abuse, including severe beatings and injuries from close-range paintball shots. Data by the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) project shows that as the anniversary of Bloody Friday approached, Sistan and Baluchistan experienced a recurrence of near-total internet shutdowns. Meanwhile, the authorities have pressured the families of the victims of Bloody Friday to stay silent in exchange for financial compensation, which most families rejected, instead demanding accountability for those responsible for their relatives' deaths. <Over the course of the last year, the people of Sistan and Baluchistan have been regularly demonstrating against an autocratic government,> Sepehri Far said. <Rather than addressing their demands, Iranian authorities have resorted to harsh repression and the arbitrary detention of both adults and children. The United Nations Fact-Finding Mission should thoroughly investigate these violations and provide recommendations for achieving accountability.> >>
Source:
https://iranwire.com/en/provinces/122798-hrw-denounces-patterns-of-abuses-in-irans-baluchistan/

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*In memory of the brave women who laid down their lives
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