Twenty journalists have been imprisoned since the protests erupted earlier this month over the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been arrested by the country’s notorious morality police, according to the Washington-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Numerous activists and lawyers have also been held, including the prominent freedom of speech campaigner Hossein Ronaghi who was arrested over the weekend.

The arrests come on top of severe internet restrictions and blocking of sites including Instagram and WhatsApp, which activists say is aimed at preventing details of the protests from reaching the outside world.

“By targeting journalists amid a great deal of violence after restricting access to WhatsApp and Instagram, the Iranian authorities are sending a clear message that there must be no coverage of the protests,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

‘Defending prohibited’

Ronaghi, bitterly critical of Iran’s Islamic leadership, said in a video posted at the weekend that he had initially eluded arrest by escaping his flat when agents came for him.

But he was then detained on Saturday when he went to Tehran’s Evin prison to meet prosecutors and was also beaten by security agents, his brother Hassan wrote on Twitter.

His mother told Manoto TV in an interview that Hossein Ronaghi’s leg was broken.

Reports said that his lawyers, who accompanied him to Evin, had themselves been detained.

Two other lawyers have also been arrested, lawyer Saeid Dehghan wrote on Twitter.

“This means defending protesters is prohibited!” he said.

Security forces on Monday raided the home of activist and writer Golrokh Iraee and arrested her, according to a message on her Twitter account.

Iraee, well known for campaigning against stoning sentences in Iran, has spent much of the past decade behind bars.

And activist Majid Tavakoli, who has been repeatedly imprisoned in Iran in recent years including after disputed 2009 elections, remains in jail after his arrest in the early hours of Friday.

‘We are not safe’

Activists said two university students in their early 20s who were also beginning careers as writers — Banafsheh Kamali and Maedeh Jamal — had also been arrested.

Videos posted on social media claimed to show the moment Jamal was arrested, with a female voice heard yelling for help.

Among the 20 journalists held, according to the CPJ, are photojournalist Yalda Moaiery, who won international recognition for an iconic 2019 photo of protests, and reporter Nilufar Hamedi — who exposed the case of Amini by going to the hospital where she was in a coma.

Hamedi’s husband wrote on Twitter that Hamedi had said in a call from jail that she was in solitary confinement, and was unaware of the charges against her.

Moaiery is being held in the notorious Qarchak women’s prison outside Tehran, from where she told the Iran Wire news website that “we are not safe here” and “the situation is very bad”.

The authorities also arrested five prominent members of the Bahai religious minority in different cities across the country, said Diane Alai, representative of the Bahai International Community to the UN in Geneva.

The Bahai — Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority but not recognised in the Islamic Republic — had already been experiencing a crackdown even before the protests started, with senior figures arrested and homes destroyed.

Activists had accused the Iranian authorities of being in the throes of a crackdown even before the protests began. Two of the country’s most acclaimed filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof were among those arrested.

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Officially at least 41 people have died since the unrest began, mostly protesters but including members of the security forces, but sources say the real figure is higher.

Norway-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said on Sunday evening that the death toll was at least 57, but noted that ongoing internet blackouts were making it increasingly difficult to confirm fatalities in a context where the women-led protests have spread to scores of cities.

Images circulated by IHR showed protesters on the streets of Tehran shouting “death to the dictator”, purportedly after nightfall on Sunday.

Twelve arrested at London protests after death of Mahsa Amini in Iran

Echoing a warning the previous day by the president, Ebrahim Raisi, the judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, on Sunday “emphasised the need for decisive action without leniency” against the core instigators of the “riots”, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested amid the mostly night-time demonstrations since unrest first broke out after 22-year-old Amini’s death in police custody on 16 September. Amini was detained by the morality police for not wearing a hijab properly.

Iran’s largest protests in almost three years have seen security forces fire live rounds, while protesters have hurled rocks, torched police cars and set fire to state buildings.

Some female protesters have removed and burned their hijabs in the rallies and cut off their hair, some dancing near large bonfires to the applause of crowds that have chanted “zan, zendegi, azadi” or “woman, life, freedom”.

Web monitor NetBlocks noted “rolling blackouts” and “widespread internet platform restrictions”, with WhatsApp, Instagram and Skype having already been blocked. This followed older bans on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram.

Speaking on behalf of the European Union, its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said “the widespread and disproportionate use of force against nonviolent protesters is unjustifiable and unacceptable”. He condemned the internet restrictions as “blatantly violating freedom of expression”.

‘Something big is happening’: the Iranians risking everything to protest

Iran has summoned the British and Norwegian ambassadors over what it called interference and hostile media coverage, while the foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, also criticised US support for “rioters”.

