ELECTION DAY

Opinions

His 2018 win had supposedly put ‘socialism’ on trial. On Sunday, Brazil’s leader faces his own indictment from voters.

• 
  
  Belén Fernández

  Contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.

Published On 1 Oct 20221 Oct 2022

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, seen here at a campaign event on Saturday, September 24, 2022, is trailing in polls to former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ahead of the election on October 2 [AP Photo/Marcelo Chello]

In the aftermath of Brazil’s last general election in 2018, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page celebrated the victory of Jair Bolsonaro – a former low-ranking army officer, far-right fringe politician, and fan of Brazil’s sadistic military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.

According to one bizarre article by the right-wing writer Mary Anastasia O’Grady, there was a simple explanation for the electoral triumph of the man that many analysts had compared with the then-president of the United States, Donald Trump. Despite the fact that Bolsonaro had been “labeled a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, a fascist, an advocate of torture and an aspiring dictator”, he had prevailed, the piece argued, because Brazilians were “in the midst of a national awakening in which socialism – the alternative to a Bolsonaro presidency – has been put on trial”.end of list

While a socialist presidency certainly beats fascist torture any day, “socialism” was in truth not even in the running in 2018. The Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT) – whose candidate Bolsonaro defeated – is not socialist but rather centre-left, and has furthermore done its fair share to advance neoliberal capitalist interests over the years. Granted, the PT has also committed such flagrantly leftist crimes as helping to extricate millions of Brazilians from poverty and hunger, as transpired during the first decade of this century under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Now, it’s election time again in South America’s largest country – and folks may be in for another “awakening”. As Brazil votes tomorrow, Lula is back in the race, and is leading Bolsonaro in the polls (although, as Bloomberg reports, Goldman Sachs and concerned hedge funds have assured clients the election will be “tighter” than surveys suggest).

Of course, Bolsonaro’s disdain for democracy means that he won’t necessarily accept a Lula win on October 2 – or, in an October 30 run-off, which would be required if no candidate secures half of the votes cast. Nor must one underestimate the power of social media disinformation – a veritable scourge in Brazil – in rallying Bolsonaro voters.

It bears recalling that, in 2018, the election of Bolsonaro – who would go on to suggest that coronavirus vaccines could turn people into crocodiles and make women grow beards – was significantly facilitated by an obsessive right-wing campaign to demonise and criminalise the PT under the guise of “anti-corruption”. Before Lula himself was imprisoned in April 2018 – on trumped-up charges produced by that same campaign – he had been the favourite to win that year’s presidential race.

Benjamin Fogel, an historian who researches Brazilian anti-corruption politics, recently explained to me some of the additional factors driving the “general right-wing shift in Brazilian society” that enabled Bolsonaro’s emergence as head of state. They include a growing middle class with a “meritocratic” societal view that essentially blames poor people for their poverty. Social welfare programmes and other government efforts to address structural inequality have thus been frequently seen as unmerited – or as a form of corruption in themselves.

Also tied up in the right-wing shift are, of course, ever-charitable financial machinations by big business, as well as the normalisation of once-taboo topics such as those pertaining to the military dictatorship. The swift spread of Christian evangelicalism, too, has proved politically compatible with Bolsonaro’s brand of conservative zealotry.

However, as Fogel emphasised, Bolsonaro’s approach to the presidency “didn’t really translate into any sort of practical terms for governance beyond dismantling the basic institutions of government”. Public health, public education and other concepts that are anathema to the right wing came under fire. Bolsonaro packed the cabinet and public administration with more military officers than even during the dictatorship.

Thanks to Bolsonaro’s stewardship of the pandemic – during which he wrote off the coronavirus as a “little flu” – Brazil has racked up nearly 700,000 official deaths, putting the country in second place after the United States for most COVID-19 fatalities. When a female Brazilian journalist questioned the president about the domestic vaccination rate, Bolsonaro responded with typical maturity: “You think about me in your sleep, you must have a crush on me or something.”

He has also been a plague on the environment, enthusiastically championing the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. After all, it’s not like the Amazon is crucial to life on Earth.

Add to this severe economic mismanagement, soaring inflation, rising poverty rates and a surge in membership of neo-Nazi groups in Brazil, and it starts to seem like the old “awakening” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Still, hey, at least Bolsonaro rescued Brazil’s presidential palace from the “demons” that had formerly “overtaken” it, according to his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro. The president has also strived to inculcate his citizenry with a deep and God-fearing piety, and in August encouraged supporters: “Buy your guns! It’s in the Bible!”

