Why The U.S.’ Largest Shale Gas Basin Misses Out On The LNG Boom
Editor OilPrice.com
Sun, October 16, 2022
Regulatory hurdles are stymieing growth in natural gas production in the Marcellus-Utica basin, the largest U.S. gas-producing region, which is set to miss out on the expected boom in American liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports in the coming years.
Not only is Marcellus-Utica missing the opportunity to export and monetize natural gas in a world scrambling for LNG supply, but it is also unable to provide more natural gas to the regions close to it in New England, analysts and the pipeline industry say.
In one of the most ironic twists in American energy these days, the U.S. Northeast is importing LNG from foreign producers to meet its gas demand.
New England’s predicament is the result of the regulatory hurdles the U.S. states in the Northeast have posed to natural gas pipeline infrastructure, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America says. The association calls for permitting reform and regional support to pipeline companies that are ready to build infrastructure but have seen a lot of projects delayed and tied up in lengthy court battles, which have swelled costs.
One such project was the Atlantic Coast project, a pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina along a route that had to pass through the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. In the summer of 2020, despite a major win on the right-of-way issue at the U.S. Supreme Court, the developers of the pipeline definitely scrapped the project due to ongoing delays and major cost overruns.
“This announcement reflects the increasing legal uncertainty that overhangs large-scale energy and industrial infrastructure development in the United States. Until these issues are resolved, the ability to satisfy the country’s energy needs will be significantly challenged,” the top executives of Dominion Energy and Duke Energy said at the time.
Over the past few years, developers haven’t proposed many new gas pipelines in the U.S. Northeast due to permitting issues and bans from states such as New York.
The midstream infrastructure capital has shifted from Marcellus-Utica down to the U.S. Gulf Coast, Kevin Little, senior vice president for natural gas at Macquarie Energy, said during Hart Energy’s America’s Natural Gas conference.
Projects for LNG exports are now being developed in Texas and Louisiana, and despite the fact that greenfield natural gas projects are tough to develop even in Texas and Louisiana, America’s LNG exports are set to double by 2027, Little said.
On the East Coast, the hurdles are greater.
“If you have to get an act of Congress to get your permits to build a pipeline, if you’ve got to go to the Supreme Court and you still can’t build a pipeline, this is not a great environment to build midstream infrastructure,” the expert said, as carried by Hart Energy.
In the U.S., LNG export capacity is growing as new trains at Sabine Pass and Calcasieu Pass came online this year. But in order to continue growing, the LNG industry will need more domestic midstream infrastructure - pipelines - to carry natural gas from production centers to LNG export terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast and demand centers on the Eastern Seaboard.
More pipeline capacity is also needed for New England’s energy demand, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America said last month as energy prices spike in the region.
“Without additional energy infrastructure, New Englanders will continue to face uncertainty and the risk of future energy shortages,” INGAA said in September.
“BandAid fixes” to New England’s gas supply such as suspending the Jones Act to temporarily ease receipt of more LNG imports and federal assistance in paying for New England consumers’ energy bills, “are not lasting or affordable solutions to addressing electric reliability concerns,” INGAA president and CEO Amy Andryszak wrote in an op-ed in Boston Herald last month.
“While all eyes have been on Europe for how their energy crisis will play out, the reality is many American consumers face similar reliability issues here at home, particularly in New England,” Andryszak said, but noted that there’s one significant difference between New England and Europe.
“The U.S. is the No. 1 gas producer in the world, and New England is a stone’s throw away from the most prolific natural gas resource basin in the country — the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia,” Andryszak wrote.
“Rather than hoping to get their hands on an LNG tanker when in a bind, New England could expand American energy infrastructure and change course for future generations.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Putting Kurds in spotlight, Iran's leaders try to deflect national protest
: Smoke rises from the Iraqi Kurdistan headquarters of the Kurdistan Freedom Party
1
Mon, October 17, 2022
By Parisa Hafezi and Daren Butler
DUBAI (Reuters) -Facing their biggest challenge in years, Iran's religious leaders are trying to portray the angry protests over the death of Mahsa Amini as a breakaway uprising by her fellow Kurds threatening the nation's unity rather than its clerical rule.
Amini, a 22-year-old from Kurdistan province in northwest Iran, died in the custody of the Islamic Republic's morality police after she was detained for violating strict codes requiring women to dress modestly in public.
Protests which started at Amini's funeral in her Kurdish hometown of Saqez spread rapidly across the country, to the capital Tehran, cities in central Iran, and the southwest and southeast where Arab and Baluch minorities are concentrated.
Across the country, including at universities and high schools, the rallying cry "Women, Life, Freedom" and the same calls for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were heard, yet much of the crackdown by security forces focused on the northwest where most of Iran's estimated 10 million Kurds live.
Riot police and Basij paramilitary forces have been transferred to the area from other provinces, according to witnesses, and tanks were sent to Kurdish areas where tensions have been particularly high.
Iran has also attacked Iranian Kurdish armed groups in neighbouring Iraq it says are involved in the unrest. Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired missiles and drones at militant targets in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where authorities said 13 people were killed.
"The Kurdish opposition groups are using Amini's case as an excuse to reach their decades-long goal of separating Kurdistan from Iran, but they will not succeed," a hardline security official said.
His comments were echoed by a former official, who told Reuters senior security officers were concerned that "the support Kurdish people are getting from across Iran will be used by Kurdish opposition groups to push for independence."
Iranian state media have called the nationwide protests a "political plot" ignited by Kurdish separatist groups, particularly the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).
'SEPARATIST THREAT'
"Since the very start of the uprising the regime has tried to portray it as a Kurdish ethnic issue rather than a national one, invoking a separatist threat emerging from the Kurdish region," said Ali Fathollah-Nejad, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut.
Those efforts by authorities had been undermined, Fathollah-Nejad said, by significant solidarity between Iran's different ethnic groups during the nationwide protests.
Still, looking across their border to Iraq, and further west to Syria, Iranian authorities can point to Kurdish ambitions for self-rule taking root when central government was challenged.
In Iraq, Kurds who for years fought Saddam Hussein won enough Western military protection after the 1991 Gulf War to establish a degree of autonomy, which was strengthened when Saddam was toppled 12 years later in a U.S.-led invasion.
Syrian Kurdish forces also exploited the tumult of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, allying with the United States against Islamic State and carving out a swathe of northeast Syria under their control.
In Turkey, where around a fifth of the 85 million-strong population is Kurdish, Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants have fought an armed insurgency against the state since 1984 in which tens of thousands of people have died.
In Iraq and Syria, Kurds have demonstrated in solidarity with the protesters in Iran. In Turkey, a deputy leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party told Reuters the party "salutes the women in Iran" calling for their rights.
