Celebrities In Iran Also Pay A Price For Supporting Protests

In an open letter Sunday, a number of academics living abroad stated that during the past 100 days of protests, more than 650 students have been kidnapped by the security and intelligence forces.

“It is a shame for the Science Ministry that 21 students have received sentences of up to five years in prison for participation in peaceful protests. Some students have also received sentences to be lashed. The sham trials of the students are held in a situation that the defendants do not even have access to lawyers,” reads the letter.

Many students have been banned from entering university campuses so quickly that it is not clear the life of how many students has been ruined, adds the letter.

The signatories have urged university officials to follow up on the situation of detainees and identify the people who have killed students during anti-government protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in mid-September.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) announced in its latest report that from September 16 until Tuesday, December 20, at least 506 protestors have been killed, of which at least 69 were minors.

While the Islamic Republic has not provided accurate figures of those detained, the watchdog went on to say that at least 18,457 protesters have been arrested including 652 students.

Reports from Tehran say people held rallies in Narmak and Tehranpars neighborhoods in the east chanting slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

A group of others marched from Enghelab square in central Tehran towards City Theater Hall in Vali-e Asr avenue.

In the flashpoint neighborhood of Ekbatan in the west people once again chanted slogans against the clerics from their windows. More than 30 people have been arrested in the restive district of large, middle class apartment blocks.

There were also protests in other cities, including the religious city of Mashhad in the northeast, Sanandaj in western Iran and the port city of Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf.

In Tehran a small team of protesters threw Molotov cocktails at a paramilitary Basij base, an act of defiance by young dissidents that has occurred numerous times in recent weeks.

Ashkan Khatibi, the famous Iranian actor, published a post on Instagram, saying he was summoned and interrogated by the security services.

He added that he has received multiple death threats on the phone for publishing posts in support of the popular protests.

Iranians in several European cities also held demonstrations to mark the hundredth day of the uprising, which is further fueled by executions and brutalities by the government.

In Copenhagen, protesters formed a human chain and chanted slogans to demand the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

Demonstrators in Istanbul also held a rally raising the pictures of those who were killed during the crackdown by the regime. They also chanted “Death to the Dictator” and “Death to Khamenei”.

Iranians living in Frankfurt, Germany also held a protest rally in the center of the city demanding to designate the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

A group of 43 members of the Social Democratic Party in the German Parliament this week demanded that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard – or IRGC --be designated as a terrorist group. The IRGC is the major force repressing dissidents and protests.

Lawmakers said, "A regime that defends its survival only by assassinating its own people has lost its legitimacy." Considering that other German parties such as Alliance 90/The Greens, and Free Democratic Party also seem to favor such a measure, it is possible that the IRGC will be blacklisted by Berlin and the European Union.

On Friday, Germany also suspended all export credits and investment guarantees for companies doing business with Iran as a measure against government’s harsh treatment of protesters.

In a statement Saturday, the Association of Qom Seminary Teachers urged the authorities to continue executions but use the amputation punishment to deter people from joining the protests instead of lenient punishments in the law such as exile.

The association (Jame’e Moddaresin-e Howzeh Elmiye-ye Qom) suggested that anyone who “instigates fear in society” -- supposedly by participation in anti-government protests -- is belligerent (mohareb) which in Iran's Sharia-based laws is punishable by death, crucifixion, severance of limbs, and/or exile.

Ayatollah Abbas Ka’abi, a member of the clerical group, said last week that despite normal practice in the case of murders where victims’ families can practice the “right to blood” – that is demand retribution in kind (death sentence), ‘blood money’, or forgive -- the “imam” of the society should punish a belligerent protester even if the family forgives the killer.

Another member, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, said Friday that those who participate in the protests, whether this includes direct involvement in the killing of government forces or not, should be considered as belligerents and be found guilty of “corruption on earth.”

The clerics, who are loyal followers of Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei and are regime insiders benefitting from power and perks, simply twisted a 1,400-year-old vague concept of a crime to fit the regime’s agenda against dissent.

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“The severing of fingers of one hand and toes of the opposite foot could be effective [as a deterrent punishment]” if a person “instigates fear in society, without the involvement of the [opposition] media and without urging others to follow suit,” the clerics of the powerful association suggested while arguing that the ‘exile’ option is too lenient to “prevent crime”.