Meanwhile, Lula, whose corruption convictions have been annulled, has rightly disillusioned many leftists by being overly accommodating in his efforts to court elite voters unhappy with Bolsonaro. He has chosen a right-wing running mate with a history of antagonising the PT. Yet, as things currently stand, Lula is the only ticket out of the Bolsonarist nightmare.

As the historian Fogel remarked to me, “what Lula stands for in this election, rather than radicalism, is a memory of a better time where you could provide for you and your family”. He stressed the importance of questioning whether the Brazilian right “has any actual interest in governing” or if the aim is simply to “remove all protections” in the pursuit of a sort of “war against all”.

Perhaps nothing better encapsulates the apocalyptic nature of that war than the fires that have been raging in the Brazilian Amazon ahead of Bolsonaro’s expected defeat in the election, as deforesters race to deforest while the deforesting is still good.

As Brazilians head to voting booths, here’s hoping the country is about to awaken from a bad dream.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

---

• 
  Belén Fernández

  Contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.

  Belén Fernández is the author of Checkpoint Zipolite: Quarantine in a Small Place (OR Books, 2021), Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World (OR Books, 2019), Martyrs Never Die: Travels through South Lebanon (Warscapes, 2016), and The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work (Verso, 2011). She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine, and has written for the New York Times, the London Review of Books blog, Current Affairs, and Middle East Eye, among numerous other publications.
• 
  

One dead, dozens wounded after earthquake strikes Indonesia’s Sumatra

This handout from regional disaster management agency Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah (BPBD) taken and released on October 1, 2022 shows medical workers treating a survivor, injured from falling debris from buildings after an earthquake, in North Tapanuli in northern Sumatra. (AFP)

AFP, Jakarta
Published: 01 October ,2022

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia’s Sumatra island early Saturday, according to the US Geological Survey, killing at least one person and injuring dozens as locals rushed out of buildings seeking safety.

The quake hit at a relatively shallow depth of 13 kilometers (eight miles) just before 2:30 am (1930 GMT), about 40 kilometers from the town of Sibolga in North Sumatra province, according to the USGS.

A man in his 50s died from a heart attack triggered by the quake and at least 25 other people were injured, regional disaster mitigation agency official Febrina Tampubolon told AFP.

Authorities are still gathering reports on damage, but electricity poles and telecommunication towers have been hit, knocking out services, said Tampubolon.

More than 50 aftershocks were recorded by the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).

BMKG head Dwikorita Karnawati advised residents to watch for further tremors and urged people to seek shelter on safe ground.

“For those whose houses were damaged, it is advised to not stay inside as possible aftershocks could worsen the damage,” Karnawati said in a virtual press conference.

Aftershocks could also trigger landslides, she added.

Indonesia experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide.

In 2018, a 7.5-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi island killed more than 2,200 people.

In 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake struck Aceh province, causing a tsunami and killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia.

NONFICTION

Scientists Knew More About Covid-19 Than We Think. And They Still Do.

In “Breathless,” David Quammen explores the predictable lead-up to the global Covid pandemic, and the frantic, belated attempts to stop it.

New Jersey first responder Robert Sabia being decontaminated after answering a call in March, 2020.

Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

By Michael Sims
Oct. 1, 2022

BREATHLESS: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus, by David Quammen

“Nobody,” Donald Trump claimed in a March 2020 address, “had any idea.” He was talking about the Covid virus — which had, seemingly overnight, sparked a global pandemic. In his compelling and terrifying new book, “Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus,” the veteran science journalist David Quammen demonstrates just how much was known — and expected — by infectious disease scientists long before patrons of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market fell ill in December 2019 with a pneumonia-like virus.

“Soothsayer” isn’t on Quammen’s extensive résumé, but he was among those who had long predicted this kind of catastrophe. In 2012 he provided a field guide to the future, “Spillover,” whose subtitle — “Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic” — explains exactly what the scientific community had long been expecting.

