ECOCIDE TOO - COLD WAR 2.0

Swedes refuse Russian request for pipeline probe info

In this picture provided by Swedish Coast Guard, the gas leak in the Baltic Sea from Nord Stream photographed from the Coast Guard's aircraft on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2022. A fourth leak on the Nord Stream pipelines has been reported off southern Sweden. Earlier, three leaks had been reported on the two underwater pipelines running from Russia to Germany. 

(Swedish Coast Guard via AP)

Tue, October 11, 2022 

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Sweden’s prime minister says that her country cannot share with Russia details from its probe into last month's underwater explosions that ruptured two key gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, citing confidentiality surrounding the investigation.

“In Sweden there is secrecy around preliminary investigation and that also applies in this case,” Magdalena Andersson said of the blast and ruptures that happened in international waters off Sweden's Baltic coastline but within the country's exclusive economic zone.

The explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which until Russia cut off supplies at the end of August was its main gas supply route to Germany. They also damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which never entered service as Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February. The damaged pipelines discharged huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the air.

Russia formally asked Sweden’s government to be part of the Swedish investigation in a letter dated Oct. 6.

“We’re still working on how we exactly formulate the answer,” Andersson said Monday at a naval base in southern Sweden.

In its preliminary investigation, Sweden’s domestic security agency said last week that its probe “has strengthened the suspicions of serious sabotage” as the cause of the blasts. Sweden’s prosecutor in charge of the investigation said evidence at the site has been seized.

The Swedish Security Service said the probe confirmed that “detonations” caused extensive damage to the pipelines. Authorities had said when the four leaks off Sweden and Denmark first surfaced that explosions were recorded in the area.

In a separate statement, Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said “seizures have been made at the crime scene and these will now be investigated.” Ljungqvist, who led the preliminary investigation, did not identify the seized evidence.

In Denmark, authorities remained tight-lipped about its investigation. Denmark broadcaster TV2 reported from the site that ships with the Danish and German navy ships were in the area.

German federal prosecutors, who investigate national security cases, also have opened an investigation against persons unknown on suspicion of deliberately causing an explosion and anti-constitutional sabotage.

The German investigation comes on top of the Danish and Swedish probes but are carried out with the European Union framework.

German federal prosecutors said the reason for them getting involved as well is that an attack on energy supplies could affect Germany’s external and domestic security. On Sunday, authorities said that two German boats had set off for the area where the leaks occurred to look into what happened.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of attacking the pipelines, which the United States and its allies vehemently denied.

Germany opens investigation of Baltic gas pipeline blasts

In this photo provided by the Armed Forces of Denmark, a view the disturbance in the water above the gas leak, in the Baltic Sea, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022. Following the suspected sabotage this week of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that carry Russian natural gas to Europe, there were two leaks off Sweden, including a large one above North Stream 1, and a smaller one above North Stream 2. 

(Rune Dyrholm/Armed Forces of Denmark via AP)

Mon, October 10, 2022 

BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors on Monday opened an investigation into the suspected sabotage of two gas pipelines built to bring Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

Undersea explosions late last month ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which until Russia cut off supplies at the end of August was its main supply route to Germany. They also damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which never entered service as Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

German federal prosecutors, who investigate national security cases, said they have opened an investigation against persons unknown on suspicion of deliberately causing an explosion and anticonstitutional sabotage.

Prosecutors said that there is sufficient evidence that the pipelines were damaged by at least two deliberate detonations, and the aim of their investigation is to help identify the perpetrator or perpetrators as well as a possible motive.

The German investigation comes on top of a probe in Sweden. A prosecutor there said last week that evidence had been seized at the site.

The governments of Denmark and Sweden previously said they suspected that several hundred pounds of explosives were involved in carrying out a deliberate act of sabotage. The leaks from Nord Stream 1 and 2 discharged huge amounts of methane into the air.

German federal prosecutors said the reason for them getting involved as well is that an attack on energy supplies could affect Germany's external and domestic security. On Sunday, authorities said that two German boats had set off for the area where the leaks occurred to look into what happened.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of attacking the pipelines, which the United States and its allies vehemently denied.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

SO WHAT
Gazprom: NATO mine destroyer was found at Nord Stream 1 in 2015

The logo of Gazprom is displayed on a screen during the Saint Petersburg 

international gas forum in Saint Petersburg


Mon, October 10, 2022

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A spokesperson for Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Monday that a mine destroyer discovered at the Nord Stream 1 offshore gas pipeline in 2015 belonged to NATO.

Nord Stream reported on that date in 2015 that a "munitions object" had been cleared by the Swedish armed forces, without giving more detail on the object.

Gazprom spokesperson Sergei Kupriyanov told Russian state television on Monday that a NATO device, called a SeaFox, was retrieved from a depth of around 40 metres (125 feet) and made safe.

"Gas transportation, halted because of the incident, was restored," he said, according to a published extract from his TV appearance.

Gazprom owns 51% in Swiss-based Nord Stream AG, operator of Nord Stream 1.

An international investigation is underway into a rupture, discovered late last month, in the Russian-built Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines on the bed of the Baltic Sea.

The pipelines, which have become a flashpoint in the Ukraine crisis, have been leaking gas into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark and Sweden.

