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Tag: Protest
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Artists unite to support anti-government protests in Iran
Artists unite to support anti-government protests in Iran – CBS News
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Iran’s defiant protesters face mounted police as death toll from crackdown tops 300
Iran has deployed mounted police in a bid to contain more than seven weeks of protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, according to videos posted online. The clerical state has been rocked by a protest movement that erupted when Amini, 22, died after her arrest for allegedly breaking Iran’s strict hijab dress rules for women.
Young women have led the way, removing and burning their head coverings, chanting anti-regime slogans and confronting security forces on the street despite a crackdown that has killed more than 300 people, according to Norway based monitoring group.
In a rare move, the authorities have deployed a posse of police on horseback in Tehran’s streets to stifle the demonstrations, according to a video posted on social media and verified by AFP. The special unit is seen standing in front of a row of Iranian national flags on a major road in the northwest Tehran neighborhood of Sadeghiyeh.
Created in 2013, the mounted division of Iran’s police force — known as Asvaran — has been seen on the streets of the Iranian capital in the past, mainly during parades, but it is uncommon to see it deployed during protests.
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Amini, an Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on September 16, three days after she was arrested in Tehran by the morality police, igniting nationwide protests.
The Iranian authorities have adopted a range of tactics in a bid to suppress the protests, which officials refer to as “riots.”
Security forces have fired directly on protesters using live ammunition, bird shot, tear gas and even paintballs. The government has also imposed internet restrictions, including blocking access to Instagram and WhatsApp, and has waged a campaign of mass arrests.
Norway-based group Iran Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources inside Iran, said in its latest update on Saturday that the security forces had killed at least 304 people in the crackdown on the nationwide protests since they erupted in mid-September, including 41 children and 24 women.
The group’s director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said in the statement that despite the high death toll, “Iranians continue taking to the streets and are more determined than ever to bring fundamental changes. The response from the Islamic Republic is more violence.”
He called on the international community to pressure Iran to end the crackdown on the protesters.
Hundreds of people have been swept up in the wave of arrests, including protesters, journalists and activists.
On Tuesday, Iran’s judiciary said more than 1,000 people had been formally indicted over their role in the protests, and a spokesman vowed to deal with them severely.
“Now, the public, even protesters who are not supportive of riots, demand from the judiciary and security institutions to deal with the few people who have caused disturbances in a firm, deterrent and legal manner,” judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi said, according to the Reuters news agency.
Among the latest members of Iran’s beleaguered civil society to face charges were two female journalists accused of propaganda against the state.
Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, who have both been behind bars for than a month already, “have been remanded in custody for propaganda against the system and conspiring against national security,” Setayeshi said on Tuesday.
Hamedi, 30, a journalist for the reformist Shargh newspaper, was arrested on September 20 after she visited the hospital where Amini spent three days in a coma before her death.
Mohammadi, 35, a reporter for the Ham Mihan newspaper, was arrested on September 29 after she travelled to Amini’s hometown of Saqez in Kurdistan province to cover her funeral.
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Iran Marks 1979 US Embassy Takeover Amid Nationwide Protests
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran on Friday marked the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran as its theocracy faces nationwide protests after the September death of a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the country’s morality police. Meanwhile, activists in southeast Iran claimed security forces killed at least 16 people in protests there.
Iranian state-run television aired live feeds of various commemorations around the country, with some in Tehran waving placards of the triangle-shaped Iranian drones Russia now uses to strike targets in its war on Ukraine. But while crowds in Tehran looked large with chador-wearing women waving the Islamic Republic’s flag, other commemorations in the country appeared smaller, with only a few dozen people taking part.
Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, speaking to people gathered in front of the former U.S. Embassy building, criticized those protesting the theocracy.
“Anyone taking the smallest step in the direction of breaching security and riots, must know that they are stepping in the direction of enemies of the Islamic Revolution,” he said. “Americans think they can execute the plan they carried out in some countries like Syria and Libya here. What a false dream!”
Those at the commemoration also waved effigies of French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Signs and chants from the crowd called out: “Death to America! Death to Israel!”
The demonstrations that have convulsed Iran for seven weeks after the death of Mahsa Amini mark one of the biggest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers since they seized power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. At least 314 protesters have been killed and 14,170 arrested since the unrest began, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that’s been monitoring the crackdown on demonstrators.
Iran’s government has not offered an overall death toll, with one state newspaper even making the counterfactual claim that no one had been killed by security forces over the 49 days of protests.