“This is a book about the science of SARS-CoV-2,” he specifies in his new book. “The medical crisis of Covid-19, the heroism of health care workers and other people performing essential services, the unjustly distributed human suffering, and the egregious political malfeasance that made it all worse — those are topics for other books.” Instead, he focuses his informed attention on the unsung heroes who dare to wrestle with viruses, those strange entities he calls “the dark angels of evolution.” Human beings are part of a sprawling family of interconnected species who can share illness because they all grew up together. It is our common ancestry and related bodily ecology that makes spillover possible between, say, bats and Earth’s (currently) dominant mammal.

Covid is, after all, as natural as a wolf cub or David Attenborough, and its thriller-level rate of evolution is part of its danger. “A virus is a parasite, yes,” writes Quammen, “a genetic parasite, to be more precise, using the resources of other organisms to replicate its own genome.” He demonstrates the sheer weirdness of viruses when he explains how difficult it is to even define them.

Quammen follows the story of Covid from scientists’ first awareness of the outbreak in Wuhan through reports of Omicron in late 2021. Alongside the human story, spillover between humans and other animals is a persistent theme. Early in 2020, a dog in Hong Kong tested positive. There were positive cats in Minnesota, two positive hippos in Antwerp, a positive tiger in Knoxville. An outbreak spread through mink farms in the Netherlands. Last year, of the many white-tailed deer sampled in Pennsylvania, 44 percent tested positive. The persistent danger of spillover between species informs arguments over the virtues and the flaws of both approaches to pandemics: “prediction and prevention versus surveillance and response.”

“Breathless” is so good that I was slow to realize that it lacks the vivid you-are-there details of “Spillover.” That’s because he wasn’t there. In “Breathless,” there are no scenes of an intrepid author helping trap macaques at a Sufi shrine or examining a white-footed mouse for Lyme-infested larval ticks. Among its other virtues, “Spillover” was something of a nightmare travel book, but “Breathless” is a different species of tour de force. Quammen’s research methods have mutated. “I avoided airports for more than two years after Covid-19 exploded,” he says up front, “and I got through the year 2020 on one tank of gas.” Yet these barriers didn’t prevent him from writing a luminous, passionate account of the defining crisis of our time — and the unprecedented international response to it. While many people were begging for mercy from the motley of gods that they also credit with designing this Eden for viruses, epidemiologists and vaccine scientists all over the world raced to save the lives of people they would never meet.

Citing Faulkner’s multiple narrators, Quammen says, “The discernment of truth — let’s make that ‘truth,’ because it’s such an imperious and suspect word — comes from listening to many voices.” He read a library’s worth of books and Zoomed with some 95 sources — epidemiologists, geneticists and public health officials who were closely involved in research and decision-making. He smoothly weaves not only their facts, but their way of speaking, into his story. “Spoken words are data, in nonfiction,” he says, “and I share scientists’ respect for the sanctity of data.” He provides a mini-biography of each interviewee. Backstage outtakes humanize the participants, as when Quammen asks Anthony Fauci whether Brad Pitt or Kate McKinnon did a better job of satirizing him. These glimpses undergird his assertion that science is “a rational process leading toward ever-clearer understanding of the material world, but it’s also an activity performed by humans.”

Quammen marries an old-fashioned love of colorful language to his passion for detail — an odd coupling that results not just in a lucid book about an important topic, but also in a book that’s a pleasure to read. “What nature of bug seethed in this dollop of liquid human distress?” he asks of a private genome-sequencing company in Guangzhou. Sometimes his Chandleresque metaphors distract. (When the rate of infection among the deer spikes, it’s “like popcorn in a hot pan.”) Usually, however, his imagery vividly reinforces a point. He explains that a laboratory sample from bat feces “is not a virus, just as the text of ‘Hamlet, Prince of Denmark’ is not a performed play” — that the sample is, instead, “the script of a virus.”

Quammen can’t resist snarking that Trump, “as you may have heard, is not a scientific sophisticate,” but he doesn’t waste much time shooting at such an easy target. He describes Elon Musk as an “entrepreneur and spaceman,” and Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, as “pliable.” The “Intelligence Community” is “a bodacious aggregation of intelligences” that includes Space Delta 7 — “within the United States Space Force, whatever that is.” Didier Raoult, the French physician who promoted hydroxychloroquine, Quammen terms a “prideful contrarian.” Hydroxychloroquine did indeed have a history of prescription for malaria, and, he deduces, presumably, “Trump listened to people who listened to people who listened to Didier Raoult.”

