Republicregime’s unprecedented crackdown in the Kurdish areas (Rojhelat) after more than 40 protesters, including children, were killed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its militia in a space of a week.
The crackdown in Rojhelat has prompted many in the international community and Iranian diaspora, as well as inside Iran, to demand that the Kurds be protected.
The IRGC has taken over the security in the Kurdish areas. On Monday, the guards created a bloodbath in the town of Javanrud in Kermanshah province, killing at least six and wounding dozens. Activists and residents in the town told Rudaw English that the IRGC has erected checkpoints across the town, militarizing it.
Videos coming out of the Kurdish areas from Bukan, Saqez, Sanandaj, Mariwan, Qorveh, Kamyaran, and Piranshahr, among many other towns, showed roads and streets deserted with all the shops and businesses shut. The strikes follow calls from Kurdish opposition groups directing Kurdish people in Iran, which number around ten million, to stage them.
In response to recent bloodshed in the Kurdish areas and following IRGC attacks on Kurdish opposition groups in the Kurdistan Region on Tuesday, the groups released a statement calling for a general strike across the Kurdish areas of Iran
...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...on Thursday in order to strengthen the unity of the people in fighting the oppression of the Islamic Theocratic
Republic.
US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that as of Thursday morning, 440 people including 61 children have been killed, in addition to 56 members of the security forces. In the Kurdish areas, the number is estimated to be at 98 protesters including 10 children.
"It has been a few days that the regime has used all its might in Kurdistan and has created a bloodbath and intends to carry out a general massacre," read the statement from the Cooperation Center of Iranian Kurdistan’s Political Parties which include the main Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) and the leftist Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan. The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), another Kurdish opposition group, also called for the strikes.
A 16 year old student was severely maimed when the IRGC opened fire on a group of students Sanandaj on Wednesday. Another The maimed protester was reportedly kidnapped from his hospital bed in Sanandaj, according to Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.
Iran arrests star soccer player for ‘propagandizing’ against regime
[IsraelTimes] Islamic Theocratic
Republicalso accuses Voria Ghafouri, an outspoken critic of the government and a supporter of nationwide protests, of ’insulting’ national soccer team.
Iran has arrested a prominent former member of its national soccer team over his criticism of the government as authorities grapple with nationwide protests that have cast a shadow over the team as it competes in the World Cup before a global audience.
The semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies reported Thursday that Voria Ghafouri was arrested for "insulting the national soccer team and propagandizing against the government."
Ghafouri, who was not chosen to go to the World Cup, has been an outspoken critic of Iranian authorities throughout his career, objecting to a longstanding ban on women spectators at men’s soccer matches as well as Iran’s confrontational foreign policy, which has led to crippling Western sanctions.
More recently, he expressed sympathy for the family of a 22-year-old woman whose death while in the custody of Iran’s morality police ignited the latest protests. In recent days he also called for an end to a
The reports of his arrest came ahead of Friday’s World Cup match between Iran and Wales. At Iran’s opening match, a 6-2 loss to England, the members of the Iranian national team declined to sing along to their national anthem and some fans protested.
Ghafouri, who is also a member of Iran’s Kurdish minority, has criticized government policies in the past. Officials have not said whether that was a factor in not choosing him for the national team. He plays for the Khuzestan Foolad team in the southwestern city of Ahvaz.