Europe suspects an act of sabotage that Moscow quickly sought to pin on the West, suggesting the United States stood to gain.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Jan Harvey and Ron Popeski)

ECOCIDE
Leak detected in pipeline that brings Russian oil to Germany

 A general view of a pumping station at the end of the Druzhba oil pipeline in the east German refinery PCK in Schwedt, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007. A leak was detected in an oil pipeline in Poland which is the main route through which Russian crude oil reaches Germany, the Polish operator said Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. The operator, PERN, said it detected a leak in the Druzhba pipeline, which originates in Russia, on Tuesday evening about 70 kilometers (45 miles) form the the central Polish city of Plock. 

(AP Photo/Sven Kaestner, File) 

Wed, October 12, 2022 

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A leak was detected in an underground oil pipeline in Poland which is the main route through which Russian crude reaches Germany, the Polish operator said Wednesday.

The operator, PERN, said it detected a leak in the Druzhba pipeline, which originates in Russia, on Tuesday evening about 70 kilometers (45 miles) from the central Polish city of Plock.

It said the cause of the leak wasn't known. The incident follows leaks late last month in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines running along the Baltic seabed.

The Druzhba pipeline, which in Russian means “Friendship,” is one of the world’s longest oil pipelines, and after leaving Russia it branches out to bring crude to points including Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Germany.

Firefighters were working in the cornfields near the village of Zurawice to determine the exact point of the leak, according to a spokesman for firefighters, Brig. Karol Kierzkowski. He told the state all-news broadcaster TVP Info that approximately 400 cubic meters of spilled crude had been pumped out, and transmission along the line had been blocked.

Last year, Russia accounted for around 35% of Germany’s crude oil supply. But that proportion has been reduced following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, and Germany's focus now is on phasing out the remaining supplies before a European Union embargo on most Russian imports goes into effect next year.

A month ago, the German government took control of three refineries owned by Russian energy company Rosneft, which account for about 12% of Germany’s oil refining capacity.

Poland investigates leak in key pipeline carrying crude oil from Russia to Europe


George Glover

.Reuters
Wed, October 12, 2022 

Polish authorities are investigating a leak in the Druzhba crude oil pipeline

Polish operator PERN found a leak in the Druzhba oil pipeline on Tuesday.

Europe is fretting about the state of its energy infrastructure with some analysts warning crude prices could surge to $150 a barrel.

The leak was likely an accident rather than sabotage, a Polish minister said.

Polish authorities are investigating a leak in an oil pipeline carrying crude from Russia to Germany as Europe frets that issues with its energy infrastructure will reduce supplies and push prices even higher.

Operator PERN halted flows through one of the Druzhba system's northern legs after detecting a leak on Tuesday.

"At this point, the causes of the event are not known – the flow in the damaged thread was immediately turned off," it said in a statement.

The Druzhba pipeline is split into two sections, with the northern channel supplying oil to Germany and Poland. It has pumped about 490,000 barrels a day to the two countries in recent months, according to Reuters.

Russia has weaponized its energy exports in retaliation to western sanctions imposed after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

It has slashed the capacity of key pipelines to Europe including Nord Stream and supported the OPEC+ cartel's refusals to boost oil production despite the US pushing the bloc to increase its output.

Tumbling oil supply from Russia could push prices up to $150 a barrel, JPMorgan analysts warned last month.

Europe has fretted that supply could fall further if Russia sabotages its energy infrastructure after leaks were detected in the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines.

German authorities have accused Russia of sabotaging the pipeline system after Denmark and Sweden discovered damage had been caused by hundreds of pounds of TNT.

Poland's top energy official, Mateusz Berger, told Reuters that initial assessments suggested that Druzhba had suffered "accidental damage" – but traders may still be fretting about Europe's energy supplies.

Brent crude jumped as much as 1.2% to $94.96 after news of the leak broke Wednesday, while WTI crude climbed 1.4% to $89.77. Both benchmarks traded roughly level at last check.

Read more: This map shows where Europe gets its natural gas - and why economic disaster is looming if Russia cuts off its fuel supply

SHE IS CORRECT

Ilhan Omar equates women protesting Islamic law in Iran with abortion fight in US

Jessica Chasmar

FOX NEWS

Mon, October 10, 2022 

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., drew comparisons between women risking their lives to protest Islamic law in Iran to women fighting for abortion rights in the United States.

During a campaign rally to re-elect Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Friday, Omar said pro-life Republicans are challenging women’s bodily autonomy, much like Iran’s oppressive clerical regime led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Dozens of people throughout Iran have been killed by police and thousands arrested in protests ignited by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

"As we watch the brave, incredible young girls in schools in Iran who are standing up to teachers, young women in buses and in public streets who are saying ‘no’ to the morality police – because there is no morality in trying to oppress women," Omar said. "There is no morality in forcing people to participate in a religion they don’t want to. And there is no morality in believing government’s our God.

"So we know the women in Iran are bravely chanting, ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ for their rights, for their right to bodily autonomy," she continued. "So, here in the United States, when the right extremists are challenging our bodily autonomy, we have to stand up and say, ‘Women, Life, Freedom.’"

Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill on Sept. 29, 2022. Jemal Countess/Getty Images for We, The 45 Million

Omar made the comments in front of a raucous crowd of students at the University of Minnesota, where Ellison, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., were also in attendance.

"We are here to do one single thing, and that is to protect and preserve our democracy," Ellison said, Minnesota Public Radio reported. "What is on the line is whether or not the United States, starting in Minnesota, will remain a democratic, multiracial society that respects everyone's rights."

Omar made headlines in July after she was one of more than a dozen members of Congress arrested by Capitol Police during a abortion rights protest outside the Supreme Court after it overturned Roe v. Wade.

Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. Olivier Douliery/Abacapress.com

"Today I was arrested while participating in a civil disobedience action with my fellow Members of Congress outside the Supreme Court. I will continue to do everything in my power to raise the alarm about the assault on our reproductive rights!" Omar tweeted on July 19.

Video shows Canada protest against Iran's government, not Iranians 'celebrating supreme leader's death'


Rachel YAN, 

AFP Hong Kong
October 11, 2022 

Following massive protests in Iran triggered by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, a video was viewed tens of thousands of times in social media posts that claim it shows Iranians celebrating the death of the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The posts circulated as Khamenei made his first public comments since Amini's death, in which he accused arch-foes the United States and Israel of fomenting a wave of nationwide unrest. But the video in fact shows a protest in Canada's Ontario province against the Iranian regime. As of October 11, there have been no official reports that Khamenei has died.

"The whole of Iran celebrated 'Khamenei is dead!'" reads the caption of this Twitter video in simplified Chinese characters.

It has been viewed more than 32,000 times since it was published on October 3, 2022.

The 52-second clip appears to show dozens of people chanting on the street while waving Iranian flags.

Texts superimposed onto the video also in simplified Chinese translate as: "This country is having a nationwide celebration / It seems the big boss has died!"

Screenshot of the misleading Twitter post, taken on October 7, 2022

The September 16 death of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, while in the custody of Iran's morality police has sparked a major wave of protests and a crackdown that has left dozens of demonstrators dead.

Amini, 22, died in Tehran three days after being arrested for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code for women that demands they wear hijab headscarves and modest clothes.

At least 95 protesters have died in the crackdown, according to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights.

The same video alongside a similar claim was also shared here and here on Twitter; and on US social media site Gettr here and here.

The posts circulated as Khamenei made his first public comments since Amini's death, in which he accused arch-foes the United States and Israel of fomenting a wave of nationwide unrest, AFP reported.

However, the claim is false. The video was actually filmed in Canada during a protest against the Iranian government.

As of October 11, there have been no official reports that Khamenei has died.

Ontario rally

A keyword search on YouTube found a slightly longer version of the same video published on YouTube here on October 1.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in the online posts (left) and the YouTube video (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video shared in the online posts (left) and the YouTube video (right).

Bearing the hashtag "IranProtests2022", the video is captioned: "Iran Freedom Rally happening in Richmond Hill right now. Woman Life Freedom."

Richmond Hill is a city in Canada's Ontario province.

A further keyword search found the same location here in Richmond Hill, as shown below on Google Street View:


Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in the online posts (left) and the same location on Google Street View (right). AFP highlighted corresponding features in circles.



Screenshot comparison of the video shared in the online posts (left) and the same location on Google Street View (right)

On October 1, protesters rallied against the Iranian regime around Richmond Hill Public Library on October 1, according to this tweet from the library's official account.


The regional police force warned people to expect "increased crowds and traffic delays due to a demonstration" in Richmond Hill.

Similar scenes of the same protest were also included in news reports by Canadian news outlets here and here.

VIDEO

The Iranian Canadians behind the art of Iran's protest movement | Watch (msn.com)

'Every one of us was a Mahsa': Iranians in Canada cut hair at women's rights rallies

OTTAWA — Azin Rezaeian kneels on the ground and screams "Say her name" each time she snips off a chunk of her long black hair.

'Every one of us was a Mahsa': Iranians in Canada cut hair at women's rights rallies

© Provided by The Canadian Press

A crowd around her shouts back "Mahsa Amini," the 22-year-old woman whose death in Iran has sparked protests like this one around the world.

Rezaeian, who moved to Ottawa about a year ago from Iran, shared the video of herself to draw attention to what she said are human rights abuses against women in the country.

It was taken at a rally last week in the capital, one of many demonstrations across Canada where supporters have called for decisive action by the government to condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran.

"It's not about Mahsa, it's about all of the women who live in Iran. Every one of us was a Mahsa," Rezaeian said in an interview.

Protests have erupted across Iran since Amini died in police custody this month after being arrested, allegedly because her head scarf was too loose.

In response, women have burned their hijabs during large-scale protests across the country, prompting Iranian security forces to push back amid scenes of violence and street clashes uncommon in the Middle Eastern country.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that Canada will sanction senior Iranian officials, while some Liberal MPs, including Ali Ehsassi, have said the United Nations must do more on a global scale.

The Conservatives also want Canada to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the country's military, as a terrorist group.

Some experts, meanwhile, have warned that both demands may be difficult to implement.

Rezaeian, who said she was arrested eight times by the morality police who took Amini into custody, said she wants the Canadian government to be a voice for women in Iran.