While staying on mission, Quammen allows himself room for context. The importance of the February 2020 announcement that scientists had found in pangolins a close match to the virus infecting humans makes more sense — both scientific and narrative — because Quammen begins with a brief survey course on these armored-looking, anteater-like creatures. He smoothly interweaves their evolution, the ecological sin of animal trafficking, the imaginary pharmacological virtues of pangolin scales (which are actually mostly keratin) and the contemporary “vogue in urban China for ye wei, or ‘wild tastes.’”

“This virus is going to be with us forever,” Quammen warns, with a wealth of data and precedent to support him. We haven’t eradicated polio or measles. “And those viruses have nowhere to hide except within humans.” This one could be cleared from every living human, and still exist in other animals. “Covid-19 won’t be our last pandemic of the 21st century. It probably won’t be our worst.” In our international world, as one scientist tells Quammen, “A disease anywhere is a disease everywhere.”

Michael Sims’s books include “Adam’s Navel” and a companion volume to the National Geographic Channel series “In the Womb: Animals.”

BREATHLESS: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus | By David Quammen | 406 pp. | Simon & Schuster | $28.99

Read More on the Coronavirus PandemicA Persistent Variant: Ten months have passed since Omicron’s debut. Since then it has displayed a remarkable capacity to evolve new tricks.

A Blunted Response: Major data gaps, the result of decades of underinvestment in public health, have undercut the U.S. government’s response to Covid — and now to monkeypox.

Biden’s Comments: In an interview that aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” President Biden said that “the pandemic is over.” But 400 to 500 Americans are still dying every day of Covid-19.

Menstrual Cycle: A new study adds to a growing body of research suggesting that the Covid vaccine can indeed affect the length of a person’s menstrual cycle.

Iran’s Mahsa Amini hijab protests a lesson for Indonesia against radical Islam, activists say

Resty Woro Yuniar - Yesterday 

Outrage over Iran's hijab laws after a woman's death have sparked fears Indonesia could face a similar fate amid a rise in religious fundamentalism
Analysts say especially concerning is the growing grip of Wahhabism, which promotes a narrow view of Islam, across Indonesian institutions and regions

The spiralling unrest in Iran over a young woman's death is a cautionary tale for Indonesia, say rights activists in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, where women face hundreds of systemic rules making headscarves obligatory.

At least 40 demonstrators have reportedly been killed across Iran after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was arrested in Tehran by so-called morality officers for allegedly improperly wearing her hijab, the Muslim headscarf for women. She died in custody amid rumours she had been beaten to death.

Some women have burned their hijabs and cut their hair short as an act of defiance, as protests spread across the Middle East and as far as Europe and North America. In Indonesia, online commentators have expressed solidarity with Iranian women, while also warning the Southeast Asian nation could face the same fate if religious fundamentalists are not reined in.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

Will West Sumatra's new law lead to more Islamic conservatism in Indonesia?

"I think all regulations that make the hijab mandatory in Indonesia must be revoked, if we don't want to copy the mistakes of the Iranian government, as well as the Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan governments," said Andreas Harsono, a Jakarta-based researcher with Human Rights Watch.

"Women are free to wear the hijab; we don't need to enforce it. Women who don't wear the hijab should be afforded the same respect as those who wear it. It's an individual choice," added Harsono, who has studied hijab rules in Indonesia extensively.

While Muslim women in Indonesia are obliged to wear the religious headscarf in various places and on occasions, the phenomenon was relatively recent, he noted.

The first time Indonesia passed a regional-level law mandating the hijab was in 2001, three years after a people-led revolution toppled Suharto.

The dictator took steps to repress Islam during the initial parts of his 32-year regime because he viewed the religion as a threat to national unity. He went as far as banning hijabs in secular state schools in 1982, "as a response to the 1979 revolution in Iran that made hijab mandatory for women there", Harsono said.

As Iran's anti-hijab protests escalate, diaspora reflects on 'terrible memories'

The Iranian revolution had led to the ousting of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who sought to replace Islamic laws and norms with Western ones, including banning traditional Muslim attire.

As opposition towards Suharto's policies grew however, he made a U-turn in the 1990s, courting large Muslim groups and approving the establishment of the Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals. In 1991, he also allowed students to wear the hijab at schools. The Suharto family also went to Mecca to carry out the haj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage, while his eldest daughter began donning a headscarf from 1989.