Later on Friday, protests began in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, which has seen weeks of unrest. Online videos purported to show people marching in the streets and some throwing stones, with the crackle of gunfire in the background and clouds of tear gas rising. Some protesters appeared bloodied, while later footage purportedly showed dead bodies at morgues.
Advocacy group HalVash claimed security forces killed at least 16 people Friday, identifying nine of them by name.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency later reported that protesters set fire to a police stand in Khash, a city in Sistan and Baluchestan, and attacked the local governor’s office.
On Thursday, a Shiite cleric reportedly was shot and killed in Sistan and Baluchestan, a long restive province that’s predominantly Sunni.
Hard-liners within Iran long have bussed government workers and others into such Nov. 4 demonstrations, which have a carnival-like feel for the students and others taking part on Taleqani Street in downtown Tehran.
This year, however, it remained clear Iran’s theocracy hopes to energize its hard-line base. Some signs read “We Are Obedient To The Leader,” referring to 83-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say over all matters of state in the country. The weekslong demonstrations have included cries calling for Khamenei’s death and the overthrow of the government.
The annual commemoration marks when student demonstrators climbed over the fence at the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, angered by then-President Jimmy Carter allowing the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to receive cancer treatment in the United States.
The students soon took over the entire, leafy compound. A few staffers fled and hid in the home of the Canadian ambassador to Iran before escaping the country with the help of the CIA, a story dramatized in the 2012 film “Argo.”
The 444-day crisis transfixed America, as nightly images of blindfolded hostages played on television sets across the nation. Iran finally let all the captives go the day Carter left office on Ronald Reagan’s inauguration day in 1981.
Marking the anniversary, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that officials “are grateful for the selfless sacrifice of our diplomats who served in Tehran” and called for the release of Americans held by Iran.
“The Iranian regime has a long history of unjustly imprisoning foreign nationals for use as political leverage,” Price said.
That enmity between Iran and the U.S. has ebbed and surged over the decades since. The U.S. and world powers reached a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 that drastically curtailed its program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. However, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, sparking years of tensions since.
Late Thursday in California at a rally before the U.S. midterm elections, President Joe Biden also stopped his speech to address a crowd that held up cellphones displaying the message “FREE IRAN.”
“Don’t worry, we’re gonna free Iran,” Biden said in an aside during a campaign rally for Democratic Rep. Mike Levin. He added, “They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon.”
In his speech Friday, Raisi referenced Biden’s comments.
“Maybe he said this because of a lack of concentration. … He said we aim to liberate Iran,” Raisi said. “Mr. President! Iran was liberated 43 years ago, and it’s determined not to become your captive again. We will never become a milking cow.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday described Biden’s comments as expressing “solidarity with the protesters, as he’s been doing from the very outset.”
“It’s going to be up to the people of Iran to determine their future. And that hasn’t changed,” Kirby said.
Biden had said he was willing to have the U.S. rejoin the nuclear deal, but talks have broken down. Since the protests began in mid-September, the American position appears to have hardened with officials saying restoring the deal isn’t a priority amid the demonstrations.
On Friday, some protesters waved giant placards of atoms as a reminder that Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Nonproliferation experts warn Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make at least one nuclear weapon if it chose, though Tehran insists its program is peaceful.
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US Gathered Intel On Oregon Protesters, Report Shows
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials in the Trump administration compiled extensive intelligence dossiers on people who were arrested, even for minor offenses, during Black Lives Matter protests in Oregon.
Initial drafts of the dossiers even included friends of the subjects as well as their interests, but those were later removed and replaced with a note that they would be made available upon request, according to an internal review by the Department of Homeland Security.
The dossiers, known by agents as baseball cards, were previously normally compiled on non-U.S. citizens or only on Americans with “a demonstrated terrorism nexus,” according to the 76-page report. It was previously released last year but contains new revelations based on extensive redactions that were removed by the Biden administration.
Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s free speech, privacy and technology project, said the report indicates leaders of the Department of Homeland Security wanted to inflate the risk caused by protesters in Portland. The city became an epicenter of sometimes violent demonstrations in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a Minneapolis police officer. But many protesters, including women belonging to a “Wall of Moms” ad hoc group and military veterans, were peaceful.
“We have a dark history of intelligence agencies collecting dossiers on protesters,” Wizner said over the phone from New York, referring to domestic spying in the 1960s and 1970s against civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters and others.
“We need to be especially careful if agencies that are tasked with intelligence gathering are going to step in to to look at protest activity and where Americans are exercising their First Amendment rights,” Wizner said.
Protesters who break the law aren’t immune from being investigated, Wizner said, but intelligence agencies should be careful not to create “a chilling environment” for Americans to legally exercise their right to dissent.