The first time she was arrested for allegedly wearing her head scarf improperly, she was only 16. The experience turned her into an activist for women's rights, she said.

Related video: Mahsa Amini's death in Iran brings worldwide solidarity

Duration 2:06   View on Watch

Rezaeian said she now fears for friends who are in custody, including a journalist whose photo of Amini in hospital drew international attention. Rezaeian said she didn't want to leave Iran or her family behind, but she moved to Canada for fear of the police.

"Every night I have a nightmare about prison, I have nightmares about my friends who are in prison," she said.

Rezaeian isn't alone in hoping to draw attention to the issue in Canada. Thousands gathered for a rally in Vancouver on the weekend, while others have protested in Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto.

An Iranian student at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., who asked to be referred to only as D.D. because she fears for her safety, joined others in taking scissors to her hair.

The gesture is a nod to Amini, who was allegedly arrested because her hair peeked out from her hijab. D.D. said she cut her hair to symbolize the pain Iranian women are feeling.

"That was basically the only thing I could do at that moment to make this, our word, spread more so people realize we are suffering from some pain," D.D. said.

Another woman who participated in the protest at the Burnaby campus said she hopes the rallies help amplify the message of protesters in Iran.

She wants to see the Canadian government cut ties with the Iranian government, she said.

"We want to reach out to every country to ask their governments not to negotiate with this regime," she said.

She also said she wants to see repercussions for anyone with links to the morality police living in Canada. That wish was echoed by Rosa Kheirandish, one of the organizers of the protests in Ottawa, who said the protests were not about getting rid of head scarfs.

"We are not against the hijab. We are pro-freedom of choosing what you want to wear, where you want to wear it," Kheirandish said.

Kheirandish added that she fears there will be more deaths in Iran, where internet access has been cut, making it more difficult to get updates on the situation on the ground.

However, she also said she has been heartened by the movement in Canada.

"I never knew that many Iranian people lived here in Canada. We never gathered for any cause like this, we were never united like this," she said.

Additional rallies are planned in Ottawa for Oct. 2 and Oct. 4, she said.

— By Amy Smart in Vancouver

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2022.

Factbox-Death of young Iranian woman puts spotlight on morality police


A newspaper with a cover picture of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by Iranian morality police, is seen in Tehran


Mon, October 10, 2022 


DUBAI (Reuters) - Britain said on Monday it had sanctioned Iran's so-called morality police, saying the force had used threats of detention and violence to control what Iranian women wear and how they behave in public.

The death last month of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in morality police custody sparked protests across Iran, with demonstrators calling for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Citing her death and the subsequent protests, Britain said it had sanctioned the morality police in its entirety, as well as both its chief, Mohammed Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi, and the Head of the Tehran Division, Haj Ahmed Mirzaei.

Here are some facts about the force - known as the Gasht e Ershad or guidance patrols - which has also been sanctioned by the United States. The force is tasked with detaining people who violate Iran's conservative dress code. It aims to "promote virtue and prevent vice".


- The morality police, attached to Iranian law enforcement, are mandated to ensure the respect of Islamic morals as described by the Islamic Republic's top clerical authorities.

- The typical unit consists of a van with a mixed male and female crew that patrols or waits at busy public spaces to police behaviour and dress considered improper.

- People apprehended by the morality police are either given a notice or, in a few cases, taken to "correctional facilities" or a police station where they are lectured on how to dress or act morally before being released to their male relatives.

- Fines are sometimes given, although there is no general rule about pecuniary punishment.

- In Islam, hijab refers to what is deemed modest attire. Under Iran's sharia, or Islamic law, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures.

- Decades after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, clerical rulers still struggle to enforce the law, with many women of all ages and backgrounds wearing tight-fitting, thigh-length coats and brightly coloured scarves pushed back to expose plenty of hair.

- The morality police are often made up of and backed by the Basij, a paramilitary force initially mobilized to fight in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

- Basij have a presence in every Iranian university to monitor people's dress and behaviour, as higher learning is where Iranian male and females meet for the first time in a mixed educational environment.

HISTORY

- The fight against "bad hijab" is as old as the Islamic Revolution, which has erected the conservative dressing of women as one of its pillars.

- Over the revolution's early years, the state gradually imposed rules to enforce the wearing of Islamic attire by women.

- Buoyed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's claims in favour of hijab after the Shah's 1979 fall, revolutionaries took it upon themselves to enforce their leader's positions by attacking unveiled women in the streets and shouting "Woman, wear a veil or eat my hand".

- Following several circulars shared by senior clerics and ministers, unveiled women were no longer allowed in public buildings and the non-wearing of the veil became punishable by 74 lashes after a 1983 law.

- Iran's new rulers struggled to control self-styled elements such as the Jundallah group, which patrolled streets to "combat bad hijab", and so they decided to institutionalise a morality police.

- Under reformist President Mohammad Khatami, state fervour to control dressing and behaviour in public spaces subsided, but at the end of his term in 2005, the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution adopted a resolution entitled "strategies to develop a culture of chastity".

- Under Khatami's successor, the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the morality police took their current Persian name of Guidance Patrols (Gasht e Ershad) and increased their presence in the streets of Iran's large cities.