Several Shiite religious scholars this month voiced their opposition to this interpretation of Islamic law, but the harsh approach is what the regime prefers.

They also stated that even if no killing is involved, a protester’s “crime” should be punished by death if they commit it with the “goal of causing fear and a sense of insecurity in the society and knowing that these actions would be publicized domestically and abroad.” Exile would be totally ineffective in such cases, they declared, because such actions tarnish Iran's image in the international community and bear other costs for the government.

The reference to the media and publicizing acts of protest is a reminder of the regime’s extreme sensitivity to media coverage of its repressive acts, particularly by television channels abroad that broadcast in Persian.

The Islamic Republic on December 8 hanged 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari after a secret Revolutionary Court trial. Four days later Majidreza Rahnavard, also 23, was hanged on a street in Mashhad in front of a hand-picked group of insiders to call it a “public hanging”. At least forty protesters are in risk of execution or death penalty sentences by courts in nearly all of which their rights, such as the right to due process, are grossly violated.

Besides intellectuals, politicians and activists in Iran, some high-ranking clerics and former officials such as the prominent scholar Ayatollah Mostafa Mohaqeq-Damad have also condemned protester executions or urged leniency.

A top Sunni cleric, Mowlavi Abdolhamid Esmail-Zehi, who leads the Sunni Friday congregation of Zahedan in the capital of the restive province of Sista-Baluchestan, argued this Friday that the death sentences passed on protesters were not religiously justifiable and warned about the consequences of such harsh punishments. “No ruler has such authority,” he said defiantly.

The international community including various rights organizations and activists, western officials, and politicians have also condemned the recent executions and urged the government to put an end to death sentences. In the past two weeks many European parliamentarians have also offered political sponsorship to detained protesters who are in imminent danger of execution or being sentenced to death.

However, the country’s judiciary announced in a statement Saturday that it had accepted the appeal against the death sentence of another demonstrator, Saman Saidi Yasin.

Earlier, the Court had announced the appeals of both protesters have been accepted, but subsequently Mizan news agency affiliated with the judiciary said just the appeal of Saman Saidi Yasin was accepted and the ruling of Mohammad Qobadlou was confirmed.

Qobadlou is accused of killing a police officer and wounding five others during the protests.

Yasin, a Kurdish man who sings rap songs about inequality, oppression, and unemployment, was charged with attempting to kill security forces and singing anti-regime songs.

Nationwide protests against the Islamic Republic erupted in mid-September after the death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini for wearing improper hijab.

Over 500 people have been killed by regime forces and over 18,000 were detained.

The clerical rulers hanged two protesters earlier this month: Mohsen Shekari, 23, was executed of blocking a street and injuring a member of the Basij militia force. Majid Reza Rahnavard, 23, accused of stabbing to death two Basij members, was publicly hanged in the religious city of Mashhad.

According to Amnesty International at least 26 people are in danger of receiving death penalty in what it called “sham trials designed to intimidate those participating in the popular uprising that has rocked Iran”.

Hadi Nobahari, Director General of Sharif University Dean’s Office told Mehr News Agency Saturday that since the beginning of the student protests, about 300 complaints have been lodged with the university’s disciplinary committee, that “out of these cases, 33 preliminary rulings have been issued, but the appeal board rulings have not been issued yet.”

He said these students have received “written warnings or up to one or 2.5 years ofsuspensions from studying.”

During the nationwide protests in Iran following the death of 22-year-old, Mahsa Amini in police custody and tension at universities, special law enforcement units as well as plainclothes security forces surrounded Sharif University for hours on October 2.

They entered the multistorey parking lot of the university with dozens of motorcycles and targeted protesting students who were sheltering in the parking lot with shotguns and paintballs.

Hundreds of students have also been arrested and many still remain in jail.

So far, the exact number of suspended and expelled students have not been announced, but in addition to Sharif University, there have been similar cases of punishments at other universities.

In Bahonar University of Kerman in central Iran 12 students were expelled and 80 suspended. Similar reports have been published about the universities of medical sciences in Kerman, Shiraz in the south, and Tabriz in the northwest.