The report reveals actions carried out by the DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis in June and July 2020, when militarized federal agents were deployed to Portland.
When the dossiers, officially known as Operational Background Reports, were being compiled, some DHS analysts voiced concerns over the legality of collecting intelligence “on protestors arrested for trivial criminal infractions having little to no connection to domestic terrorism,” the report said. Some of the employees even refused to participate.
FILE – Federal agents arrest a demonstrator during a Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, Ore., on July 29, 2020. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials under then-President Donald Trump sought to compile intelligence dossiers on everyone attending Black Lives Matter protests, according to a newly unredacted report. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, who obtained the report, said in an email to reporters that surveillance of Portland protesters in 2020 “included lists of friends, family and social media associates for people who posed no threat to homeland security.” (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File) U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, obtained the report with most redactions removed and provided it to reporters Thursday. Wyden, a member of the Senate select committee on intelligence, criticized DHS leaders in the Trump administration for actions revealed in the document.
“Political DHS officials spied on Oregonians for exercising their First Amendment right to protest and justified it with baseless conspiracy theories,” Wyden said.
Brian Murphy, who was then the acting undersecretary of DHS’ intelligence unit, insisted on calling violent protesters “Violent Antifa Anarchists Inspired,” even though “overwhelming intelligence regarding the motivations or affiliations of the violent protesters did not exist,” according to the report.
Top DHS leaders even wanted the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis to create dossiers on everyone participating in the Portland protests, but Murphy advised that the unit could only look at people who were arrested.
Surveillance was broadly used in other cities as well during the 2020 protests, with federal agencies sending unmanned drones and military aircraft to assist local law enforcement. But it’s not clear exactly how that surveillance was used: The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against several government agencies seeking that information late last year, but the case is still underway in the Southern District of New York.
Still, some agencies have acknowledged the surveillance was problematic. An investigation by the Inspector General Department of the Air Force, completed in August 2020, found that Air National Guard aircraft was used to monitor protests in Minnesota, Arizona, California and Washington, D.C. without clear approval from military leaders.
The surveillance in Phoenix, Arizona was “particularly concerning,” the Inspector General’s investigation found, because documentation associated with the flight suggested it was being used to allow law enforcement agencies to rapidly deploy to locations where they hoped to deter protest or looting.
“There is no scenario in which it is acceptable or permissible to use DoD (Department of Defense) assets to deter demonstrations and protests, assuming they remain lawful,” the report said.
The DHS’ internal review on Portland also shows the baseball cards — which were usually one-page summaries — included any past criminal history, travel history, “derogatory information from DHS or Intelligence Community holdings,” and publicly available social media. Draft dossiers included friends and family of protesters as well.
Wyden credited current Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis Kenneth Wainstein for reviewing the Trump administration’s “unnecessary redactions” and releasing the unredacted report.
Associated Press reporter Rebecca Boone contributed to this report from Boise, Idaho.
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Iran Evin Prison fire: Satellite images show scale of damage as protests sparked by Mahsa Amini death continue
Satellite photos analyzed Monday by the Associated Press showed a fire that burned through part of Iran’s notorious Evin Prison had damaged one of the largest buildings at the complex, as Iranian officials acknowledged that at least eight people were killed in the blaze. The satellite photos, taken on Sunday by Planet Labs PBC, showed the roof of a large building in the northern section of the prison burning away.
The prison holds thousands of people convicted by Iran‘s opaque court system on charges ranging from theft to murder, but it also holds many political prisoners, including two U.S. citizens. CBS News learned that both of the Iranian-Americans held in Evin prison were safe as of Sunday, but one of them, Emad Sharghi, was moved to solitary confinement.
Sharghi is nearly halfway through serving a 10-year sentence he was given on espionage charges. His family and the U.S. government say he’s being held by Iran’s authoritarian regime as a political hostage, and his family called over the weekend on President Biden to push for his release. Shargi’s sister and daughter told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on Sunday that they’d spoken with him directly.
Siamak Namazi, the other American citizen held at Evin, was also safe as of Sunday morning and had spoken to relatives in the U.S., his family’s attorney Jared Genser told CBS News.
Planet Labs PBC via AP
The cause of the huge fire remained unclear on Monday. Iran’s government has claimed that it started during a fight among inmates, but critics dispute that, suggesting it was instead linked to the unprecedented wave of anti-government protests that have raged across Iran for a month.