- The need for a morality police was subsequently debated in the 2009 presidential elections, with reformist candidates calling for the dissolution of the force. However, no action has so far been taken to remove it, and many videos continue to be shared online of their sometime heavy-handed approach.

(Writing by Michael Georgy, Editing by William Maclean)

Iran's morality police sanctioned by UK for 'repression of women'


Newspapers with Amini, a victim of country's "morality police", are seen in Tehran

Mon, October 10, 2022

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain said on Monday it had sanctioned senior Iranian security officials and the country's "so-called Morality Police", saying the force had used threats of detention and violence to control what Iranian women wear and how they behave in public.

The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody has sparked protests across Iran and internationally, with demonstrators calling for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Citing her death and the subsequent protests, Britain said it had sanctioned the morality police in its entirety, as well as both its chief, Mohammed Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi, and the Head of the Tehran Division, Haj Ahmed Mirzaei.

"These sanctions send a clear message to the Iranian authorities – we will hold you to account for your repression of women and girls and for the shocking violence you have inflicted on your own people," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

Iranian authorities have described the protests as a plot by Iran's foes, including the United States.

The sanctions were made using British laws designed to encourage Iran to comply with international human rights law and respect human rights. They mean that those individuals named cannot travel to Britain and any of their assets held in Britain will be frozen.

Last week, the foreign ministry said it had summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires, Iran’s most senior diplomat in Britain, over the crackdown on the protests.

(Reporting by Muvija M and William James, editing by Sarah Young, William Maclean)

Protests galvanize Iranians abroad in hope, worry and unity

Many in the diaspora community say they feel an unprecedented unity of purpose and affinity with the demonstrations at home.

FILE - Iranians who live in Brazil protest against the death of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who died in Iran while in police custody, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022. As anti-government protests roil cities and towns in Iran for a fourth week, sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by Iran's morality police, tens of thousands of Iranians living abroad have marched on the streets of Europe, North America and beyond in support of what many believe to be a watershed moment for their home country. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)

October 12, 2022

By 

Sylvia Hui

LONDON (AP) — As anti-government protests roil cities and towns in Iran for a fourth week, tens of thousands of Iranians living abroad have marched on the streets of Europe, North America and beyond in support of what many believe to be a watershed moment for their home country.

From those who fled in the 1980s after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution to a younger generation of Iranians born and raised in Western capitals, many in the diaspora community say they feel an unprecedented unity of purpose and affinity with the demonstrations at home sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by Iran’s morality police.

“I see this as a turning point for Iran in many ways — we’ve always had political fault lines that divided us, but this time it’s people saying, ‘I’m with women’,” said Tahirih Danesh, 52, a human rights researcher who lives and works in London. “It’s phenomenal, it’s happened at such speed, and this sense of camaraderie among Iranians has been amazing.”

In the past month, large crowds of people of Iranian origin in dozens of cities from London to Paris to Toronto have turned out every weekend for rallies in solidarity with protests that erupted in Iran after Mahsa Amini died in custody after she was detained for allegedly violating strict Islamic dress codes for women.

Many say they have been kept awake at night by a mixture of hope, sadness and apprehension – hope that their country may be on the brink of change after decades of oppression, and fear that authorities will unleash more violence in an increasingly brutal crackdown that has seen dozens killed and hundreds arrested.

Some, like Danesh –- whose family smuggled her and her siblings out of Iran in the 1980s to escape persecution — say the images of protesters being violently suppressed by authorities recall afresh the trauma of similar scenes around the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“I’m thousands of miles away, it’s 40 years later but the images I see are bringing it all back, it’s as if I’m reliving it again,” Danesh said.

While Iran has seen waves of protest in recent years, many agree that this time the resistance feels broader in nature and in scope because it challenges the fundamentals of the Islamic Republic. Some say they have never seen the likes of global solidarity for Iran shown by politicians, intellectuals and celebrities, many of whom have cut off locks of their hair in a gesture of support of Iranian women.

“Before, many of us outside had a distanced view of what’s happening inside, we couldn’t find the same connection. But today Iranians inside are calling for fundamental change. They’re saying ‘retrieve my Iran’,” said Vali Mahlouji, 55, an art curator in London who left Iran in the 1980s. He said he is self-exiled because his work deals with censored artists and art history.

“This unites every Iranian I know, all the different generations of exiles,” he added. “People who have been out of Iran most of their lives are feeling restless and sleepless. I don’t know anyone who is not sympathetic, and of course, not worried.”

The Iranian diaspora is large, including not just those who fled soon after the 1979 revolution, but also later waves leaving Iran because of continued repression or economic woes. More than half a million live in the U.S., and France, Sweden and Germany have communities in the hundreds of thousands, with major centers in Los Angeles, Washington, London, Paris and Stockholm.

In Paris, 28-year-old Romane Ranjbaran was among thousands last week who came out despite a heavy downpour and marched, sang and chanted “Khamenei get out” in Persian and French, referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Several women cut off locks of their hair and threw them in the air joyfully.

Ranjbaran, who grew up in France, said she felt “stricken” by what’s happening in Iran.

“Iran is part and parcel of my history. My mom has known a free Iran when women were free,” she said, as her mother and other family members stood by her side at the rally. “It’s an international fight. If we want the situation in Iran to improve, we need international support.”