Women in Jakarta, Indonesia, queue to receive Covid-19 vaccine shots in 2021. Photo: Reuters© Provided by South China Morning Post

The attempts to repress Islam in Iran and Indonesia often lead to comparisons of how hijab-wearing has evolved in the two states.

"There are some parallels between Indonesia and Iran in this respect. If you compare the regimes of the Shah and Suharto, they were repressing Islam and Islamic identity," said Julia Suryakusuma, director of the Gender and Democracy Center at the Jakarta-based Institute for Research, Education and Information on Economy and Social Affairs.

"When the people were fighting against the Shah, non-conservative women were wearing the hijab just as a symbol of protest," she said. "Under Suharto, the military regime was smarter because they befriended political Islam. The Suharto regime gave signs it was friendly towards Islam."

But even as Indonesia continued being mostly secular before the turn of the 21st century, Islamic fundamentalism started emerging in the 1980s due to the spread of Saudi-funded religious schools, which teach Wahhabism in their curriculum, Suryakusuma said.

Wahhabism is a puritanical movement that promotes a narrow view of Islam, including that women must wear the hijab.



Thousands of schools in Indonesia make it compulsory for female students, even those who are not Muslim, to wear a headscarf. File photo: AFP© Provided by South China Morning Post

Today, 24 out of Indonesia's 34 provinces have hijab mandates at schools, government institutions, or public places, Harsono said. He estimated around 135,000 schools in these provinces require their female students to wear hijab, whether they are Muslim or not.

There are also 64 government regulations, with two on the national level, that make hijabs compulsory for students and civil servants. Those who do not comply could face expulsion or dismissal, he said.

Women who do not wear hijabs are also often harassed or bullied into submission, activists have noted.

"The enforcement to wear the hijab in Indonesia occurs in closed spaces, in the form of symbolic violence within the family or office. Women who are not veiled are bullied so that they will soon wear the veil," says Kalis Mardiasih, a female Muslim writer and activist of diversity and gender equality in Islam.

Indonesian women face bullying for not wearing hijabs: rights group

Nevertheless, activists believe that any resistance to hijab rules in Indonesia is unlikely to blow up into nationwide protests such as those in Iran, as the state encourages the empowerment and participation of women in many sectors, including politics.

Save for the ultraconservative Aceh province, Indonesia also does not have any state-sanctioned morality police departments to enforce hijab rules.

However, the increasing grip of Wahhabism among the country's Muslims opens grounds for concern as more institutions and regions become more conservative, Suryakusuma said.

"In Indonesia, we have had Wahhabism for quite a while and it's quite worrying because it has managed to infiltrate universities, schools, and the military," she said.

"Indonesia is not like Iran. But extremist Islam threatens the sovereignty of the state, as the radicals don't necessarily believe in the law of the state. That's why we should pay attention to what is happening in Iran, because it could happen here."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Iranian writer Darvishi: The mullah regime is about to fall and doomed to collapse

Exiled Iranian writer Sepideh Darvishi who is leading the protests in Turkey against the murder of Mahsa (Jîna) Amini, stressed that “We want to live in a democratic and free country.”

ZEYNEP KURAY
ISTANBUL
Saturday, 1 Oct 2022,

Riots and protests against the murder of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, by the morality police in Tehran have spread all over Iran. Iranians living in Istanbul rally together frequently in front of the Iranian Consulate and condemn the mullah regime which has killed dozens of protestors and arrested hundreds of them during the ongoing protest actions.

One of the Iranian protesters, exiled writer Sepideh Darvishi, spoke to ANF in Istanbul.



'MISOGYNIST IRANIAN REGIME'

Iranian writer Sepideh Darvishi is one of the women persecuted by the oppressive state. 48-year-old Darvishi went into exile in Turkey 5 years ago due to oppression and threats she faced in her country. She is now leading the protests in Istanbul against the murder of Amini. She emphasized that the Iranian state is hostile to women the most, and that she was a direct witness and victim of it.