Smoke billowed over the prison, gunshots echoed and projectiles were seen hurtling into the air over the prison in videos posted to social media on Saturday while, outside the prison, protesters continued chanting for the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights monitoring group, told CBS News on Monday that he believes Iranian officials may have instigated the violence at the prison.
“When you hear about Evin, you think about torture, forced confession and political dissidents,” he told CBS News. “What we have heard from prisoners and their families is that they [security personnel] have attacked one of the wards, thrown tear gas inside, there has been shooting inside the prison.”
Iran’s security forces have been accused by outside governments and groups for weeks of a violent crackdown aimed at quelling the protests, which have been reported in more than 100 towns and cities across the Islamic Republic.
The unrest, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who’s family say she was killed in the custody of Iran’s morality police after being arrested for wearing an improper head covering, is unlike anything the country’s ruling clerics have faced since at least 2009.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has blamed the United States for the chaos in his country, as Iran’s leaders have done many times previously, calling America “the Great Satan.”
“They never take responsibility for anything bad that happens inside Iran,” said Amiry-Moghaddam. “I think this is what people have had enough of. We have a highly incompetent and repressive regime, never responsive to their own people, and of course they blame everyone else than themselves.”
People have continued to take to the streets despite the brutal crackdown, with women and girls often leading the charge. Their goal is to bring down the regime that seized power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and while that regime has put down violent unrest before, including the large anti-government protests in 2009, this time, it looks different.
“It seems people have lost their fear,” Amiry-Moghaddam told CBS News. “What Iranians have lived under the last 43 years has been a nightmare. I would say the countdown of the Islamic Republic has started.”
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Biden calls for Iran to stop violence against citizens as anti-government protests continue
Biden calls for Iran to stop violence against citizens as anti-government protests continue – CBS News
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Women lead anti-government protests in Iran, now in fourth week
Women lead anti-government protests in Iran, now in fourth week – CBS News
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Thousands rally for abortion rights in D.C., nationwide
WASHINGTON – Thousands of abortion rights proponents turned out in Washington, D.C. Saturday, and across the U.S., to protest the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“I’m out here today because I had an abortion, and I was able to do it safely, and I really believe that all women should have access, just like how I was able to have access safely, securely,” said Gabrielle Jennings, one of the many attendees at Saturday’s Women’s Wave Day March in Washington, D.C.
The D.C. protest kicked off with a rally and then a march from Folger Park to the U.S. Capitol grounds. It was one of several such nationwide rallies organized by the Women’s March as part of a “Women’s Wave” day of action.
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Protesters carried signs which read, “We are never coming back,” “Roe is settled law,” and “The hardest decision a woman can make isn’t yours.”
Two women wore costumes from the television series “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
David Walsh, who wore a pro-Roe shirt, told CBS News he was there to support his wife and two daughters.
“I think it’s important that, as an adult, and especially an adult male, to show my family that I support their interests, and I believe in what they believe in too,” Walsh said. “But I think it’s important for them to see me be an activist for what I believe in, whether it’s this, or something that I personally feel good about. They need to see me being an activist because that’s how change is made.”
JaPera Stith, who took a three-hour bus ride with a friend to D.C., said she was also at the event to show support for women’s rights.
“Women’s rights, it’s about their bodies,” Stith said. “So they should have the choice to do what they want with their bodies, and I don’t like how men have so much say in that decision when they can’t get pregnant.”
CBS News
There were a small group of counter-protesters at the D.C. event. CBS News witnessed one woman being taken into custody by police, but no specific details were immediately confirmed.
The event also comes about a month before the midterm elections, with the abortion issue expected to be high on the minds of voters.
Davis Reginald, who attended the march with the healthcare union SEIU 1199, said that along with women’s rights, he was also marching for voting rights.
“Voting rights is important because my ancestors fought for us to have the right to vote, and I feel that we should exercise that right because a lot of people sacrificed a lot of things for that right,” Reginald said.
Meanwhile, Zohreh Khayam, originally from Iran, wanted to draw attention to the death of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old Amini died after being taken into custody by Iran’s colloquially known “morality police” last month in Tehran for violating the nation’s strict Islamic dress code. The death has sparked weeks of anti-government protests both in Iran and worldwide.
Khayam is asking for solidarity.
“They are not exposed to the possibility of making decisions for their bodies, for the way they look, for the way they dress,” Khayam said. “And one of my hopes for coming today is for the American women to present support to the Iranian people by going to the American government and asking them to interfere in terms of what is happening in the world, and in terms of the treatment of women in Iran.”