"As in Turkey, Iraq and Syria, in Iran it is the Kurds who seek democracy, the Kurds who seek freedom," said Tuncer Bakirhan, a former mayor who was removed from his post and jailed over alleged militant ties.
Reuters could not immediately reach Iranian officials for comment, but the government routinely denies allegations that it discriminates against any ethnic groups in its population and says all citizens regardless of ethnicity are treated equally.
Iran's constitution grants equal rights to all ethnic minorities and says minority languages may be used in the media and schools. But rights groups and activists say Kurds face discrimination along with other religious and ethnic minorities under the country's Shi'ite Muslim clerical establishment.
Amnesty International has reported that "scores if not hundreds" of political prisoners affiliated to the Kurdish group KDPI and other proscribed political parties are in jail after being convicted in unfair trials.
"The regime has never recognised the rights of its Kurdish population," said Hiwa Molania, a Kurdish Iranian journalist based in Turkey.
Despite those restrictions at home, and the examples of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq and Syria, many Iranian Kurds insist they are not seeking secession.
"Iranian Kurds want their constitutional rights to be respected," said Kaveh Ghoreishi, an Iranian Kurd journalist and researcher. "People in the Kurdistan province... want a regime change and not independence."
Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, said accusations of Kurdish separatist ambitions aim to create a "rally around the flag effect" that encourages Iranians to support the leadership rather than the protesters.
However, the real danger was not any breakaway ambitions of Iran's minorities, but their treatment by Iran's leadership.
"The system’s disregard for the legitimate grievances of ethnic and sectarian minorities ... have rendered the country increasingly vulnerable to the civil strife that has pulled countries in the region like Syria and Yemen into a deadly downward spiral," Vaez said.
(Writing by Dominic Evans, Editing by William Maclean)
: Smoke rises from the Iraqi Kurdistan headquarters of the Kurdistan Freedom Party
1
Mon, October 17, 2022
By Parisa Hafezi and Daren Butler
DUBAI (Reuters) -Facing their biggest challenge in years, Iran's religious leaders are trying to portray the angry protests over the death of Mahsa Amini as a breakaway uprising by her fellow Kurds threatening the nation's unity rather than its clerical rule.
Amini, a 22-year-old from Kurdistan province in northwest Iran, died in the custody of the Islamic Republic's morality police after she was detained for violating strict codes requiring women to dress modestly in public.
Protests which started at Amini's funeral in her Kurdish hometown of Saqez spread rapidly across the country, to the capital Tehran, cities in central Iran, and the southwest and southeast where Arab and Baluch minorities are concentrated.
Across the country, including at universities and high schools, the rallying cry "Women, Life, Freedom" and the same calls for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were heard, yet much of the crackdown by security forces focused on the northwest where most of Iran's estimated 10 million Kurds live.
Riot police and Basij paramilitary forces have been transferred to the area from other provinces, according to witnesses, and tanks were sent to Kurdish areas where tensions have been particularly high.
Iran has also attacked Iranian Kurdish armed groups in neighbouring Iraq it says are involved in the unrest. Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired missiles and drones at militant targets in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where authorities said 13 people were killed.
"The Kurdish opposition groups are using Amini's case as an excuse to reach their decades-long goal of separating Kurdistan from Iran, but they will not succeed," a hardline security official said.
His comments were echoed by a former official, who told Reuters senior security officers were concerned that "the support Kurdish people are getting from across Iran will be used by Kurdish opposition groups to push for independence."
Iranian state media have called the nationwide protests a "political plot" ignited by Kurdish separatist groups, particularly the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).
'SEPARATIST THREAT'
"Since the very start of the uprising the regime has tried to portray it as a Kurdish ethnic issue rather than a national one, invoking a separatist threat emerging from the Kurdish region," said Ali Fathollah-Nejad, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut.
Those efforts by authorities had been undermined, Fathollah-Nejad said, by significant solidarity between Iran's different ethnic groups during the nationwide protests.
Still, looking across their border to Iraq, and further west to Syria, Iranian authorities can point to Kurdish ambitions for self-rule taking root when central government was challenged.
In Iraq, Kurds who for years fought Saddam Hussein won enough Western military protection after the 1991 Gulf War to establish a degree of autonomy, which was strengthened when Saddam was toppled 12 years later in a U.S.-led invasion.
Syrian Kurdish forces also exploited the tumult of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, allying with the United States against Islamic State and carving out a swathe of northeast Syria under their control.
In Turkey, where around a fifth of the 85 million-strong population is Kurdish, Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants have fought an armed insurgency against the state since 1984 in which tens of thousands of people have died.
In Iraq and Syria, Kurds have demonstrated in solidarity with the protesters in Iran. In Turkey, a deputy leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party told Reuters the party "salutes the women in Iran" calling for their rights.
"As in Turkey, Iraq and Syria, in Iran it is the Kurds who seek democracy, the Kurds who seek freedom," said Tuncer Bakirhan, a former mayor who was removed from his post and jailed over alleged militant ties.
Reuters could not immediately reach Iranian officials for comment, but the government routinely denies allegations that it discriminates against any ethnic groups in its population and says all citizens regardless of ethnicity are treated equally.
Iran's constitution grants equal rights to all ethnic minorities and says minority languages may be used in the media and schools. But rights groups and activists say Kurds face discrimination along with other religious and ethnic minorities under the country's Shi'ite Muslim clerical establishment.
Amnesty International has reported that "scores if not hundreds" of political prisoners affiliated to the Kurdish group KDPI and other proscribed political parties are in jail after being convicted in unfair trials.
"The regime has never recognised the rights of its Kurdish population," said Hiwa Molania, a Kurdish Iranian journalist based in Turkey.
Despite those restrictions at home, and the examples of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq and Syria, many Iranian Kurds insist they are not seeking secession.
"Iranian Kurds want their constitutional rights to be respected," said Kaveh Ghoreishi, an Iranian Kurd journalist and researcher. "People in the Kurdistan province... want a regime change and not independence."
Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, said accusations of Kurdish separatist ambitions aim to create a "rally around the flag effect" that encourages Iranians to support the leadership rather than the protesters.
However, the real danger was not any breakaway ambitions of Iran's minorities, but their treatment by Iran's leadership.
"The system’s disregard for the legitimate grievances of ethnic and sectarian minorities ... have rendered the country increasingly vulnerable to the civil strife that has pulled countries in the region like Syria and Yemen into a deadly downward spiral," Vaez said.
(Writing by Dominic Evans, Editing by William Maclean)
Factbox-Ethnic groups swept up in Iran's nationwide protests
California Kurds protest following death of Zhina Mahsa Amini, in Los Angeles
Mon, October 17, 2022 at 3:34 AM
(Reuters) - Protests in Iran have swept all parts of the nation since Mahsa Amini's death in police custody, including areas home to ethnic minorities with long-standing grievances against the state.
