A wave of wildcat strikes has broken out in factories across Iran, as the regime blamed Western-backed “terrorists” for an explosion on a gas pipeline near Qom and military tensions rise in the Gulf region.
A group of Iranian intellectuals issued a “Call for Active Opposition to the Nuclear Policy of the Islamic Republic,” warning that “Fukushima completed the warning that was issued by Chernobyl.”
Iranian opposition websites say more than 200 people were arrested while attempting to protest in Tehran, with another 40 detained in Isfahan.
The US State Department is sending Tweets to encourage Iranian protesters, who have taken to the streets by the thousands to battle security forces in Tehran and other cities.
Iran said that Egyptians have achieved a “great victory” in the ousting of Hosni Mubarak—as Iranian security forces rounded up opposition leaders who had called for a day of protest.
As in the Venezuela crisis, Donald Trump, the great enthusiast for dictators, is making a cynical pretense of concern for democracy in Iran. Fortunately, his latest bit of exploitation of the Iranian protesters has blown up in his face. Noting the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, he issued a tweet featuring a meme with an image of a student protester from the 2017 anti-austerity uprising and the words: "40 years of corruption. 40 years of repression. 40 years of terror. The regime in Iran has produced only #40YearsofFailure." Now, the courageous photographer who snapped the image at the University of Tehran in December 2017, Yalda Moayeri, comes forward to express her outrage at its co-optation by Trump. Alas, Masih Alinejad, the Iranian-American feminist who last week met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, seems not to get how she is endangering opposition activists in Iran, allowing the regime to paint them as pawns of imperialism. (Image via @realDonaldTrump)
Canadian-Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, credited with starting the blogging movement in Iran, faces the death penalty over his work, warns Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
The Revolutionary Court of Iran sentenced Shiva Nazar Ahari, a journalist arrested following the contested 200 elections, to six years in prison for “warring against God.”
The International Campaign for Human Right in Iran called for the immediate release of prominent human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was detained this week at Tehran’s Evin prison.
Jeffrey Goldberg in a story in The Atlantic, “The Point of No Return,” claims that Israel will attack Iran by the end of the year. But readers may recall that there was a flurry of such predictions last year too.
A court in Iran ordered the suspension of three top judiciary officials in connection with last year’s torture deaths of three detained protesters. The victims were beaten to death at Kahrizak detention center.
At the unveiling of a new bomber, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran “should seek the ability to make pre-emptive strikes against a perceived threat,” while also saying it would “never strike first.”