'I WAS TORTURED SINCE I DID NOT ACCEPT SPYING'

Darvishi stated that she was detained and tortured because she did not accept the offer to spy on behalf of the Iranian intelligence. “I am from Bextiari. I am a writer and a Christian. A few years ago, intelligence officers called “Sipahi” came to our church and asked me to spy for them. Because there are people who go to church and convert to Christianity due to the religious persecution based on sharia laws. It is forbidden to convert to Christianity in Iran, and they execute those who change their religion. They wanted me to identify the converts and inform intelligence officers. Since I did not accept this, I was detained and tortured. They beat me and threatened me with rape. They forced me to sign a false statement. I was sentenced to prison. As a last resort, I had to flee my country.”

'I CANNOT GET NEWS FROM MY FAMILY'

Showing the traces of torture on her hands, Darvishi pointed out that she still could not hold a pen properly even after years.

Darvishi said that she was concerned about the recent developments in Iran, and she could not get news from her family in Tehran due to the internet cuts.

'AMINI'S MURDER WAS THE FINAL STRAW'

Emphasizing that the murder of Amini was the last straw for Iranians, Darvishi remarked that the mullah regime was now about to fall and doomed to collapse.

The Iranian writer recalled that men and women have been fighting shoulder to shoulder against the oppressive system in Iran. She said that as Iranians in exile, they are trying to raise their voice to support their people. “As Iranians, we want to live in a democratic and free country. This is our only demand, and we will achieve it by fighting,” she added.

Interview With Iranian Artist Parastou Forouhar: ‘The Regime Is Anti-Women’

As protests continue in Iran following the murder of a young woman by the 'morality' police, Iranian dissident artist Parastou Forouhar is full of anger but has some optimism.


After 30 years in exile, the Iranian artist is still demanding women's rights in her homeland.

Mahsa Amini would have turned 23 on September 21. She was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab. How could she have died in police custody for such a minor offense?

It wasn’t even about the refusal to wear a hijab. It was just about Mahsa Amani allegedly not wearing it properly! And, because of that, she was mistreated and beaten up terribly.

And now there are the women taking to the streets, the many protests. Only now there is an absolute refusal to wear veils. The women are burning them. They are doing it in public. Some women have been shot in the last few days.

How does this make you feel?

It makes me totally angry, furiously angry. And also deeply sad that young people are exposed to such brutality and cannot escape this violence. It’s like a trap. This religious dictatorship is a set of rules that is a function of paternalism. Generation after generation of Iranians have tried to achieve self-determination but are failing because of this brutality.

Your parents were murdered for political reasons in 1998. What do you fear in the current situation?


I am very worried. Especially because I notice that certain Internet messaging services such as WhatsApp have been suspended by the regime. The idea is to create isolation so that no news gets out. Whenever something like this happens, the government plans even harsher repression, mass arrests, or shoots indiscriminately into the crowd.

On Wednesday, it started with arresting people not only at demonstrations, but also activists, known activists, who were not at demos, but in their homes. They were stormed by security forces. That was really very violent. There continues to be no news of these people.

British-Iranian actress Nazanin Boniadi stated that there was a revolution against women in 1979. What we see today is a revolution led by women, she said. So you agree?

I think that many people who participated in the revolution in 1979 did not think that it was a revolution against women. They took to the streets hoping for freedom, independence and justice. But they were overcome by religious forces. Despite civil society protests, they seized power. Boniadi’s statement is a contraction. But I believe that the regime is anti-women. It is a kind of apartheid system against women who are not supposed to have the same rights as men.

You have been living in exile in Germany for a long time. Do you return to Iran and what can you do to influence the situation in your homeland?

I try to go to Iran every year on the anniversary of the death of my parents, Parvaneh and Dariush Forouhar. Still, it is dangerous because I was sued in Iran and sentenced to six years in prison on probation. Nevertheless, I went again last year. For me, it is an act of resistance to maintain a culture of remembrance and to insist on justice. I’m also doing what I can to publicise what’s happening, to tell what’s happening, to support the people on the ground. What needs to change has to happen from within. But democratic countries can also support this movement in Iran.

How much hope do you have that the protests will turn out differently this time?

That’s a difficult question. Every time I get my hopes up because these people are taking to the streets so bravely. This human will, this vision through resistance to bring about a better life for themselves and society, inspires me. But the experience of repression runs deep. One constantly has images of the brutality in one’s mind.

Munich Soccer Fans Unfurl Banners Supporting Iranian Player For Backing Protests In Iran

October 01, 2022 08:51 GMT

The banners were unfurled when Azmoun, who plays for Bayer Leverkusen, came off the bench in the 60th minute of the match on September 30, which Bayern Munich ultimately won 4-0.