The authorities have accused armed dissidents from some of these minorities of fomenting trouble. Critics say these accusations aim to present the protests as ethnic unrest rather than a country-wide uprising, and to justify a crackdown.
Protesters have stressed national unity with chants such as "Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Lors, are together".
Iran, with a population of 87 million, is home to seven ethnic minorities alongside majority Persians. Rights groups say minorities have long faced discrimination. Iran denies this.
Here is some background on some of the ethnic groups:
BALUCHIS
Some of the deadliest unrest so far was on Sept. 30 in the Sistan-Baluchistan province of southeastern Iran at the Pakistani border, home to the Baluch minority.
Amnesty International has said security forces killed at least 66 people in a violent crackdown after Friday prayers in Zahedan, the provincial capital.
The authorities said militants attacked a police station, triggering a shootout. The Revolutionary Guards said five members of its forces and the volunteer Basij militia were killed during the Sept. 30 violence.
Iran has blamed the shooting on Jaish al-Adl, or Army of Justice, a Baluchi militant group. Neither Jaish al-Adl nor any other group has claimed a role.
The Baluchi minority, estimated to number up to 2 million, follow Sunni Islam rather than the Shi'ite Islam of Iran's clerical rulers.
Amnesty said in a report earlier this year that 26% of people executed by the authorities since 2022 were members of the Baluch minority, saying this epitomized "entrenched discrimination and repression they have faced for decades".
Jaish al-Adl has said previous attacks it carried out on Iranian forces were in retaliation for oppression of Sunnis in Sistan-Baluchistan. Iranian authorities say the group operates from safe havens in Pakistan and have repeatedly called on the neighbouring country to crack down on them.
KURDS
The unrest has been particularly intense in Kurdish regions where the latest wave of protests first began on Sept. 17 during the funeral of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who died in morality police custody.
Rights group Hengaw says it has recorded the deaths of at least 32 civilians killed by government forces during protests.
Estimated to number some 10 million, Iranian Kurds are also Sunnis and mostly live in northwestern regions bordering Turkey and Iraq - which also have large Kurdish minorities.
Amnesty says Kurds have suffered deep-rooted discrimination in Iran, with their social, political and cultural rights repressed and the region facing economic neglect.
Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw has identified 23 Kurdish people killed in the latest protests.
The Revolutionary Guards, which have put down unrest in the Kurdish region for decades, have accused armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents of involvement in the protests.
The Guards have mounted drone and missile attacks against what they have described as terrorist targets in Iraq, killing 14 people on Sept. 28 including at least one child - according to Iraqi Kurdish authorities.
ARABS
Iran's Arabs, estimated to number 1.6 million, reside mainly along the border with Iraq in the southwestern, oil-rich province of Khuzestan. They have long complained of inequity in employment and political rights.
Protesters have taken to the streets of the provincial capital Ahvaz during the latest demonstrations.
In 2021, protests over water shortages were particularly intense in the Khuzestan region - where drought has been a major problem - and were met by a crackdown by the security forces.
Iran has previously accused Sunni Arab states of a role in fomenting trouble in the region. In 2018, Iran accused Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of paying for an attack that killed 25 people in Ahvaz, half of them members of the Guards.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE denied any role.
(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by William Maclean)
Mon, October 17, 2022 at 3:34 AM
(Reuters) - Protests in Iran have swept all parts of the nation since Mahsa Amini's death in police custody, including areas home to ethnic minorities with long-standing grievances against the state.
The authorities have accused armed dissidents from some of these minorities of fomenting trouble. Critics say these accusations aim to present the protests as ethnic unrest rather than a country-wide uprising, and to justify a crackdown.
Protesters have stressed national unity with chants such as "Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Lors, are together".
Iran, with a population of 87 million, is home to seven ethnic minorities alongside majority Persians. Rights groups say minorities have long faced discrimination. Iran denies this.
Here is some background on some of the ethnic groups:
BALUCHIS
Some of the deadliest unrest so far was on Sept. 30 in the Sistan-Baluchistan province of southeastern Iran at the Pakistani border, home to the Baluch minority.
Amnesty International has said security forces killed at least 66 people in a violent crackdown after Friday prayers in Zahedan, the provincial capital.
The authorities said militants attacked a police station, triggering a shootout. The Revolutionary Guards said five members of its forces and the volunteer Basij militia were killed during the Sept. 30 violence.
Iran has blamed the shooting on Jaish al-Adl, or Army of Justice, a Baluchi militant group. Neither Jaish al-Adl nor any other group has claimed a role.
The Baluchi minority, estimated to number up to 2 million, follow Sunni Islam rather than the Shi'ite Islam of Iran's clerical rulers.
Amnesty said in a report earlier this year that 26% of people executed by the authorities since 2022 were members of the Baluch minority, saying this epitomized "entrenched discrimination and repression they have faced for decades".
Jaish al-Adl has said previous attacks it carried out on Iranian forces were in retaliation for oppression of Sunnis in Sistan-Baluchistan. Iranian authorities say the group operates from safe havens in Pakistan and have repeatedly called on the neighbouring country to crack down on them.
KURDS
The unrest has been particularly intense in Kurdish regions where the latest wave of protests first began on Sept. 17 during the funeral of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who died in morality police custody.
Rights group Hengaw says it has recorded the deaths of at least 32 civilians killed by government forces during protests.
Estimated to number some 10 million, Iranian Kurds are also Sunnis and mostly live in northwestern regions bordering Turkey and Iraq - which also have large Kurdish minorities.
Amnesty says Kurds have suffered deep-rooted discrimination in Iran, with their social, political and cultural rights repressed and the region facing economic neglect.
Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw has identified 23 Kurdish people killed in the latest protests.
The Revolutionary Guards, which have put down unrest in the Kurdish region for decades, have accused armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents of involvement in the protests.
The Guards have mounted drone and missile attacks against what they have described as terrorist targets in Iraq, killing 14 people on Sept. 28 including at least one child - according to Iraqi Kurdish authorities.
ARABS
Iran's Arabs, estimated to number 1.6 million, reside mainly along the border with Iraq in the southwestern, oil-rich province of Khuzestan. They have long complained of inequity in employment and political rights.
Protesters have taken to the streets of the provincial capital Ahvaz during the latest demonstrations.
In 2021, protests over water shortages were particularly intense in the Khuzestan region - where drought has been a major problem - and were met by a crackdown by the security forces.
Iran has previously accused Sunni Arab states of a role in fomenting trouble in the region. In 2018, Iran accused Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of paying for an attack that killed 25 people in Ahvaz, half of them members of the Guards.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE denied any role.
