In an article by Seth J. Frantzman, a Jerusalem-based commentator on Middle East politics, published on January 11 in the Jerusalem Post, he writes that there are no reformers in the Iranian regime. “There are only militarists, theocrats, nationalists, extremists, the extreme right, the populist right, the fundamentalists, the Inquisition leaders, and floggers and executioners,” he says.
The Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known by the Arabic label al-Hashd al-Shaabi, is a group of Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq. The threat posed by the PMU is tremendous for Iraq because it is highly dangerous and it is willing to do anything to carry out the requests of the Iranian regime across the region.
The PMU has been involved in the Syrian conflict since mid-2013 and took part in the offensive to take Mosul from ISIS.
The Australian government recently released photographs of weapons that were seized from a vessel near the coast of Yemen during an attempt to smuggle them into the country. It appears that the weapons were manufactured in Iran. This is consistent with other reports that indicate Iran has played a part in gunrunning operations in the area.
Just before the next set of sham elections for the Iranian regime take place, factions in the government are battling harder than ever, taking no notice of the serious social issues facing the people of Iran. Addiction, poverty, grave sleeps and unemployment is taking a back seat for the time being. Every day we are hearing new stories about the corruption within the government.
The former president of Iran, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, died on 8th January at the age of 82 of a suspected heart attack. He has been described as one of the main pillars and ‘key to the equilibrium’ of the Iranian regime as well as one of its founding fathers.
For nearly four decades Rafsanjani has played a major part in the suppression of the Iranian people. He has also had a major role in the regime’s export of terrorism abroad and its quest for nuclear weapons.
After the Iran-Iraq war in the eighties, Rafsanjani was the Parliament Speaker and deputy commander of armed forces.
On 4th January reports circulated about political prisoner Ali Moezzi going missing in unusual circumstances. Moezzi was serving a sentence at Gohardasht Prison near the Iranian capital Tehran. He had served his sentence and should have been released over the past few weeks, but he was given an additional year.
Moezzi has been repressed by the Iranian regime for the past three decades. He spent several years during the eighties in prison due to his links with the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) – the opposition group.
The United Nations organisation has warned of the risk of hunger striking in Iran. Ms. Asma Jahangir, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, said that the health of several prisoners of conscience is in immediate danger.
Mr. Saeed Shirzad, Mr. Ali Shariati, Mr. Mohammad Reza Nekounam, Mr. Hassan Rastegari Majd, Mr. Mehdi Koukhian, Mr. Nizar Zakka, and Mr. Mohammed Ali Taheri are all prisoners of conscience who have been on hunger strike to protest their circumstances in jail in Iran. These are just some of the prisoners in Iran resorting to such drastic measures.
In her article for International Business Times on January 8, Harriet Sinclair writes about Hejrat and Forough Moezzi, who want the international community to act now to find their father, Iranian political prisoner Ali Moezzi, who i has been missing from the notorious Gohardasht Prison since 4 January.
Amnesty International’s website has accounts of numerous political prisoners, missing men and women, activists on hunger strike – hundreds of anonymous people suffering human rights violations, listed on their Iran page, which makes Moezzi’s daughters all the more frighten about their situation, as they sit and wait for news of their father.
German politician Reinhold Robbe was the recent target of an assassination plot. Additionally, a business college in Paris and a professor of that facility were spied upon. These actions are all attributed to the regime in Iran, and prove the need to end relations with this regime, as well as to expel its agents from European countries. Inaction regarding a regime described by the Iranian people as the “Godfather of Daesh (ISIS/ISIL)” has encouraged it to escalate its actions.
As reported by Jon Gambrell on January 9, for the Washington Post, reactions were heard around the world to the death of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who suffered a heart attack Sunday at the age of 82.
Saying that she hoped the Islamic Republic would fall apart with Rafsanjani’s passing, Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the political arm of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq stated, “With the death of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the two pillars and key to the equilibrium of the religious fascism ruling Iran has collapsed and the regime in its entirety is approaching overthrow.”
