By: Daniel Mahdavi
International support for the Iran protests is growing. At the end of the 19th consecutive day of the Iran protests, which have now spread to 189 cities across the country, it is believed that at least 1000 protesters are dead, 4,000 have been injured, and over 12,000 are arrested, facing torture and execution.
With the waning of the internet shutdown, designed to hides the protests and the regime’s crackdown from the international community, we are learning more about the tragic abuses that took place across the country, like the massacre in Mahshahr.
There the regime’s security forces killed more than 100 people who were blocking access to a road leading to the port, with eyewitnesses reporting that the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) brought a special forces brigade armed with tanks, armoured personnel carriers and helicopters. The forces even turned on people who fled into the marshes and people who hadn’t attended the protests, including two children aged 4 and 8, and a woman in the 70s.
The continued crackdown has sparked condemnation across the world and international support for the Iran protests.
Representative Elliot Engel, Chair of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement: “I condemn the Iranian government’s violent crackdown on its own citizens and stand with those who are protesting peacefully. I also condemn the continued use of censorship and regime-enforced internet blackouts to limit free and open communication.”
While Nicholas Burns, former US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, called for the crackdown to be condemned by all, tweeting that “the Supreme Leader and Revolutionary Guards are responsible for horrific violence—hundreds of Iranian citizens killed and several thousand wounded and arrested”.
Senator Rick Scott also tweeted his support for the Iranian people’s campaign for freedom, stating that these protests “are only beginning”.
In France too there was international support for the Iran protests. In Paris, the French-Iranian community held a major rally in support of the November uprising that has shaken the mullahs’ since November 15 and decried the brutal crackdown by the regime’s security forces. The Esplanade of Human Rights was filled with people holding tri-colour Iranian flags and images of protesters murdered by the mullahs’ regime.
The supporters of the Iranian opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) were joined on this protest by members of the French Parliament, councillors, mayors, and dignitaries representing different regions of France who showed international support for the Iran protests.
Message by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi
At the rally, they broadcast a video message by NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi, who urged the French government to lead a European initiative to send an international fact-finding mission to Iranian prisons that have been transformed into torture chamber by the mullahs’ regime.
She said: “The blood of over 600 rebellious youths, the cries of 12,000 arrested youths detained in Khamenei’s torture chambers, and the cries of a rebellious nation from across Iran call on the world to stand up to the religious fascism. The uprising in November showed that the regime is not capable of containing the roaring tides of protests and social rebellion and that the Iranian people will never give in.”