(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by William Maclean)
Satellite photos show damage at Iran prison amid protests
In this photo provided by Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022, a charred building is seen after a fire on the property of the Evin prison, in Tehran, Iran. Flames and smoke rising from the prison had been widely visible Saturday evening, as nationwide anti-government protests triggered by the death of a young woman in police custody entered a fifth week.
In this photo provided by Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA, on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022, a charred building is seen after a fire on the property of the Evin prison, in Tehran, Iran. Flames and smoke rising from the prison had been widely visible Saturday evening, as nationwide anti-government protests triggered by the death of a young woman in police custody entered a fifth week.
JON GAMBRELL
Sun, October 16, 2022
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A weekend fire at Iran's notorious Evin Prison damaged one of the largest buildings in the complex, according to satellite photos analyzed Monday. Authorities raised to eight the number of inmates killed, doubling the initial toll.
What happened on Saturday night at the prison — for decades the main holding facility for political detainees and a centerpiece of the state's systematic crushing of dissent — remains unclear. Online videos purport to show chaotic scenes with a prison siren wailing as flames rise from the complex, the apparent crackle of gunfire and people screaming: “Death to the dictator!”
The fire erupted as nationwide anti-government protests triggered by the death of a young woman in the custody of the country's morality police entered a fifth week. Tensions have escalated to a point unseen since the mass demonstrations that accompanied the country's 2009 Green Movement protests.
The fire at one of Tehran's most heavily guarded facilities potentially raises the stakes for those continuing to rally against the government and the mandatory headscarf, or hijab, for women after the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini.
Satellite photos taken Sunday by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by The Associated Press show the roof burning away from a large building that's part of the northern section of Evin Prison. The prison also houses prisoners convicted of criminal charges.
The Iran Prison Atlas, a project by the California-based rights group United for Iran, which collects data on Iranian prisons and prisoners, had previously identified the structure's wards as housing prisoners convicted on fraud and theft cases — not those held on political charges. However, the Iran Prison Atlas has said that wards have changed over the years.
The reformist newspaper Etemad on Monday quoted Mostafa Nili, a lawyer for some political prisoners at Evin, as identifying one of the affected areas as Ward 8. He described those imprisoned there as political prisoners and others convicted on financial charges.
He also said political prisoners in Ward 4 of the prison inhaled tear gas during the incident. The semiofficial Tasnim news agency also said Evin's Wards 6 and 7 sustained damage as well. Iranian state television rushed a camera crew to the site early Sunday morning, filming a reporter walking through one ward with prisoners asleep in bunks as firefighters doused the embers of the blaze.
The TV described the fire as having taken place at a sewing workshop, something Iran's judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi repeated on Monday. He blamed the incident on “the enemy's agents.” Iran has been portraying all unrest in the country as stirred up by the United States, Israel and other nations it views as enemies.
Earlier Monday, Iran's judiciary raised the death toll from the blaze to eight, after initially reporting four deaths over the weekend.
Authorities have blamed “rioters” for setting the blaze, though they haven't described what measures they took against the prisoners on site. Video of the fire purports to show people on the roof of the building, tossing liquid on the flames at first. Apparent gunfire echoes through other videos, including what appears to be some sort of ordinance being lobbed into the prison complex, followed by the sound of an explosion.
As the fire grew larger, one video includes voices shouting: “Death to the dictator!” That cry against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has become common at night in Tehran amid the protests, even though it carries the risk of a death sentence in a closed-door Revolutionary Court.
Evin Prison, in northern Tehran abutting the foothills of the Alborz Mountains, first opened under Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1972. Iran's theocracy took over the facility after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Khamenei, operates its own prison cells at the complex, as does Iran's Intelligence Ministry, which reports to the country's presidency.
The Guard typically holds dual nationals and those with ties to the West there — prisoners often used in swaps with the West. Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post journalist detained by Iran on flimsy spying allegations for 544 days was held there before being freed as Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers took effect.
“Evin is no ordinary prison," Rezaian wrote on Twitter, sharing videos of the fire this weekend. "Many of Iran’s best & brightest have spent long stretches confined there, where brave women & men are denied their basic rights for speaking truth to power.”
Deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel, speaking to reporters in Washington on Monday, said the three U.S.-Iranian citizens it knows are detained at Evin Prison are safe. He did not say where that information came from.
“The wrongfully detained U.S. citizens are accounted for and they are safe,” he said, adding that they remain in detention and their safety is relative considering the conditions of their imprisonment.
Iran carries out executions, as well as punishments such as amputations, prescribed under Islamic laws and ordered by the country's hard-line court system, at Evin. Human rights activists have long documented abuses at the site. Last year, an online account purportedly by an entity describing itself as a group of hackers, leaked a series of videos to the AP showing fighting and grim conditions at the prison.
The wider protests now rocking Iran erupted after public outrage over the death of 22-year-old Amini in police custody. She was arrested by Iran’s morality police in Tehran for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated in police custody, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained.
So far, human rights groups estimate that over 200 people have been killed in the protests and the violent security force crackdown that followed. Iran has not offered a death toll in weeks. Demonstrations have been seen in over 100 cities, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran. Thousands are believed to have been arrested.
Meanwhile, the European Union on Monday slapped sanctions on 11 Iranian officials and four Iranian entities over their suspected role in the crackdown against the protests, imposing travel bans and freezing assets.
___
Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
Sun, October 16, 2022
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A weekend fire at Iran's notorious Evin Prison damaged one of the largest buildings in the complex, according to satellite photos analyzed Monday. Authorities raised to eight the number of inmates killed, doubling the initial toll.
What happened on Saturday night at the prison — for decades the main holding facility for political detainees and a centerpiece of the state's systematic crushing of dissent — remains unclear. Online videos purport to show chaotic scenes with a prison siren wailing as flames rise from the complex, the apparent crackle of gunfire and people screaming: “Death to the dictator!”
The fire erupted as nationwide anti-government protests triggered by the death of a young woman in the custody of the country's morality police entered a fifth week. Tensions have escalated to a point unseen since the mass demonstrations that accompanied the country's 2009 Green Movement protests.
The fire at one of Tehran's most heavily guarded facilities potentially raises the stakes for those continuing to rally against the government and the mandatory headscarf, or hijab, for women after the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini.
Satellite photos taken Sunday by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by The Associated Press show the roof burning away from a large building that's part of the northern section of Evin Prison. The prison also houses prisoners convicted of criminal charges.
The Iran Prison Atlas, a project by the California-based rights group United for Iran, which collects data on Iranian prisons and prisoners, had previously identified the structure's wards as housing prisoners convicted on fraud and theft cases — not those held on political charges. However, the Iran Prison Atlas has said that wards have changed over the years.
