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Iran Roundup for December 1st & 2nd: Tehran’s Regime looses its top EU Cheerleader, 900 Protesters Murdered, 13,000 Arrested

By Editors of The Free Iran Herald 

Now bringing you updates on the events unfolding in Iran

 

As of today, the reported casualty statistics for the protests of November 15-20 are 900 killed, 6,000 wounded, and 13,000 arrested, by the regime. The numbers increase with each day as more and more testimonies from Iranians are posted on social media.

Many of those detained are said to be in critical condition. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network has reported that 200 protestors, some of whom were under the age of 18, from cities scattered around Iran’s western provinces have been taken to an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) base in Sanandaj, where they have been tortured. Many of these protestors had been shot or otherwise wounded, but the IRGC is refusing to allow them to receive medical treatment.

Regime Interior Minister Abdol Reza Rahmani-Fazli said that “confessions” from detained protestors would soon be broadcast on regime-run TV. Showing public “confessions,” induced through severe torture, is a standard practice of the Khomeiniist officials.

The Internet is still blocked in several Iranian provinces, largely those provinces bordering Iraq and Pakistan.

Even elements within the regime are beginning to admit that the repression is going “too far.” Mahmoud Sadeghi, a member of the Islamic Parliament (Majles), said in an interview today that the IRGC has been conducting “illegal” arrests, and he criticized regime-controlled media for not discussing the protests and their aftermath. He added that “dissent in Iran is still there like a fire under the ashes.”

Other officials are boasting of their role in killing protestors. Leila Vaseghi, the manager of Qods township, which saw heavy fighting, admitted in an interview today that she ordered IRGC personnel to kill demonstrators. Crowds had momentarily seized her offices after her security guards ran away or joined the protestors. Vasgehi fled to an IRGC base, and the Guards retook control of the town, after killing an unknown number of people.

Many of those who were killed were children, as the graphic video below, of a 12 year old boy being murdered by the IRGC, shows.

Supporters of Reza Pahlavi Remain on the March

Both inside and outside Iran, however, people are continuing to visibly show their support for Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the heir of the Iranian monarchy. In Qom, the headquarters of the Shi’a clergy, that was once the bastion of the regime but is now a scene of dissent and anger towards it, a banner with Pahlavi’s face was hung off a bridge, yesterday.

In London, Iranian diaspora activists covered over the walls of the regime’s consulate there with posters of Pahlavi.

Labor Activists Are Not Giving Up

While mass protests may be subdued for now, the struggle of the Iranian workers’ movement, which has endured for two years, for the right to unionize, as well as receive fair and regular pay, remains strong. The Defenders of Labor Rights Association has released a statement in support of the November 15th uprising, which reads in part: “These protests, which took place in almost all cities across the country, reflect the widespread discontent with the current political and economic system, that doesn’t care for the lives of those it oppresses.”

A strike continues at the Haft-Tappeh sugar growing and refining complex in city of Shoosh, in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan, with picketing workers holding a large rally on Monday to show their refusal of a deal offered by the company’s CEO. The strike has intermittently started and stopped as management has repeatedly promised to pay the owed back wages, and then always refused to honor their commitment. The picketers say they will not resume working until they are given all the wages they are owed, the regime frees their imprisoned union leaders, and the union is allowed to look at the company’s accounting records.

The Islamic Regime Loses its Biggest EU Cheerleader, as Federica Mogherini Term as EU’s Foreign Minister, Ends

December 1st marked the departure of Federica Mogherini from her post as the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs. In her five years in that position, Mogherini had been one of the Khomeiniist regime’s strongest foreign backers, and she had established an extremely close friendship with Tehran’s notorious foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. International observers pointed out her perceived weakness in defending international human rights, and fondness for authoritarian regimes, especially Islamic ones. Iranian democracy activists especially despised her for her callous disregard to the oppression of the Iranian people.

Mogherini, who began her political life as a member of Italy’s Communist Party, completed her PhD studies on political Islam. As one biography of her put it, her roots are in “the radical left,” the same milieus that, in Europe, have been sympathetic to the Islamic regime since its installation.

As EU foreign minister, Mogherini played a key role in finishing up the 2015 Iran Deal, the JCPOA, that led to European sanctions against removed. She remained a key cheerleader for Europe-Iran trade, and always looked the other way when Tehran sponsored attacks on other countries or violated its commitments under that deal. After Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2018, Mogherini tried to save the regime’s trade deals by creating the INSTEX exchange but failed to attract any companies to participate in it, to Tehran’s frustration. 

Other European diplomats are still attempting to promote INSTEX. Today, the British ambassador to Tehran, Rob Macaire, made another push to promote the trade mechanism, and drew the ire of activists who couldn’t believe the timing of this, right as the regime is massacring people on the streets.

America’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, on the other hand, spoke out again in support of the Iranian people today, saying that “Our role in all of this is to support freedom… people are simply asking for a basic set of freedoms and the Iranian… regime should change in a way that reflects the desires of their own people.”

The US’s maximum pressure campaign of sanctions’ effectiveness is being acknowledged more and more frankly by officials in Tehran. Es’haq Jahangiri, regime first vice president, said today that “even countries that are our friends and have so far been the closest countries to us do not dare to buy Iran’s oil.”

On another note, an IRGC plane was observed flying to and from Venezuela, presumably resupplying the IRGC soldiers aiding Tehran’s embattled ally, Nicolas Maduro.

Iraqis Still Fighting the Khomeiniist Regime’s Proxies

The IRGC’s General Qassem Soleimani has returned to Baghdad, as Tehran’s proxy militias engage in battles with Iraqi protestors. The Iranian consulate in Najaf was torched last night, for the second time in less than a week, and the tomb of a noted pro-Tehran ayatollah became a free fire zone as protestors attempted to dismantle the monument.

Tehran’s position remains in flux after its client, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, resigned as Iraq’s Prime Minister. Soleimani, who has directed the repression against the Iraqi uprising himself, is sure to be shoring up his forces in a last-ditch effort to maintain the IRGC’s hold over the country.

 

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