On Sunday, the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the US had taken “tangible steps” to sanction the morality police.

The UK was blamed for the “hostile character” of London-based Farsi media. The UK foreign ministry said it championed media freedom and condemned Iran’s “crackdown on protesters, journalists and internet freedom”.

Norway’s envoy was summoned to explain the “interventionist stance” of its parliament’s speaker, Tehran-born Masud Gharahkhani, who has expressed support for the protesters.

“If my parents had not made the choice to flee in 1987, I would have been one of those fighting in the streets with my life on the line,” Gharahkhani tweeted on Sunday.

Pro-government rallies were also held on Sunday, with the main event taking place in central Tehran.

But one of the main teachers unions on Sunday called for teachers and students to stage a national strike on Monday and Wednesday.

Protests abroad have been held in solidarity with Iranian women in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Madrid, New York and Paris, among other cities.

Iranian Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi called on activists and artists around the world to support the protesters, who he said were “looking for simple and yet fundamental rights that the state has denied them for years”.

“I deeply respect their struggle for freedom and the right to choose their own destiny despite all the brutality they are subjected to,” Farhadi said in a post on Instagram.

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The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini late last week in police custody for allegedly violating Iran’s strict Islamic dress code has sparked demonstrations across the country. Protesters have clashed violently with security forces who used tear gas and fired live ammunition.

As the protests spread, authorities on Thursday expanded their campaign to restrict access to the Internet, tightening blocks on platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp, according to Netblocks, an internet observatory that monitors global traffic outages. Social media apps have been widely used to organize and share footage of the protests.

Internet access through the country’s largest cellular operators was heavily disrupted for several hours Thursday,  according to the Internet Outage Detection & Analysis project, or IODA, another internet monitor.

Iranian officials didn’t comment on the internet disruptions. Mohammad Khansari, the deputy communications minister, told state television that Iran’s domestic messaging services and websites were functioning normally.

Authoritarian governments across the world are increasingly using the tactic of cutting people off from the global web, often to stop protests, censor speeches, control elections and silence people, human-rights advocates say. Iran accounted for five out of 23 shutdowns documented in the Middle East and North Africa last year, according to Access Now, a nonprofit that advocates for a free internet. Others within that list of 23 shutdowns included Sudan, Yemen and the Israeli-controlled Palestinian territories, for a variety of reasons including security.

Netblocks said the latest restrictions in Iran are the most severe since the November 2019 economic protests rocked the country.

The latest shutdown has affected the daily lives of millions of Iranians. Many in Tehran said they faced problems while trying to access services such as cash machines, online payments and car-sharing apps.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the internet shutdowns have helped curb the demonstrations, but the flow of social-media posts related to the protests appeared to be much slower.

On Thursday, protests continued in Tehran’s neighborhoods, with women burning their veils, according to videos shown by the U.S.-funded news organization Radio Farda.

Security forces are also coming down harder on protesters. At least 16 people at demonstrations in western Iran have died since protests began on Saturday after Ms. Amini’s funeral, as clashes erupted with security forces, according to Hengaw, a human-rights organization in Iran’s Kurdish region, where Ms. Amini was from.

Meanwhile, some demonstrators have targeted security forces. Iranian state-media have reported 17 deaths, counting both protesters and police.

Ms. Amini’s death and actions by Iran’s security forces to suppress the protests have drawn condemnation from many in the West, including the U.S., the European Union and the U.N.

Iranian authorities are curbing access to social-media platforms that protesters in Tehran and elsewhere in the country have been using to organize and share footage.PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Iran’s morality police and senior security officials for the death of Ms. Amini and violence against the protesters. The action blocks any assets the targets may hold within U.S. jurisdiction, and bars business and financial dealings with them. They are a more symbolic public censure of Tehran than black-listings expected to force the regime into stopping their violent clampdown, analysts say.

The list of sanctioned officials includes Mohammad Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi, the head of Iran’s morality police, and Haj Ahmad Mirzaei, who was the morality police’s Tehran division head during Ms. Amini’s detention and death.

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Some U.S. lawmakers are calling on the Treasury to do more to approve technology exports that can help Iranian citizens counter Tehran’s crackdown. “Congress is calling on the Treasury Department to do everything in its power to help the Iranian people stay connected to the internet,” said Rep. Claudia Tenney (R., N.Y.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We need to cut through any bureaucratic red tape and get this done,” she said, referring to the licensing required to export communications tech to Iran.

In response to calls to help Iranians access the Internet freely, Elon Musk earlier this week said his satellite-internet system Starlink would seek an exception to sanctions to make its service available in Iran.