The reformist newspaper Etemad on Monday quoted Mostafa Nili, a lawyer for some political prisoners at Evin, as identifying one of the affected areas as Ward 8. He described those imprisoned there as political prisoners and others convicted on financial charges.
He also said political prisoners in Ward 4 of the prison inhaled tear gas during the incident. The semiofficial Tasnim news agency also said Evin's Wards 6 and 7 sustained damage as well. Iranian state television rushed a camera crew to the site early Sunday morning, filming a reporter walking through one ward with prisoners asleep in bunks as firefighters doused the embers of the blaze.
The TV described the fire as having taken place at a sewing workshop, something Iran's judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi repeated on Monday. He blamed the incident on “the enemy's agents.” Iran has been portraying all unrest in the country as stirred up by the United States, Israel and other nations it views as enemies.
Earlier Monday, Iran's judiciary raised the death toll from the blaze to eight, after initially reporting four deaths over the weekend.
Authorities have blamed “rioters” for setting the blaze, though they haven't described what measures they took against the prisoners on site. Video of the fire purports to show people on the roof of the building, tossing liquid on the flames at first. Apparent gunfire echoes through other videos, including what appears to be some sort of ordinance being lobbed into the prison complex, followed by the sound of an explosion.
As the fire grew larger, one video includes voices shouting: “Death to the dictator!” That cry against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has become common at night in Tehran amid the protests, even though it carries the risk of a death sentence in a closed-door Revolutionary Court.
Evin Prison, in northern Tehran abutting the foothills of the Alborz Mountains, first opened under Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1972. Iran's theocracy took over the facility after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Khamenei, operates its own prison cells at the complex, as does Iran's Intelligence Ministry, which reports to the country's presidency.
The Guard typically holds dual nationals and those with ties to the West there — prisoners often used in swaps with the West. Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post journalist detained by Iran on flimsy spying allegations for 544 days was held there before being freed as Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers took effect.
“Evin is no ordinary prison," Rezaian wrote on Twitter, sharing videos of the fire this weekend. "Many of Iran’s best & brightest have spent long stretches confined there, where brave women & men are denied their basic rights for speaking truth to power.”
Deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel, speaking to reporters in Washington on Monday, said the three U.S.-Iranian citizens it knows are detained at Evin Prison are safe. He did not say where that information came from.
“The wrongfully detained U.S. citizens are accounted for and they are safe,” he said, adding that they remain in detention and their safety is relative considering the conditions of their imprisonment.
Iran carries out executions, as well as punishments such as amputations, prescribed under Islamic laws and ordered by the country's hard-line court system, at Evin. Human rights activists have long documented abuses at the site. Last year, an online account purportedly by an entity describing itself as a group of hackers, leaked a series of videos to the AP showing fighting and grim conditions at the prison.
The wider protests now rocking Iran erupted after public outrage over the death of 22-year-old Amini in police custody. She was arrested by Iran’s morality police in Tehran for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated in police custody, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained.
So far, human rights groups estimate that over 200 people have been killed in the protests and the violent security force crackdown that followed. Iran has not offered a death toll in weeks. Demonstrations have been seen in over 100 cities, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran. Thousands are believed to have been arrested.
Meanwhile, the European Union on Monday slapped sanctions on 11 Iranian officials and four Iranian entities over their suspected role in the crackdown against the protests, imposing travel bans and freezing assets.
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Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
The revolutionary ambitions of Iran’s Generation Z
Narges, a young Iranian protester, walks confidently through ranks of riot police on her way to work with long, black, wavy hair clearly on show.
In another country her appearance would be unremarkable, but in the Islamic republic which has strict rules about what women can wear in public, it is unthinkable. More unusual still is the response: nothing.
This flagrant defiance of wearing a compulsory hijab in public is becoming a new normal — something women like Narges could not have imagined before the tragic death of Mahsa Amini a month ago.
The 22-year-old Kurdish woman died in the custody of morality police on September 16 after allegedly violating the Islamic dress code. Her death has outraged Iranians and sparked nationwide protests that have, in turn, provoked a heavy-handed, lethal response from the state.
Generation Z has surprised the country — and the world — by refusing to back down during one of the most widespread and long-lasting anti-regime demonstrations in the Islamic republic’s history.
“Woman, life, freedom” has become the battle cry of young men and women in the streets, on university campuses and in schools. Their ultimate goal, protesters say, is to overthrow the Islamic republic in favour of a secular, democratic system, even if the cost is their lives.
They are facing down a regime supported by formidable institutions such as the elite Revolutionary Guards and a multi-layered network of loyalists and businessmen whose interests depend on a continuation of the status quo.
Nonetheless, the protests are a serious warning to Iran’s rulers that they are grappling with a different generation, many of whom do not relate to the regime’s ideology and are furious about being deprived of the everyday freedoms and opportunities afforded to their international peers.
Their movement has the potential to inspire more demonstrations and strikes as a cost of living crisis deepens, posing one of the most significant threats to the Islamic republic’s 43-year dominance.
Top leaders — at least publicly — dismiss the idea that the anti-regime protests are a historic turning point and are showing no signs of making any structural or constitutional concessions. Analysts do not expect the regime to rethink a supreme leader as ultimate authority, its hostility towards the US, flexing muscles in the Middle East, or expansion of the nuclear programme.
Protesters, who have radical ambitions for their country’s future, say that the time for knee-jerk political gestures has run out. The impasse has many Iranians worried about difficult days ahead.
The stand-off has repercussions for the country’s long-term stability. In a joint statement, five prominent economists have likened the growing chorus for change to “a flood which has been roaring but has suddenly faced a deadlock”. They say the choice facing political leaders is either to clear the way or let the floodgates burst and unleash a torrent of disruption.
Extensive poverty, corruption of those linked to the regime and declining political participation in recent years have all weakened social capital and fostered a sense of hopelessness, the economists say. In addition, Iranian families’ welfare has, on average, declined by 37 per cent over the past decade, causing the middle class to shrink.
Narges, 27, says it is this gloomy picture that makes her generation’s fight inevitable: the prosperous future she dreams of, one full of fun and pleasure, cannot be achieved living under theocracy.
“I do value going out without a hijab and the regime’s forces completely ignore me while passers-by say ‘bravo’ to women like me”, she says. “But this system has inflicted irreparable damage to us from our childhood. Only its collapse can help us end inequalities between men and women and have freedom for the most basic, normal things”.
Generation Unrest
Iran has long had a robust protest culture; a symptom of the country’s internal struggle to transition from a traditional society to a modern one.
Its contemporary history has been shaped by regular pockets of social unrest and several uprisings including two revolutions — a constitutional one more than a century ago and the 1979 Islamic revolution.