The 1979 revolution ousted the U.S.-backed shah, the monarch whose rule was resolutely secular but was also brutally repressive and plagued with corruption. The revolution joined leftists and other political factions including Islamists, who after the shah’s fall seized total power and created the Islamic Republic, ruled over by Shiite Muslim clerics.

Some expatriates have been wary of joining protests because they have family in Iran and regularly travel back and forth. Some raised concerns about the suspected presence of Iranian intelligence agents or extremist factions.

Others say they felt some unease about the protests’ aims beyond the unifying cry of “Women, Life, Freedom” and the leaderless nature of the protests.

“I love my country, I want to show support, but every time I go I’m also confused because in every corner of the demonstrations there’s a different chant,” said Amanda Navaian, a luxury handbag designer in her early 40s who has attended all the recent weekend rallies in London.

Navaian said she wanted to attend protests “for as long as it takes,” and has even made plans to potentially organize one herself. She wasn’t sure demonstrations abroad will make a real difference, but she said it was crucial “to show we care.”

At the very least, she knows she is doing something to dispel what she described as pervasive negative perceptions of Iran and Iranians.

“Islam was forced upon us, this extremism is not who we are. Our country has been hijacked — we were a country of music, dance and poetry,” Navaian said.

“People were coming up to me in Trafalgar Square to ask, ‘What are you doing?’ and I explained why we were there,” she added. “Through these demonstrations there’s more awareness. Maybe now the international community should wake up to what’s happening.”

___

Jade Le Deley in Paris contributed to this report.

 With Regime Strongholds Joining Protests, Iran's Leaders Appear Nervous

Karl Vick
Tue, October 11, 2022 

A motorcycle on fire in Iran's capital Tehran on Oct. 8, 2022, amid the biggest wave of social unrest in almost three years
Credit - AFP/Getty Images

Evidence is accumulating that protests in Iran, now in their fourth week, may be seriously undermining the regime. While government forces continued to knock heads in the streets, the head of the Judiciary on Monday publicly spoke of “mistakes…weaknesses and failures” by a government that has never previously acknowledged anything remotely resembling fault. “Citizens or political groups should know that we have an ear for protests and criticism and that we are ready for dialogue,” said Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, a former intelligence minister regarded as among the hardest of Iran’s hardliners; he once bit a journalist.

The striking change in tone came after a sobering weekend for the country’s authoritarian rulers. The protests are far from the biggest the Iran has seen – in 2009, hundreds of thousands marched to protest a stolen election. But the current unrest appears to have penetrated the bedrock of the Islamic Republic. Over the weekend, protests took place in Tehran neighborhoods long regarded as regime strongholds, including Naziabad, Fallah, and Valiasar. Historically, those districts have produced Basiji, the state-sponsored paramilitary who enjoy state patronage and pour into the streets to break up protests. (In 2009, middle-class protesters chanted, “Basiji go home, no free meal today”). Now the same neighborhoods are producing the kind of unrest the Basiji would typically be called to extinguish. In one ambiguous but much-discussed snippet of footage, uniformed police are seen not confronting the protesters but walking beside them.

“They’re not typical areas for protest,” notes Tara Sepehri Far, the Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The crack has gotten much much closer to them,” she said, of the regime, “much closer to their base.”

“I’m not sure you can call it their base now, because a base has to be loyal to you,” adds Maziar Bahari, editor of the London-based IranWire. On Tuesday, the news site reported that security forces are plagued by low morale, defections, and private fears the armed forces may collapse. The site quoted an unnamed former security official as saying: “The question of many in the military and security forces is: ‘For what? For this government that’s corrupt from top to bottom?”

On Saturday night, the government’s slipping control was broadcast nationwide. Activists briefly commandeered state television during the main newscast, interrupting a report on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with a placard depicting Khamenei in crosshairs and the words “The Blood of Our Youths Is on Your Hands.” The placard also featured a photo of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old whose death in the custody of “morality police” sparked the protest, as well of as the images of three young women killed while protesting her death. “Join us and rise up,” the card read. The soundtrack was the protest chant, “women, life, freedom.”

After a few seconds the screen returned to a live shot of an anchorman looking understandably hapless. The IRIB, or Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, is the regime’s main propaganda arm, and directly controlled by Khamenei. Press reports described the episode as a “hack,” but an IRIB spokesman pointed out that, since the broadcast was not online, it was actually an act of “infiltration” carried out from within the organization.

“The Islamic Republic’s collapse—while not inevitable—is no longer inconceivable,” Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst for the Carnegie Endowment, tells TIME. “It will eventually go the way of the Soviet Union, but the timing of when it happens and what comes next is entirely unpredictable. The question is whether the regime can crush these protests without further enflaming them and while keeping their security forces intact. They’ve succeeded in doing so in every mass uprising up until now, but the geographic scope and intensity of these protests have been unprecedented.”

“Street protests may be contained with repression,” Sadjadpour added. “But if large and sustained strikes begin among petrochemical workers and the bazaar, things could start to unravel quickly.”