Bayern Munich fans have shown their support for Iranian striker Sardar Azmoun, who has backed anti-government protests taking place in Iran, during a match in their home stadium.

The Munich fans revealed two banners expressing solidarity with women in the Islamic republic who have been demonstrating to demand more freedoms.

The banners were unfurled when Azmoun, who plays for Bayer Leverkusen, came off the bench in the 60th minute of the match on September 30, which Bayern Munich ultimately won 4-0.

One banner read "Women, life, freedom" in Persian -- a common chant heard in the Iranian protests. Another read "Solidarity with the feminist revolution in Iran" in English.

Earlier this week, Iranian soccer bloggers took screenshots of an Instagram post from Azmoun saying that because of "restrictive rules on the Team Melli (Iran), I could not say anything."

But he added that he also could not stay silent about the crackdown against the protests.

"This will never be erased from our consciousness. Shame on you!" he wrote on his Instagram account, which is followed by some 5 million people.

The post was deleted, and the entire content of his account disappeared for days.

The protests in Iran began after the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in police custody. Amini was arrested for allegedly breaching Iran's strict rules requiring women to wear an Islamic headscarf, or hijab.

SEE ALSO:
Protests In Iran Continue Despite Violent Government Crackdown

Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based rights organization, has said 83 people, including children, have been killed during the two weeks of protest.

Iranian media reported on September 29 that Hossein Mahini, the retired captain of Iranian soccer giant Persepolis FC, has been arrested on charges of "encouraging riots and sympathizing with the enemy" after he posted content on social media in support of the protesters.
Based on reporting by AFP

Turmoil at home swirls around Iran team ahead of World Cup

By GRAHAM DUNBAR

yesterday

1 of 4

Iran's national soccer team head coach Carlos Queiroz, in red, watches a training session in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. Queiroz was rehired as Iran's coach on Wednesday, Sept. 7, to take the national soccer team to its third straight World Cup. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

GENEVA (AP) — Political issues are swirling around the Iran men’s soccer team amid turmoil on the streets at home just weeks before the World Cup where it will play the United States, Wales and England.

At home in Iran, two weeks of demonstrations and a violent crackdown by state authorities have followed the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of the morality police. She had been detained for allegedly wearing a mandatory headscarf too loosely.

Players made their silent protest at a World Cup warmup game this week, where the Iranian soccer federation tried to silence fans by locking them out of the stadium in Austria.

The federation also tried this month to organize a warmup game in November with Russia, Iran’s military ally whose teams are pariahs in soccer since the invasion of Ukraine.

FIFA was urged Friday by long-time campaigners for the rights of women fans to attend games in Iran to expel the national team from the World Cup.

“The Islamic Republic’s authorities and its football federation must not be given the honor of participating in football’s finest tournament while it is killing its citizens on our streets,” the Open Stadiums group said.

Open Stadiums called on FIFA to uphold its statutory commitment to respect and strive to promote “all internationally recognized human rights.”

Soccer’s governing body did not immediately comment on the fans’ request.

FIFA already did expel Russia from this World Cup — imposing a ban before a European qualifying playoffs semifinal in March against Poland — though without invoking human rights reasons. Instead, FIFA cited “irreparable and chaotic” harm to the World Cup due to security risks and potential opponents likely refusing to play Russia.

Iran should certainly play at the World Cup in Qatar, its near neighbor across the Persian Gulf water, though the likelihood increased this week of political disruption for FIFA to deal with at the tournament starting Nov. 20.

Players have made their stand after being criticized for not reacting to Amini’s death days later at their first warmup game in Austria.

On Sunday, striker Sardar Azmoun wrote to his 4.9 million followers on Instagram that team rules prohibited comment “but I am no longer able to tolerate silence.”

He added being kicked out of the team would be “a small price to pay for even a single strand of Iranian women’s hair.”

A team-wide reaction followed Tuesday when the Iranian anthem played ahead of the game against Senegal. Each player wore a wore a plain black jacket that covered up their national team badge.

The game went ahead without fans in the stadium near Vienna, as the federation tried to stop demonstrators outside using a platform for dissent that would be seen on a live broadcast at home.

Star striker Mehdi Taremi later wrote on Instagram of being “ashamed” to see videos from Iran of violence against women in the streets.