A slow shift towards greater modernity and more progress for women has become more urgent as a new generation grows impatient. The last national census six years ago showed those aged between 10 to 24 years old make up about 22 per cent of the population of 80mn. Their values contrast sharply with those of Iran’s ageing yet determined leaders, some of whom are in their nineties.
An increasingly educated population, including women who occupy about 60 per cent of university places, fast-paced urban development and wider access to the internet and smartphones, have raised public expectations.
Young people want fair and transparent government, better welfare, decent jobs as well as the ability to travel abroad and enjoy a healthy sex life — not necessarily within marriage.
Iran’s Generation Z, who have grown up with the internet and satellite television, say the things they are fighting for are incompatible with a system that demands an Islamic lifestyle; early marriage, more children and defending one’s religion against threats. Protecting these values, however, is essential for the regime to satisfy millions of zealous loyalists in Iran and the Middle East who represent one of its main pillars of power.
Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s chief of staff for the armed forces, has warned his military commanders that “traditional approaches will not work anymore” if it wants to foil threats to power such as those fuelled by social media. He positioned the protest movement as part of a wider battle against foreign influence.
“Today, we are facing multiple military, cultural, newly emerged and sometimes unknown threats from the enemy targeting us either simultaneously or in thoughtful combinations”, he said. “We have to be ready for . . . a hybrid warfare which is extraordinarily heavy and complicated work for us and armed forces’ commanders”.
Ahmad Zeidabadi, a reformist political analyst and a former political prisoner, said in an interview with the semi-official ILNA news agency that “part of the system thinks power, dignity and wealth belongs to insiders and its loyalists . . . while the rest of the people have no rights such as establishing political parties, running for elections and taking part in decision making and hence they have no right to protest”.
It is this political order that protesters are pushing back against, many of whom come from the urban middle class who, until recently, were widely regarded across society as spoiled and pampered by their privileged, educated families.
Now they stand in front of riot police showing no fear of being killed. Over the past month, more than 40 protesters have died, according to state television. Amnesty International says 144 men, women and children have lost their lives, including 20 teenage boys and 3 girls.
Bijan Abdolkarimi, a professor of philosophy at Islamic Azad University, says the failure to understand this country’s youth is a mis-step. “This generation is rebellious and accepts no one else’s authority be it a father’s at home, or teachers’ at school or university”, he told the reformist Etemad daily newspaper. “It doesn’t accept men’s authority over women and . . . fights with tradition and questions all its principles . . . The worst way to deal with them is police, military and security approaches”.
Anger piles up
Dissent, however, is not limited to the younger generation. There have been at least three other major protests since 2009 led by the middle and working classes in which hundreds were killed. Protests involving farmers, teachers, pensioners and workers have been frequent.
The latest crisis follows decades of disappointment in successive political leaders to deliver change. Political reforms initiated in 1997 by Mohammad Khatami, then president, were met with resistance from hardliners. Later, centrist president Hassan Rouhani promised a more functioning economy under a nuclear deal that his government signed with world powers in 2015. The deal collapsed in 2018 when the US, under the Trump administration, pulled out.
The election of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi as president last year marked a new low. Turnout was 48.8 per cent — one of the poorest on record after main rivals were not allowed to run. This was the moment pro-democracy groups say the road to any reforms hit a dead end.
Mehdi Behabadi, head of semi-official ISPA opinion poll centre, says “a considerable majority” of Iranians harbour “anger” towards the Islamic republic “a factor which is at a dangerous level”. The average age of protesters is also getting younger, he adds, and includes those under 20 years old, while the number of women protesters is “very close” to men.
“Every time there has been widespread protests, they subside only superficially while the anger piles up increasing the level of violence [next time]”, he says.
Behabadi also believes the number of demonstrators in recent years is only “a tiny percentage of all those who are angry” because many believe that history has shown the risk of participation outweighs the reward.
Aila, a 19-year-old computer engineering student, is sympathetic but has chosen not to join protests at her university. “I’d like to see the Islamic republic gone as I see no future for myself in my homeland with all the injustice, gender discrimination, gloomy economic perspective and waste of talents”, she says. “But I don’t see an option for a successor and surely don’t want to see insecurity that the absence of an established government can bring”.
Iran’s leaders are encouraged that the protests have not yet snowballed into mass demonstrations. Labourers have held some sporadic strikes, but teachers, farmers, businessmen and the pious masses, including mid-ranking clergy, are largely in a wait-and-see mood.
Meanwhile, Iranians overseas are urging silent supporters to rise up, organising demonstrations in western capitals and lobbying for international backing. But this disparate opposition is not seen as a viable alternative to the regime, partly because they are far from unified themselves.
It is for this reason that a regime insider close to hardline forces says the protests are not seen as an immediate threat to the Islamic republic.
“Protesters are not from a political party, they don’t have a leader. They are not ideologically motivated to die for their causes. As soon as they get arrested, they express regret”, he says. “Iran’s opposition overseas is no threat. Can they all get together and have one charismatic leader like Imam [Ruhollah] Khomeini to take out millions of supporters on to the streets [as happened in the 1979 revolution]? No”.
The insider adds there will be no significant concessions beyond measures such as an unspoken and relaxed approach to wearing hijabs in public.
But with the unrest and brutal crackdowns playing out on platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp thanks to tech-savvy protesters who use VPNs to circumvent bans on social media, analysts say the republic is losing the media war and is being discredited at home and abroad.
The overseas opposition also uses foreign-based and foreign-funded satellite television to convince Iranians that a revolution is in the making and that a united front can finally bring down 43 years of the Islamic republic.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the target of slogans such as “death to the dictator”, denies the dissent is homegrown and instead has blamed external players including the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia. “The only solution is to resist”, he says.
For many Iranians, his response underlines how out of touch the regime is. Shahla, a housewife and mother of two teenage boys, says the main reason she protests is because the political system shows too little leniency towards ordinary people.
“What I hate the most is that the Islamic republic protects the most junior members of its loyalists but is so tough on us”, she says. “Why is it a problem to say one individual made a mistake in the case of Amini and apologise?”
A regime under pressure
Although analysts say those at the top of Iran’s political system remain united in how to deal with the discontent, another regime insider says those at the mid-level are unhappy at seeing young protesters being killed and think the response has gone too far.
They believe, he says, that the regime should listen to protesters and take actions while the 83-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei is alive.
His death — and the rumoured succession of his second son, Mojtaba — could make any reforms far more complicated or near impossible, he adds, because protesters have made clear they will not accept him.
Protesters meanwhile see no benefit in talking with the authorities. Moein, a 23-year-old history student, says the Islamic republic has no intention to change its structures of power. “People from a motorcycle delivery man to a doctor have reached a stage where they don’t want to give up on their demands which are equal rights for men and women and freedom”, he says.