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Pet Store Protest in Loveland, CO to Honor Puppy Mill Survivor
Press Release
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updated: Oct 21, 2019
BERTHOUD, Colo., October 21, 2019 (Newswire.com)
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Harley’s Dream, a Colorado-based animal welfare non-profit organization is planning a peaceful pet store protest on South Cleveland Ave, Loveland, CO. It will be held on Saturday, October 26th from 12 – 1:30 pm. The organization has been peacefully protesting a pet store in that vicinity for several years. This particular protest will be in honor of Teddy, a puppy mill dog who recently passed away, and will also be in celebration of the placement of a nearby Loveland puppy mill awareness billboard.According to Harley’s Dream founder, Rudi Taylor, “The goal of peaceful protests is to educate consumers about the connection between pet stores and puppy mills and to encourage pet stores to switch to the humane business model of only selling pet supplies, not puppies and kittens.”
Peaceful protests are one avenue of raising awareness about the puppy mill – pet store connection; billboards are another!
A compelling billboard was unveiled mid-month on Hwy 287 just south of 8th Street in Loveland and will stay up indefinitely to further educate and raise awareness about puppy mills and the pet store connection.
Harley, the tiny senior one-eyed Chihuahua depicted in the compelling billboard, lived for 10 years in a puppy mill, losing his eye when his cage was power-washed with him still in it. He was rescued, and because of his work against puppy mills, went on to be awarded the 2015 American Hero Dog.
It is estimated by industry experts that 98% of puppies sold in pet stores come from puppy mills. Responsible breeders would never sell their puppies to a pet store. A puppy mill is defined as a large-scale commercial dog breeding operation where profit is given priority over the well-being of the dogs. Breeding dogs at these facilities are crowded into wire bottomed cages that are only required by federal regulations to be 6” longer, wider and taller than the dog. They will likely live their entire lives in this space, and females will be bred every single cycle, with their puppies shipped off to be sold at pet stores. These breeding dogs will receive little to no veterinary care, rarely know a kind human touch or have their feet ever touch grass. This is how the parents of pet store puppies live.
We believe that if the public knew the truth about where pet store puppies come from, puppy mills would no longer exist. Our peaceful pet store protests and billboards around the country are educating people daily.
Harley’s Dream was also the driving force behind the recent passage of a pet retail ban ordinance in Berthoud. They have been involved in and supportive of many other ordinances including the recent Breckenridge, CO ban of the retail sale of puppies & kittens, and they are currently working on and supporting the passage of similar ordinance in many municipalities across the state and country. “There is growing momentum as the public becomes aware of the pet store / puppy mill connection and the general public is proving that they support measures to ensure the humane treatment of our companion animals.”
Harley’s Dream, formed in Harley’s memory, is a grassroots, non-profit organization whose mission is to educate the public about the cruel puppy mill industry.
To find out more about Harley’s Dream or to join the movement, visit: www.harleysdream.org
Source: Harley’s Dream
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Main Street March for Human Rights
Small towns across the country are organizing for human rights.
Press Release
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updated: Feb 2, 2017
Weston, WV, February 2, 2017 (Newswire.com)
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On Saturday, February 4, 2017, at 1:00 p.m. EST Americans will take to the streets to show support for refugees and immigrants around the world, especially those individuals and families who have been so callously and irreparably harmed by recent changes in U.S. immigration policy.Through a collective effort, this action is centered on the following Mission: We march to demonstrate the courage of loving-kindness and to welcome the stranger in need. The dreams of immigrants are the American dream.
There’s nothing more important than building solidarity and community in our small towns, where conversations can be had and real change can be made. Our sidewalks are our bridges.
Kara Vaneck
The past election cycle has shown a desperate lack of humane values and genuine leadership: Americans are being divided into camps, left-versus-right, urban-versus-rural, as if these distinctions were not based on generalizations. We seek to prove that the same values which motivated action at airports and in city centers can be found throughout America, from sea to shining sea.
We believe that by showing our support for those who are most vulnerable – and showing our own sincere desires for peace, love, and understanding through peaceful demonstration – we can do as Pope Francis himself challenged all people to do and build bridges rather than walls.
Therefore, around these ideas regular Americans are already organizing in the following cities and towns:
Buckhannon, WV
Fairmont, WV
Clarksburg, WV
Morgantown, WV
Weston, WV
Hanover, NH
Caledonia, NY
Syracuse, NY
Naples, FL
Puyallup, WA
We will help anyone, anywhere who wishes to march peacefully with us and the vulnerable of the world.
Press Contact:
Warren Hilsbos
mainstreetmarch@gmail.com
(304) 612-9295Source: Main Street March for Human Rights
