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TOPIC: iran protests

Society

Iran's Use Of Death Penalty Has Doubled, Targeting Protesters And Ethnic Minorities

Without drawing attention to public executions like it did last year, the regime has quietly continued to mete out capital punishment: increasing both death sentences and the carrying out of executions, on pace in 2023 to double from the previous year.

The tribunals of the Islamic Republic of Iran have accelerated the churning out of their specialty: death sentences. The latest were issued in the southwestern city of Ahwaz for six members of the local Arab minority and suspected separatists.

The defendants, named as Ali Majdam, Muhammad Reza Muqaddam, Moin Khanfari, Habib Deris, Adnan Gheibshahi and Salem Musawi, had been charged with terrorist activities in the Khuzestan province, in the southwest of the country, in the years 2018-2020, and may have been members of an Arab separatist group, the Harakat al-nidhal.

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The Shah's Son Paradox: Why Iran Needs Its Exiled Crown Prince To Achieve Democracy

Iran's exiled and surprisingly popular crown prince Reza Pahlavi can help unite opponents against the country's brutal regime. But he can only do that by reaffirming his royal status, rather than responding on calls to renounce his title.

-OpEd-

As a sociologist, I have one thing in common with Iran's former crown prince and exiled heir apparent, Reza Pahlavi. We both support a republic in Iran, while understanding the utility in present conditions, of restoring the constitutional regime that ended with the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the monarchy and installed a theocratic regime.

It's an inexplicable contradiction though in my case, it's merely a personal conundrum. Not so with the prince: for he must bear a burden of responsibilities born of the hopes and expectations of numerous Iranians, especially those inside Iran who have been protesting against the ayatollahs — and often chanting support for the Pahlavis — at great personal risk to themselves.

Every time he speaks in the media or responds to calls to become the nation's representative, he prompts criticisms, indignation and controversy. Opponents of the monarchy are worried that anything enhancing the prince's public profile will also strengthen the prospects of a restoration. They want him to formally renounce his succession rights and distance himself from the monarchy he would, in other conditions, have inherited from his father, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The prince seems to be doing this distancing, stating his support for a republic with increasing clarity, and even renouncing use of the title of prince.

He recently told the BBC on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that he personally favored a republic in Iran, for its meritocratic nature. As he sees debates around a monarchy or republic as a source of discord among all those who want a democracy in Iran, he has sought to proceed in public as a civil and political activist, alongside other exiled opponents. This of course has prompted the ire of royalists, who do not see such postures as impartial or fair.

I personally believe the prince's bid to work as a "simple" activist, at this juncture, is neither practical nor beneficial to Iran's mass opposition movement.

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Iranians Can Only Topple The Dictatorship With Help From The West

Inside Iran, people are risking their lives to fight the oppressive Islamic Republic. Now, they need support from compatriots abroad and Western democracies to bring an end to this decades-long fight for democracy.

-OpEd-

For years now, the fate of Iran has been a concern for many Iranians living abroad as migrants or exiles, regardless of their political views or socio-cultural origins.

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Iranian "Justice" At Work: Executions For Protesters, Leniency For Honor Killings

After hanging at least four anti-government protesters, Islamic Iran's judiciary decided, not for the first time, to give a short jail term to a man who murdered his "unruly" wife last year.

-Editorial-

Iran's regime has no qualms about executing those it deems the "undesirables" of the nation: political opponents, criminals and most recently anti-state protesters, often using the courts to issue extravagant charges against those it sends to be hanged.

And yet the same judiciary has recently given an eight-year jail sentence to a young man who murdered his wife in 2022. This was a notorious case of "honor killing" reported in February that year in the southern city of Ahwaz.

The convict, Sajjad Heidarnava, became a figure of macabre evil on social media when he was shown smiling and displaying his 17-year-old wife's severed head as a trophy in the neighborhood. His victim, Mona Heidari, had married Heidarnava, her cousin, some years earlier but insisted on a divorce before being killed.

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In The News
Ginevra Falciani & Inès Mermat

Ukraine Interior Minister Killed In Helicopter Crash, Greta v. Polizei, World’s Oldest Person Dies

👋 Halo!*

Welcome to Wednesday, where Ukraine’s interior minister is among 18 killed in a helicopter crash near Kyiv, the world’s oldest person dies at 118, and Greta Thunberg is briefly detained by German police. Meanwhile, London-based, Persian-language Kayhan wonders what’s behind the Iranian Supreme Leader’s repeated allusions to the end of the Shah's rule.

[*Bislama, Vanuatu]

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Geopolitics
Kayhan-London

End-Of-Regime Vibe? Supreme Leader Keeps Referring To Shah's Final Days

In recent weeks, Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, has made repeated references to the end of Iran's last regime in 1979. It may be a sign the country is indeed approaching another kind of revolution.