Read More: Why Students Joining Iran’s Protest Wave Matters

In fact, as Ejei spoke on Monday, oil workers at state-owned petroleum facilities in two provinces called a strike in support of the protests, marching and chanting, “Death to the dictator” and “Don’t be afraid, we stand together.” The next day, the strike reportedly spread to a refinery at Abadan. Petroleum forms the basis of Iran’s economy.

The regime appeared to be under assault from every side. When President Ebrahim Raisi ventured on Saturday to Al-Zahra University, an all-women’s school, the hand-picked audience listened respectfully while hundreds of students outside the hall chanted, “Get lost, Raisi.”

Videos emerging from the country toggle between horror and heart-lifting. In one, a mother calmly describes the condition of her daughter’s corpse after its release by security forces: “Her teeth were crushed and there was a big cavity at the back of her skull.” Another documents schoolgirls chasing away the middle-aged men dispatched to tell them to put back on their headscarves.

The regime appears uncertain of its footing. In putting down previous protests, authorities played successfully on Iranians’ sense of nationalism, nursing latent fears that unrest might serve as a cover for separatist movements among the country’s ethnic Kurdish, Baluchi, and Arab minorities. Amini’s death appeared to transcend all that. She was an ethnic Kurd who had been visiting Tehran when she was abducted and allegedly beaten for “inappropriate hijab,” or religious dress. The first protests were outside the hospital where she was declared dead on Sept. 16, then in her hometown. But within days they had erupted in more than 80 cities across the country — including Qom, the holy city. The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights says it had documented 185 protester deaths in 17 of Iran’s 31 provinces.

Read More: The Iranian People’s 100-Year Struggle for Freedom

The authorities have concentrated forces on the Kurdish region — firing artillery across the border into opposition camps in Kurdish territory inside Iraq, and, on Monday night, launching a brutal sweep of the streets in Kurdish cities inside Iran. But so far the protesters appear to be united in opposition to a regime that over four decades in power has grown more isolated and oppressive, especially toward women. Days before Amini died, a woman in the Iranian Kurdish city of Marivan leapt to her death from her own apartment to escape being raped by a neighbor. After local women protested systemic violence against women, Iranian Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Ensieh Khazali praised the victim for choosing to protect her honor over her life.

At the other end of the country of 84 million, regime forces killed some 90 people in the ethnic Baluch city of Zahedan, where a protest for Amini blended with a local outrage: the rape of a 15-year-old by a local police official. Protesters in Tehran claimed the victims as martyrs.

Read More: The Protests in Iran Have Shaken the Islamic Republic to Its Core

“The solidarity beyond ethnic lines still holds, largely,” says Sepehri Far of Human Rights Watch. “The protests, as I understand it, are widespread. They’re not huge in numbers. If you remember in 2009, it was very concentrated in a political movement. This one feels very scattered, and across ethnic divide in a way that is, again, different. There’s a new connectivity.”

No one claims to know where events are headed. In a Sept. 28 interview with TIME, the internationally renowned human-rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh spoke of “a very real possibility of regime change.” Sociologist Asef Beyat, author of Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East, cautiously observed in an interview with the Iranian daily Etemad that the spontaneous nationwide outrage over Amani’s death bore parallels with the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor whose self-immolation over repeated humiliations by city officials led to the Arab Spring. But for Iranians, the first point of reference remains the 1979 revolution that brought the mullahs to power.

“It’s a lose-lose situation for them, really,” said Bahari, adding that Iranians know Ejei, the Justice chief, “as a conniving, insincere person.” In any event, his offer of “dialogue” can hardly be answered. The protests are entirely leaderless, and the regime has dismantled every organization of the civil society that might be pressed into service as a go-between.

“Who are they going to bargain with?” asks Sepehri Far. “The labor unions they closed? The teachers they put in prison? The political parties they outlawed?”

Headcovers have always been political in Iran – for women on all sides

Eliz Sanasarian, 

Professor of Political Science and Gender and Sexuality Studies, 

USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Mon, October 10, 2022 

THE CONVERSATION

Iranian newspaper headlines about the protests that started

 with death of Mahsa Amini. 

Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

A friend and I were strolling through Tehran’s streets one afternoon when she was approached by a member of the “morality police,” an agency tasked with enforcing modesty laws in public. First, the policewoman warned her to cover her hair by pulling forward her scarf. Next, she was ordered to remove her sunglasses.

“What do you have there?” the policewoman asked loudly, examining my friend’s green eyes for makeup. There was none, but her stare was full of hate. “Behave yourself!” the policewoman warned.

As we walked away, my friend stopped, turned and looked back at her, pulling the scarf back again while putting her sunglasses back on. Her husband lamented, “Woman, one of these days you will be arrested, and if lucky you will be alive when I come to pick you up from the police station.”


This was 30 years ago. Similar scenes still play out daily. Since mid-September 2022, when a young woman named Mahsa Amini died in detention after being detained for not wearing her headscarf “properly,” protests against the morality police and the broader regime have erupted across the country and from sympathizers around the world.

Acts of defiance, big and small, have continued uninterrupted across multiple generations. Women’s activism has been constant, as has their imprisonment.
Role of the state

In Persian culture, the main variation of the veil has historically been the chador, a long cloak covering the body from head to toe, which the wearer holds closed in front of her.

