Tag: Ahwaz

Potential US ‘war crimes’ seen in Iran

QeshmThe UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran called on all parties to the conflict to immediately cease hostilities and comply with international humanitarian law following reported US air-strikes that killed and injured civilians in southern Iran. A reported US air-strike hit a home in Kuhestak, Hormozgan province, during a wedding celebration. Iranian media reported that five people died, including two children and one woman, and that dozens of others suffered injuries. Weeks earlier, another reported US strike destroyed a residential home on Qeshm Island, killing a man, a woman and their two-year-old son, and injuring their two other children. Both attacks occurred in areas with historically marginalized minority populations. The Mission identified Kuhestak as predominantly Baloch, and Qeshm as predominantly Sunni. The Mission found that these strikes may have constituted war crimes, and called for thorough investigations. (Map: Wikipedia)

Syria

Neither Jewish State nor Islamic Republic

Iran protestsIsrael's long-awaited strikes on Iran have targeted military and industrial installations in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam, with air-strikes also reported in the Syrian cities of Damascus and Homs. It is now Iran's turn to retaliate in the escalatory tit-for-tat game, as the brink of regional and even world war looms ever closer. In Episode 249 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg advocates a neither/nor position that rejects the militaristic and reactionary regimes of both Zionism and political Islam, and looks to a secular order in the Middle East. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: @iranprotest2019)

From Palestine to Iran: free the land

PalestineIn Episode 160 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes hideous ironies in the current horrific headlines. Russia was excluded from the official commemorations of Holocaust Day at Auschwitz-Birkenau as it pursues its war of aggression and extermination in Ukraine in the perverse name of "de-nazification." But Israeli flags were of course displayed at the commemoration—even as Israel escalates toward a genocidal solution to the Palestinian question. The fundamental contradiction driving the conflict is the expropriation of the Palestinian people of their lands, and the denial of their self-determination by Israel. The emergence of an explicitly anti-Zionist bloc in the protests against the new far-right government in Israel is a sign of hope. The US, however, is undertaking its biggest joint military exercises ever with the new Israeli regime, despite Biden's supposed rejection of its extremist policies of settlement expansion and annexation—viewing the Jewish State as a strategic ally against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Meanwhile, the oppressive regime in Iran treats minority peoples such as the Kurds, Baluch, Ahwazi and Baha'i much as Israel treats the Palestinians. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: B'Tselem)  

Iran
#iranprotests

Iran: protest, repression as food prices soar

madresThe UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) requested that the United Nations secretary-general refer the crisis of enforced disappearances in Mexico to the General Assembly for consideration of response measures. The CED announced that since it began monitoring the situation in 2012 it had received "well-founded indications that enforced disappearances in Mexico have been and continue to be committed as crimes against humanity." The findings included the ongoing discovery of clandestine graves, with an estimated 4,500 graves found, containing over 6,200 bodies and 4,600 sets of human remains. This contributes to a total of approximately 72,000 unidentified human remains found by authorities or self-organized citizen search committees. (Photo via Twitter)