Even if protests are suppressed, he adds, “we shall see bigger protests in the future as these demands will not disappear”.
Analysts agree. “The pent-up political demands . . . are now manifested in non-controversial, inclusive slogans such as ‘woman, life, freedom’”, says Saeed Hajjarian, a strategist for reformists. “This shows the centre of gravity of the society’s demands has shifted from politics to citizens’ rights . . . for all social classes rather than only the urban middle class”.
Iran’s hardliners warn that the continuation of protests is putting Iran’s territorial integrity at risk and could embolden separatists to fight the central government in a country which includes ethnicities such as Arabs, Kurds, Baluchis, Turks and Sunni Muslims.
While protests in Iranian Kurdistan have intensified since Amini’s death, people in the city of Zahedan, home to ethnic Baluchis and Sunnis, have separately clashed with the authorities after a 15-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a senior police official. Amnesty estimates at least 82 were killed, but officials put deaths at 19.
Pushback against the regime protests also coincides with renewed calls from politicians to sign a nuclear deal with the Biden administration and put an end to US sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors. A lack of movement on the deal is fuelling public frustration as inflation reaches 42.1 per cent and the youth unemployment rate climbs to 23 per cent.
Nuclear talks remain deadlocked after Washington and Tehran failed to agree on the most recent draft proposed by the EU, the mediator in those negotiations. Diplomats and analysts do not expect any progress until after the US midterms in November.
Some politicians say securing a deal is vital to help quell discontent. Ali Larijani, a former conservative Speaker of parliament, says: “The sooner this problem is resolved the more it is to the benefit of the Islamic republic. People should not be under this much pressure”.
Narges, a trained IT engineer, is working as an accountant and earns a monthly salary of about $250 which barely covers her daily expenses. She envies the lives of the young people and teenagers in other countries that she obsessively follows on YouTube.
“I feel that not only have I never experienced the pleasures of teenagers in the US, Britain, Australia, I cannot use my own creativity and talent to have a decent salary and be hopeful about my future”, she says.
The only option, she says, is to continue protesting “until we defeat the Islamic republic even though I’m aware the system is frightening and vengeful”.
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr.
Voices: ‘Iranian women aren’t sleeping’:
This is what it’s like being a woman in
Iran right now
I am an Iranian writer who was born after the 1979 revolution. I live in Tehran. Like Mahsa Amini and other women, I have been arrested many times on the street for not wearing a hijab and have suffered the brutal behavior of police.
Since I was six years old, I have been ordered to remain silent and not question the wearing of the hijab in girls’ schools. When I was a child, my mother and aunt were detained in front of my eyes on the street for hijab “offences” and kept in jail for a night.
The murder of Mahsa Amini has shocked us all. And it has made me think about how we got here – and what we need to do now to get out.
After the 1979 revolution in Iran, a radical Shia government came to power, which claims to be able to run society based on the laws of Islam 1,400 years ago. It relies on reactionary Shari’a rulings, some of which involve mandatory restrictions on women. According to the Islamic laws, the woman is considered the man’s land; part of his property. A man can give her commands and prohibitions, just like a pet.
A large number of women who protested in 1979 were killed or imprisoned or fled from Iran. This new regime, with its restrictions on women’s clothing and situation, established from that point that a woman’s body was in fact the property of the “authorities”.
With laws such as stoning and flogging women in public, and other medieval performances, the new regime managed to make it clear that women are to be used to keep the rest of society silent. In other words, by conquering and encroaching on women as property – by punishing her – the regime can show off its power.
Iranian women are protesting against the violation of our rights, but it’s not just restricted to our clothing. Here is what else is at stake:
A woman’s testimony in court is counted as half of a man’s. If a witness is needed to prove a crime, two women have to testify so that they have testified as much as one man.
Women do not have the right to enter stadiums to watch sports (Sahar Khodayari died in protest at a jail sentence for going to watch a football match).
Women do not have the right to dance and sing; or the right to abortion. The punishment for abortion is equal to killing a living human being.
A woman cannot be a court judge. A woman cannot divorce her husband – this right belongs to the man only. He can divorce his wife whenever he wants.
A woman does not have the right to custody of a child after divorce. The child belongs to the father.
A woman does not have the right to leave the country. This right belongs to the father until the age of 18, and after marriage, it belongs to the husband.
A woman is forced to wear a full hijab during sport competitions. Many female athletes have been fired from the national team and some of them play for the national team of other countries.
Our fathers and brothers have the right to kill us, and because (according to the Islamic Penal Code), fathers and husband are considered guardians, they will not be punished for doing so.
And recently, the ban on women eating ice-cream in public spaces was proposed, but not enforced.
In the best of circumstances, a woman’s legal rights are half of a man’s. But the important question remains: how is it fair that a being who is considered half a man when it comes to her everyday rights, can still be seen as a complete person in front of the ballot boxes? A woman is only considered a full person when we are being used to confirm the pillars of power. This is the ultimate hypocrisy. Maybe now the world will understand why women are standing on the frontline of these protests.
Perhaps you’re also wondering why men are protesting with us – I think I can tell you. The fact is that the domination over the female body (as a perfect example of a “subordinate citizen”) has also seen the state’s domination over other parts of Iranian society; including men.
After the 1979 revolution, men saw that while they may have rights towards their wives, daughters and sisters, they did not have many rights for themselves against the power of the government. They are, even now, considered “nothing” against the mighty will of those in charge.
Many men came to the conclusion that every time they took a right from a woman, they legitimised the law of domination over all of those the government views as subordinate. For regardless of gender, we are all inferior in front of the authority of the law. And anyone who questions those in power is considered an “infidel”. The punishment for being an infidel in the eyes of the law is death, whipping or prison.
In this way, fighting against the laws that prohibit women is the first step to fighting for freedom for all people in Iran.
You may also have wondered why some Iranian women continue to wear the hijab in the streets; even if we don’t believe in Islam. Well, that is easy – it is because anyone who declares that they don’t believe in Islam will either be killed or deprived of education and employment. Many who feel this way are forced to emigrate, even if we love our country.
This is what is truly at stake when you see our protests and when you watch footage of us removing the hijab. And it’s important to remember that when you see Iranian women on social media without headscarves – or at a party, while drinking and dancing – it still does not indicate our freedom or liberty. No:,every single Iranian woman who does this, does so in civil protest. We do it at tremendous risk. We do it to fight for freedom.
It is from the heart of living under such suffocation that the slogan “woman, life, freedom” was born. Maybe, after reading this text, you can imagine what a great achievement such a slogan is.
Iranian women have not been sleeping since Mahsa Amini was killed. We have seen that it is the time to announce our awakening. Many people are being killed in the streets of Iran these days. Many women who removed the hijab are in prisons. If you see Iranians in the streets of your city today, please know that we are not without a country – but we have had to flee.