A cottage industry of tools, some partly funded by the U.S. government, has sprung up to help Iranian people—including journalists and dissidents—access the internet in the country. Starlink could add a significant new source of internet access to those tools. But it wasn’t clear how Mr. Musk intends to ship Starlink kits into Iran, or to whom the company would distribute them.

Iranian officials have dismissed Western responses to Ms. Amini’s death, saying they reflect a double standard, criticizing Tehran while letting other abuses go.

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The White House • April 9, 2020

Voice of America is a global news network funded by American taxpayers. It spends about $200 million each year on its mission to “tell America’s story” and “present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively” to people around the globe. Today, however, VOA too often speaks for America’s adversaries—not its citizens. The Coronavirus pandemic is no exception. Secrecy from the Communist Party of China allowed the deadly virus to spread across the world. Journalists should report the facts, but VOA has instead amplified Beijing’s propaganda. This week, VOA called China’s Wuhan lockdown a successful “model” copied by much of the world—and then tweeted out video of the Communist government’s celebratory light show marking the quarantine’s alleged end. Even worse, while much of the U.S. media takes its lead from China, VOA went one step further: It created graphics with Communist government statistics to compare China’s Coronavirus death toll to America’s. As intelligence experts point out, there is simply no way to verify the accuracy of China’s numbers. The Coronavirus story is just one example of this pattern. Last year, VOA helped highlight the Twitter feed of Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif while he was issuing threats against the U.S. and sharing Russian anti-U.S. propaganda videos. “VOA will represent America,” its guiding Charter reads. And for years after its founding during World War II, VOA served that mission by promoting freedom and democracy across the world for audiences who longed for both. Today, VOA is promoting propaganda instead—and your tax dollars are paying for it.

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For any patriotic Iranian, the news of the recent events is both a source of torment as well as revived hope for the demise of the putridly corrupt and despotic Islamic regime. The time has come for the leading democracies of the world to support the Iranian people in their quest for freedom in unequivocal and no uncertain terms. If not as a moral imperative, then as a pragmatic maneuver in rooting out an avid sponsor of terror and a destabilizing force on the international stage.
Enduring more than 40 years of the regime’s unbridled pillage and plunder of the country’s wealth, the systemic detention, torture and murder of its patriotic citizens; the destruction of the country’s economy and plunging its citizens into poverty and destitution; raiding the country’s coffers and siphoning billions of dollars out of the country and into their private accounts, the destruction of the country’s rich eco systems, and the sponsorship of terrorism across the middle east and internationally, the Iranian people have again taken to the streets, this time sparked by protests against the astronomical rise in gas prices and rationing. The recent protests are markedly different from the five major protests preceding it in the last decade. This time, the protests have ignited and spread like wild fire through more than 100 cities and towns across the country. Demonstrations have also alighted southern Tehran, the long held seat of support for the regime and have led to strikes and shuttering of businesses in Tehran’s and other major bazaars, another stronghold of this despotic regime.
As protests have spread, so has the government’s deadly resolve to quell it. Men and women, young and old, are systematically murdered in plain sight, gunned down at point blank range by the revolutionary guards; targeted by sharp shooters safely ensconced on the roof tops; hounded, assaulted, and arrested by the treacherous secret service agents, and government sponsored thugs. The Protest leaders and reporters have also been arrested and jailed, facing an unknown fate. There is no accurate estimation of the number of the dead and injured.
The extensive nature of protests has so rattled the regime that it took the unprecedented step of cutting off internet access across the country. While the news of the dead has been a source of visible joy for regime, the family of the dead have to not only endure the horrendous tragedy befallen them but also have to pay a fortune in blood money, an amount far exceeding the median annual salary, for the release of their loved-one’s corpse.
Yet, far from its intended effect of demoralizing the protestors, and isolating the embattled people behind a veil of information blackout, the brave Iranian people continue battling the regime with the hope of their ultimate emancipation and they need tangible and reliable support from the world’s leading democracies and economies, not lip service.
A liberated Iran means a more secure world for us all.
Iranian Democracy Front (IDF) is an association composed of Iranian pro-democracy political groups and organizations with diverse political beliefs, with a common goal of removing the despotic Islamic republic and establishing a secular democratic government in Iran based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Assadollah Nasr Esfahani, Ph.D.

Spokesman, Iranian Democracy Front

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TO ADD YOUR NAME TO THE LETTER SIMPLY PUT YOUR NAME IN THE COMMENT BOX :

Calling for unity of all Iranians around the world as, with hearts full of pain, we have all witnessed the gradual destruction of our beloved Iran at the hands of the Islamic Republic Occupied Iran for the past forty years.