Early women’s groups did not push back against it. Instead, they focused mainly on raising the marriage age, granting more rights to women in cases of divorce and custody and allowing girls to attend school. During the 1920s, some began to address the veil, as I wrote about in my book on the women’s rights movement.

This was a risky move. For example, when a woman’s magazine in the city of Mashhad published an editorial in favor of unveiling and equal rights, the editor’s house was looted and she had to flee, though she continued her work in other cities.

Women’s rights pioneer Sediqeh Dowlatabadi. 'Iranian women in Mashrouteh movement,' by Abdolhossein Nahid/Wikimedia Commons

Around the same time, in the city of Isfahan, another publication owned by a feminist who advocated unveiling barely escaped a mob attack. The journalist, Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, left instructions that no veiled woman should be allowed to participate in her burial or visit her grave.

The founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty, Reza Shah, banned the veil in 1936 as part of his modernization program. By most accounts, this edict left an overwhelming majority of women, who had been veiled most of their lives, in a state of shock and isolation. Many did not leave their houses until the state allowed the wearing of hats and scarves.

When Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Shah in 1941, the prohibition was disbanded and headcovers returned in full force. During his reign the veil became optional in public.

The Board of directors of Jam'iyat-e Nesvan-e Vatankhah, or Society of Patriotic Women, a women’s rights association in Tehran in the 1920s and 1930s. 

Wikimedia Commons

Yet the psychological and cultural aspects were rarely discussed or debated. I recall schoolmates of mine who were unveiled in school, but when our bus reached their neighborhood, they covered their heads before disembarking. Duality was the name of the game.
Role of the revolution

With the fall of monarchy in 1979 and the subsequent rise of the Islamist government, the headcover issue returned with a vengeance.

At this stage not only were many women wearing chadors, but a second variation of headcover emerged: an often but not always black veil that fit the head closely and a coatlike covering that loosely covered the body. During the past few decades, however, women have been allowed to wear a scarf instead.

The first demonstrations against the new rules were held in 1979 when authorities declared that female government employees must wear the hijab and lasted five days. The compulsory hijab went into effect in June 1980, sparking demonstrations by women dressed in black attire as a symbol for their loss of freedom. All women’s demonstrations were met with violence.

There were many women – often referred to as traditional, religious or pro-regime – who favored forced veiling, as there are today. Yet, it is never easy in Iran to speak of positions along simple party lines. There were practicing Muslim women who were veiled but opposed forced veiling. On the other hand, there were men and women on the left who did not see a problem with forced headcovers, arguing there were more important issues to be addressed.

During the early days of the revolution, female members of recognized religious minorities such as Zoroastrians and ethnic Christian groups opposed the forced headcover as well. They argued that the government’s order went against the constitution, which permitted every community to adhere to its own traditions. A small group of women wore their traditional historical attire in public, as a substitute, but were ordered to stop.

By 1985, all minority school girls were ordered to wear the Islamic headcover and full body attire. Teachers instructed mothers to cover their daughters’ heads while testing them on spelling and dictation at home, in order for the children to get used to hearing muffled words through the headcover.

The critical significance of the hijab in the state’s eyes was best expressed by the first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: “if the Islamic Revolution had no other outcome but the veiling of women, this in and of itself is enough for the Revolution.”

Veiled girls in Tehran in 1986.

Eslami Rad/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Pushing back

Women in Iran have never been passive. To the contrary, they have put the regime on the defensive whenever possible by employing their own logic and interpretations of Islam. The state elite have been pontificating on gender for more than 40 years, and women’s rights activism has been just as constant.

What the authorities did not seem to realize was that their own comments and actions sparked women’s consciousness. Every time they compared Muslim women with Western women, arguing that women have been oppressed in the West but not in Islam, they raised awareness. And every time authorities admitted that oppression of women was ongoing in Iranian society, they raised demands. At one point, pro-regime women protested against lax dress codes for men, and authorities were forced to admit that they too must observe modest dress codes and behavior.

The last 10 years have brought two extremely important developments. First is the sharp rise in education levels among women and girls. Today, the majority of university students are women. Yet their participation in the labor force is only 17%, and according to the Global Gender Gap report, Iran ranks 143rd out of 146 countries for gender equality and economic participation. With education comes rising expectations; unfulfilled expectations foment deep frustration and anger.

Second is the role of the internet and social media. Research shows that in the age of leaderless movements, they are powerful tools for mobilization. The problem is that governments also have access to these tools – and strong security forces.

These transformational forces are powerful instigators of discontent and go far beyond a headcover issue. Today’s protests began with the hijab but have expanded to include economic frustrations, desire for freedom, the environment and other issues.

In the past, major demonstrations were crushed, including the 2009 uprising when protesters claimed incumbent president Mahmud Ahmadinejad had stolen the election. But regardless of how the current protests turn out, they underscore that the headcover issue is not going away – and has the potential to amplify anti-regime sentiments in Iran and abroad.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Eliz Sanasarian, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Read more:

Why Muslim women choose to wear headscarves while participating in sports

US and Iran have a long, troubled history

Eliz Sanasarian received funding from United States Agency for International Development Grant (with several colleagues), 2006-2009 for work on street children and HIV/AIDS in Kenya, Africa.