This fragmented diaspora that shouts the name of its homeland in your homeland no longer wants to be treated as a half-being. Our goal is to have the right to our own bodies. This movement is the biggest feminist revolution in the world – and the world stands with us, because it knows that the outcome will be our biggest achievement, together.
Guest column: Iran’s current uprising places regime change well within reach
Ben Janloo
Sun, October 16, 2022
Whenever unrest sparks in Iran, I suffer for my friends and family still living under the mullahs, yet I am also hopeful that the Iranian people will finally achieve victory over their oppressors. This has perhaps never been truer than in these last few weeks, as protests over the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the “morality police” keep escalating.
The protests began after her funeral in Kurdistan but have since spread to over 150 cities. As with previous uprisings, the spread has been fueled in part by a broad political message showing the vast demand for a regime change.
Because of the violence that Mahsa endured due to her resistance, the initial focus was women’s rights, but the relevant issues proved to be inseparable from the general ideological divide between the mullahs and the Iranian people. Women have been chanting slogans such as “Down with Khamenei (the regime’s Supreme Leader)” and “Death to the Dictator.”
The use of these slogans across the protests shows the organized nature of the uprising, more than its predecessors in the last five years. In early 2018, even Supreme Leader Khamenei admitted that the leading opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK/PMOI), played a role in promoting unrest.
The MEK has continuously pushed the Iranian people toward uprisings, with regime change as its ultimate goal. Its resistance units inside Iran keep information about the domestic situation flowing out, even when the regime has tightened its control over the internet in efforts to crackdown on anti-government sentiment.
I am thankful for the MEK as they provide information far more complete than what reaches mainstream media. Of course, this adds to anxious thoughts, as they provide accurate numbers on death tolls and arrests, which are far more than the regime claims.
However, the MEK underscores the sheer intensity of the ongoing uprisings. My acquaintances in Iran also underscore the same, sharing my hope that this uprising is the one that leads to the overthrow of the mullahs.
On Sept. 28, Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Coons (D-DE) introduced a bipartisan resolution condemning Mahsa Amini’s death and calling for an end to the systemic persecution of women in Iran. I hope that this view is widely shared by Western politicians and their constituents, who should recognize that the overthrow of the mullahs benefits global security.
Unfortunately, the international community does not seem to fully recognize the potential of the uprisings. Moreso, this creates a space for the regime to step up its crackdowns before the movement can achieve its aims.
Public statements by Western governments must become louder and more frequent if they are truly committed to preventing further oppression. It must be made absolutely clear that the Iranian people have an inherent right to defend themselves by any available means, and that regime change from within is a well-justified and appropriate aim for their movement.
The goal is achievable, but the international community has a role in determining the price Iranians will pay for it.
Ben Janloo is a business owner living in Oklahoma City and president of the Iranian-American Community of Oklahoma.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Iran’s current uprising places regime change well within reach
Oklahoma professor: Iran's struggle for democracy has a long history
Afshin Marashi
Sun, October 16, 2022
The death of the 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini at the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s morality police has sparked ongoing protests. In courageous acts of protest, Iranian women are marching in the streets, burning their state-mandated Islamic headscarves, and chanting: “Women, Life, Freedom.” These are unprecedented acts of defiance in the history of the Islamic Republic.
A protester holds a placard during a demonstration in support of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini during a protest on Oct. 3, 2022, in Nantes, western France, following her death in Iran. - Amini, 22, died in custody on Sept. 16, 2022, three days after her arrest by the notorious morality police in Tehran for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic's strict dress code for women. in Nantes, western France on Sept. 29, 2022.
For those unfamiliar with Iranian history, it would be easy to see the current protests as narrowly contained to current circumstances. In fact, these protests are part of a longer history of struggle for democracy in modern Iran.
As early as 1905, Iran was the first place in the Middle East to experience a revolutionary movement seeking a democratic form of government. In the short term, the “Constitutional Revolution” was defeated by both internal divisions and external interventions.
However, Iran’s democratic aspirations were not extinguished. After three decades of royalist absolutism and foreign occupation, the 1940s witnessed the new growth of political parties, a vibrant Iranian press, and new educational opportunities that empowered citizens from all walks of life, especially women.
This era culminated with the rise of Mohammad Mossadegh, the prime minister who rallied the democratic will of the Iranian people to nationalize the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. The fear that communism was lurking within Mossadegh’s broad-based democratic coalition, led the American CIA and the British MI6 to foment internal unrest leading to the coup d’état of August 1953 that overthrew Mossadegh.
The next 25 years of Iranian history are a contradiction. The newly restored shah ruled with an iron fist and limited political freedoms. At the same time, however, Iranians made remarkable social progress during this era. Iranian women gained the right to vote in 1963 — by royal decree — over the objection of the clerics. Reforms to family law were also initiated in 1967 and 1975, granting women rights in marriage, divorce and the custody of children, also over the objections of religious authorities.
These social reforms so empowered Iranian women that by the time of the revolution of 1979 Iranian women joined the struggle against the shah’s autocracy.
It is forgotten today, but the revolution that toppled the monarchy in January 1979 did not begin as an “Islamic Revolution.” The initial revolutionary spark began, not in 1979, but in 1977, and was led by democracy advocates. Their initial demands included the release of political prisoners and the guarantee of free elections.
These Iranian calls for democracy in 1977 were inspired by an already well-established democratic tradition within Iran. By 1978, however, the course of Iran’s revolutionary process took unpredictable turns, and advocates for democracy quickly found themselves outmaneuvered. In the emotional context of the revolutionary struggle, liberal calls for civil rights and free elections seemed insufficiently revolutionary.
After the fall of the shah, Iranian democracy was once again thwarted, this time by the emerging authoritarianism of the Islamic Republic. Women lost many of the social rights that they had gained in the previous decades, including the right to choose for themselves to wear the Islamic headscarf.
In the years since, calls for democratic reform have not disappeared inside Iran. The failure of successive waves of reform, such as the presidency of Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) and the Green Movement of 2009, revealed the deep structural obstacles to working within the Islamic Republic’s political system.
As we have seen during the past weeks in Iran, this newest generation of advocates for Iranian democracy are no longer satisfied with working within the system and are demanding fundamental changes to Iran’s form of government.
How this process will unfold in the weeks and months to come is unknown.
What is known is that this newest effort to build a democratic Iran is the product of more than a century of struggle. It is an enduring struggle that deserves our support and promises to rewrite the history of modern Iran and its relationship with the United States.
Afshin Marashi is a professor and the Farzaneh Family Chair in Modern Iranian History at the University of Oklahoma's College of International Studies.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma professor: Iran's struggle for democracy has a long history
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