-Analysis-

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered his forces to clamp down with renewed vigor on the remains of the mass protests that erupted across Iran in mid-September. Initially a reaction to police brutality, these turned into the biggest anti-state protests of the Islamic Republic's 40-year history.

And they continue, in spite of thousands of arrests, more than 500 deaths on the streets and in custody, and four hangings. There was also outrage in Britain and across the world after the execution of British-Iranian Alireza Akbari, who had been sentenced to death.

All of this has angered the leader. In a speech in Tehran last week, Khamenei called the protests "treason" aimed at destroying Iran's "security, production of knowledge, economic output and tourism."

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In The News
Renate Mattar & Ginevra Falciani

Russia’s New Commander, More Classified Biden Files, Musk Record Loss

👋 Selamat pagi!*

Welcome to Thursday, where U.S. President Joe Biden aides find a second cache of classified files, Russia appoints a new commander in yet another military reshuffle, and Elon Musk really is a big loser. Meanwhile, speculation is rising that Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro and his family may take refuge in Italy, where they could qualify for citizenship.

[*Indonesian]

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Ideas
Elahe Boghrat

Iran's Tale Of Two Revolutions, 1979 & 2022 — And What To Look For Now

The revolt in Iran began in protest of police brutality and the Islamic Republic's rotten structures, but quickly became a "revolution of minds," hastening the rise of a national community united in its resolve to live in a free and lawful state.

-OpEd-

The revolutionary uprising of Iranians against the clerical regime of the Islamic Republic did not end with the last days of 2022.

Two of the movement's defining traits have been its nature and essence, as shown in protesters' slogans and initiatives, as well as the support of the international community — something the world, watching protesters' courage and resilience, couldn't refuse.

But one of the demands made by the Iranian defenders of democracy still hasn't received meaningful support from Western governments: their call to investigate the residency rights given to families of Islamic Republic officials in Western countries.

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Ideas
Worldcrunch

Reverse Aging, Mole In Iran, Precious Ukraine: The Year's Most Popular Worldcrunch Stories

Here are the 10 most-read articles of the past year:

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Ideas
Worldcrunch

Worldcrunch Staff Picks Its 10 Most Memorable Stories Of 2022

Worldcrunch asked its staff to choose the articles published this year that made a particular impression on them. They largely cover the major events that marked the news in 2022, from the war in Ukraine to the protests in Iran and the overturning of Roe v Wade in the U.S.

Here are the 10 stories that we selected:

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Ideas
Édouard Tétreau

Strange And Cruel As It Sounds, 2022 Was A Year Of Hope

Many lives have been lost, rights trampled and dreams crushed. But through the haze, the world took the right turn on many fronts this past year, from Ukraine to Iran to China. Trying to take stock amid the suffering.

The starting premise is a bit daring: to associate 2022 with good news seems naïve at best.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused the death, rape and torture of thousands of people.

In China, the iron-fisted 69-year-old Communist leader Xi Jinping strengthened his control over the Chinese population and looks set to stay in power for life. Meanwhile, in Iran, clerics continue to brutally suppress women’s protests for equal rights; in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to invade Greece.

Of course, it’s hard to speak of a “triumph” of Western democracies, many of which are stuck in sluggish, inconclusive elections: a French executive that lacks a clear majority, Liz Truss in the UK and the probably transient Giorgia Meloni in Italy. And yet...

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Geopolitics
Kayhan-London

Why Iran's Regime Is Cracking Down On Celebrities Now

The arrest Saturday of prominent actress Taraneh Alidoosti in Tehran is part of a wider move by Iran's embattled regime to turn its fury on artists, entertainers and athletes in an attempt to stifle their public support for weeks of anti-state protests.

Angered by the world's reactions to its brutal crackdown on weeks of mass protests, Iran's clerical regime has turned on both prominent and less prominent voices and faces in the arts and sports, to silence their support for the protests. The regime has come to characterize any backing of the popular movement as "hostile propaganda."'

On Saturday, actress Taraneh Alidoosti was arrested in Tehran, considered internationally the highest profile figure targeted.

Alidoosti had posed online without her mandatory headscarf, or hijab, and was arrested following her denunciation of the first execution of a protestor, 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari. She had warned authorities to "expect the consequences" of his killing.

According to fellow filmmaker Mani Haghighi, Alidoosti has had a consistent and clear track record on human rights, and on the protests that erupted in the wake of the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had let her headscarf slip on the street.

In remarks broadcast on Voice of America, Haghighi, a friend of Alidoosti, also mocked the Iranian Culture Minister Muhammadmehdi Ismaili for asking artists to "resume their artistic activities" amid the protests.

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