Protesters in Iran have also targeted wider repression with some calls to overthrow the clerical establishment that has ruled Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

Soccer was drawn closer into the Iranian turmoil in the same week FIFA president Gianni Infantino claimed progress for women’s fans there at a World Trade Organization event in Geneva.

“Women attend football games now in Iran which was not possible until a couple of (months) ago,” Infantino said Tuesday, when he also visited United Nations human rights officials hours before the Iran players’ protest in Austria.

Infantino’s claim was disputed by Open Stadiums which said “when the Islamic Republic pretended to open league matches for women, it was far from the equality FIFA’s own statutes require.”

“To begin with, very few women could buy tickets, then in a humiliating way got physically harassed by Iran’s morality police,” the activist group said.

The tension between FIFA and Iranian women fans is despite some success at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

FIFA intervened four years ago to ensure fans could display their campaign banners in stadiums.

More cooperation could be called upon in Qatar, when Iran has a global audience to face England in just the second game of the tournament on Nov. 21.

Coach Carlos Queiroz’s team also faces Wales in Group B on Nov. 25 and four days later against the U.S.

___

John Duerden in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report

___

More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Protests in Iran continue, almost two weeks pass (PHOTO/VIDEO)
Society Materials 1 October 2022 


 

Follow Trend onTelegram
Elnur Baghishov

Read more

BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 1. The protests in Iran started a few days after the death of the Iranian woman Mahsa Amini on September 16, still continue across the country, Trend reports.

On October 1, the protests continued in many cities, including Tehran, Karaj, Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad.

The protest actions were mainly held in universities of the mentioned cities. The students chanted different slogans and demanded the release of the detained students.

The protests in Iranian cities are ongoing, prompted by death of a 22-year old Mahsa Amini, allegedly after being beaten by Iran's morality police while in custody for violating the strict hijab-wearing rules. Amini's death on September 16 triggered mass protests in Iran several days later.

Hijab was made mandatory for women in Iran shortly after the country’s 1979 revolution. Women who break the strict dress code risk being arrested by Iran’s morality police. Based on the dress code, women are required to fully cover their hair in public and wear long, loose-fitting clothes.

Follow the author on Twitter:@BaghishovElnur

Protests Continue in Iran Ahead of Global Day of Rallies
OCTOBER 1, 2022
IRANWIRE

A woman in Rasht, Gilan province, twirls her headscarf over her head as a sign of protest


Solidarity rallies in more than 150 cities are planned today as Iran enters its third week of nightly protests against Islamic Republic rule. The global demonstrations – called Freedom Rallies for Iran – are being publicized across social media channels including by celebrity figures and activists.

Protests have continued for two weeks across Iranian cities after the September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Mahsa had been detained by the so-called morality police three days earlier for "improper hijab", was beaten in detention and fell into a coma within hours of her arrest, before dying in hospital. Her death sparked massive protests against mandatory hijab and the Islamic Republic itself.

Women in Arak, Markazi province, exercised civil disobedience with their rejection of the mandatory hijab by walking without headscarves through the city. Social and mainstream media have increasingly captured examples of Iranian women rejecting the hijab in the past two weeks.

A woman in Rasht, Gilan province, twirls her headscarf over her head as a sign of protest. And a woman in Saqqez, Kurdistan province, Mahsa Amini's hometown, also discarded her headscarf as her mother shielded her and prevented her from being arrested by security agents. Protesters in Saqqez were also filmed chanting perhaps the leading slogan of the protests: "Women, life, freedom!" and "Death to the dictator!"

In Qaitariya Park, in Tehran, a statue of the late Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in an American missile strike in Iraq in early 2020, was torched by protesters. Soleimani and his Quds Force is seen by many Iran to represent the government's insistence on pursuing foreign adventures over addressing social and economic problems in the country.

The streets of the Gohardasht area of Karaj, outside Tehran, saw large protests last night. Elsewhere in Karaj, Iranians took to their apartment windows, as night fell, to chant "Death to Khamenei!"

Abadan in Khuzestan province saw its own repeated protests with citizens calling on their fellow Iranians to join the protest movement.

And as if to demonstration this grievance, Iranian citizens in Kurdistan staged a general strike across the province in protest at the government's launch of attacks on Kurdish groups across the border in Iraq.