Tuesday, September 27, 2022

various
Dawn, "Leading Iran cleric calls on authorities to ‘listen to people’"
“The leaders must listen to the demands of the people, resolve their problems and show sensitivity to their rights,” said Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani in a statement posted on his website Sunday.

The powerful 97-year-old cleric has long been aligned with the country’s ultra-conservative establishment and strongly backed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on several occasions — notably during the 2009 protests against the reelection of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Any insult to the sanctities and any attack on the rights of the people and public property are condemned,” Hamedani added.

At least 41 people have been killed since the protests began on September 16, mostly protesters but including security forces, according to an official toll.

Thread 

Crowds significant & countrywide, but even if we’re still unclear on exact numbers, little doubt myriad both within Iran & diaspora in deep sympathy w/ humane & democratic impulse of movement but reluctant 2 join becoz have no illusions about extreme violence #Iran state capable.

Movement is repudiation of #Iran’s state as patriarch inter pares & assumed right 2 control women’s bodies on basis of Islamic jurisprudence & regulate social order; repudiation of gender politics & social cleavages Islamists capitalised upon 2 entrench their regime in 1st place.

We can think of this revolution in qualitative terms, an eruption to the surface of profound transformation of norms, values & ideals of huge swathe of #Iran society. Missed entirely if all one does is look at crowd sizes or fact regime hasn’t fallen & been replaced by new elite.

While I’m doubtful this regime is going anywhere in short to medium term, its days are numbered like never before. What the outcome will be, I have little idea, but the status quo has proven itself not only untenable, but intolerable for millions of #Iran’ians and we must listen.

"Masih" Alinejad.  
"How are more people not talking about the fact that she changed her name to 'messiah?"
Compare the New Yorker, 2013
"How The Trump Administration Is Exploiting Iran’s Burgeoning Feminist Movement"

The protests have served a different purpose in the United States. As headlines across the world have heralded #TheGirlsofRevolutionStreet as Iran’s #MeToo movement, the Trump Administration has deployed the cause as part of its campaign to isolate the Islamic Republic and promote regime change in Tehran. From the moment that the U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, has put Iranian women at the center of the Administration’s new strategy. In a major policy speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, Pompeo said that Iranian women’s protests were evidence of a growing divide between Iranians and their government. “The brutal men of the regime seem to be particularly terrified by Iranian women who are demanding their rights,” he said. “As human beings with inherent dignity and inalienable rights, the women of Iran deserve the same freedoms that the men of Iran possess.”

Pompeo has since become the most outspoken Secretary of State in U.S. history on the subject of Iranian women’s struggle for equality. On his Twitter account, Pompeo released an eerie graphic of a miniature Movahed, in front of a glowing Iranian flag, that noted the number of women jailed for protesting the hijab. Another tweet featured a line graph showing a surge in protests superimposed over the image of a woman with her fist in the air. “Hmm… Can this be explained?” he asked. The graph gave no source for the data, and the y-axis was unlabelled. When reporters pressed Heather Nauert, a State Department spokesperson, to share the origin of the information, she referred vaguely to “U.S. government sources.” 

Posted by D. Ghirlandaio at
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