Behind the Headlines/April 23, 2018

Jamshid Chalangi:
In tonight’s edition of Behind the Headlines we will review the latest reports of human rights abuses in Iran with activist Nahid Farhad, including the aftermath of the beating of an Iranian girl by the thugs of the morality police in public for her “insufficient hejab”.

We will also report on the latest mass anti-regime protest in the city of Kazeroon and how political activists are introducing new methods of struggle against the authorities.

At the end of the program the Stockholm-based civil right activist Fard Saberi will report on the recent trip to the city by the former hostage taker and terrorist Masoumeh Ebtekar turned politician and Rouhani’s deputy.

Nahid Farhad:

Four decades of populist rule of the Islamic republic regime and the complete loss of the Iranian people’s trust in it is now showing the true face of a regime that has absolutely no concern about the numerous social, cultural and economic disasters that our country is confronting.

As far as Khamenei is concerned, all these problems are the creations of the “foreign enemies” and therefore any protest against the regime must be suppressed violently.

However, the crackdowns have lost their effects, as our people are vigilant about the regime’s plots to divert their struggle and know by their hard gained experience that the regime is the true enemy of the Iranian people and Khamenei himself is the number one enemy of the Iranians.

The unfortunate thing is that some of these security forces responsible for the suppression of the Iranian people do their deeds as part of their religious duties and beliefs. We must wake up to this reality that so long as this regime and its agents exist, we will see more crackdowns and killing of our people by them.

It will be wrong to assume that these agents of suppression will reform themselves by facing the opposition of our people, because the regime that supports and indoctrinate them is still there in power.

The Islamic code of justice says that if any woman removes her hijab in public she should be fined with paying 500,000 Rials. However, in a country where the editor of a newspaper like Hossein Shariatmadri of Kayhan daily effectively changes this law by calling for long imprisonment of women who defy the hijab, then you can imagine that Khamenei is the biggest law-breaker himself.

The deceitful and corrupt nature of this regime has corrupted our people’s cultural values too. A glance at the number of people who sell their organs to survive, the high number of suicides among the youths and the violent crimes on the streets would indicate to this reality.

At the same time the regime’s oligarchs and their children who are busy plundering the wealth of our nation are enjoying their position of power and privilege while the majority of our people live in poverty and despair.

Fard Saberi:

We still cannot understand as to why the Swedish Foreign Minister has been so nice and welcoming to a prominent terrorist and former hostage taker.

There is a possibility that behind the scene Sweden might be playing the role of a go between to mend fences between Iran and the US and this meeting between Masoumeh Ebtekar and Swedish top officials is in that regard.

We have requested an explanation form the Swedish Foreign Ministry but they have not responded to us.

Jamshid Chalangi:

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