Brave Iranians’ daily embattlements with the occupying regime continue under the most difficult and treacherous circumstances. Many Iranians brutally perished and remarkable talents were wasted despite all their capacities and abilities demoralizing many with inequality and oppression of human dignity.

Fellow citizens: On the eve of the one hundred and thirteenth anniversary of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, we emphasize that what transpired in 1906 thru 1912 was The Constitutional Revolution, and what transpired in 1963 thru 1969 was the White revolution. However, what transpired in 1979, after forty years of disclosed evidences, documents, and living testimonials, we emphatically declare this as the catastrophe of 1979.

The catastrophe of 1979 led to the illegal cessation of Iran’s constitution of 1906 and to the abolition of basic human rights; especially impacting women’s suffrage under sharia law, succumbing them to gender apartheid, and creating grave danger for anyone who protests against this discrimination. They have been and are subject to suffering humiliations, beatings, imprisonments, tortures, and brutal executions!

In a world where women in many countries are progressing in the political, economic, scientific, cultural, artistic, and sports fields of men, Iranian women courageously fight tremendous repression only to face brutal violations of their basic human rights.

We, together, with peaceful equality, are seeking women and activists inside Iran and around the world to protest against the multi apartheid occupying regime in Iran. In this regard, we emphasize that the Constitutional Revolution and White Revolution are National treasures and the heritage entrusted to us by our grandmothers and grandfathers who fought for freedom and democracy, are “Not Subject to HOLIDAY”, and remain the law of the land to guard the territorial integrity of Iran and to protect the human dignity of all Iranians.

We, along with all Iranian freedom fighters inside Iran and abroad, who hold up the true Lion and Sun Flag of Iran, stand by the true law of Iranians, the Constitution of 1906, and it’s White Revolution Reforms, and do hereby call for its immediate enforcement under the United Nations Charter for humans rights and international treaties. Like any other free country, we call for this until such a time as when Free Elections will be upheld in Iran so that a parliamentary constitutional assembly can update the law of the land and create a secular democracy followed by referendum for this type of governance by Iranians for Iran.

Signatories:

Marjaneh Rouhani, MD, Political Activist, USA

Nahid Shahin, Political Activist, Canada

Shabnam Assadollahi,Human Rights Activist, Canada

Mahboubeh Hosseinpour, Political Activist, USA

Soheila Kamali, Political Activist, England
Mina Rezvani, Political Activist, USA
Rozita Manteghi, Women’s Rights Activist, France
Shokouh Ershadi, Human Rights Activist, Journalist, Sweden
Pari Askari, Political Activist, Journalist, Holland
Sima Tajdini, Human Rights Activist, Canada

Roxanne Ganji, Political Activist, Journalist, USA
Pouran Guiti Behi, Political Activist, USA
Sara Basti, Ploitical Activist, Germany
Faranak Azad, Political Activist, USA
Rouya Abdi, Political Activist, Journalist, Germany
Sara Safiri, Political Activist, England
Maliheh Rouzbeh, Human Rights Activist, Germany
Fatemeh Minayee, Women’s Rights Activist, USA
Firouzeh Ghaffarpour, Political Activist, USA
Fariba Majdnia, Women’s Rights Activist, Denmark
Zahra Aziz, Human Rights Activist, Germany
Mehnoush Bakhtiari, Author and Human Rights Activist, Sweden
Sefideh Sami, Women’s Rights Activist, Norway
Vida Tehrani, Women’s Rights Activist, Sweden
Rozita Ras, Political Activist, England
Tatiana Mahmoudi, Child Educator, Canada
Masoumeh Alavi
Delnavaz Jahankhah
Soheila Flatoun
Soudabeh Tadj
Laleh Bani-Saeid,
Mahnaz Ganjali,Political Activist, Authour, Journalist, USA
Golnaz Soroush, Political Activist, Australia
Mahnaz Abbaspour, Canada
Sara Arjand, Political Activist, Germany
Fariba Shirvani, Political Activist, France
Shamsi Famil, Political Activist, USA
Donya Azad, Political Activist, Holland
Faranak Mah, Political Activist, USA
Parisima Pashayie Raad- Nelson, Political Activist, Canada

Parvaneh Tavali, Political Activist, USA
Satgin Jalali

Fariba Mansourian, Political Activist, France

Maryam Hemmati, Political Activist, Canada

Kendra Malczyk, Human Rights Activist, USA

Fereydon Abdollahyan , Political activist – Human Rights activist,  UK

Sia Ayrom Houston, Texas

Arash H. Hourmaznia,Human rights advocate
Netherlands

Maj. Mostafa Arab,PhD

Kamran Alford

Reza jayez

Shahriar Hashemi Beverly Hills California

Poupak Pournazari, Canada

Ali kimiai

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