-Ms. Mahasa Amini’s death jolts Iranian Regime-
N. P. Upadhyaya (Aryal)
Kathmandu: News events from Islamic State of Iran rarely appear in Nepali news media.
This could have two obvious reasons.
Either we are less interested in Burqa, Niqab and Hijab affairs of the Muslim ladies from the Muslim nations or it could be that “we are interested only on that news which we are being catered/fed by generally the Indian Godi media which in itself is more that biased towards Muslim men and women folks.
India’s Islamophobic content in the mainstream media has no parallels.
And unfortunately, what “our boss Indian media-for many in Kathmandu, writes on Islam or for that matter the Muslim countries acts like a base for the RAW fed and controlled Nepali media.
Practically, Nepalese media borrow or for that matter foot their analysis or for that matter commentaries as per the “political “lines acquired by our “poisonous parents” in India and thus get our stories spoiled/corrupted or at best present the views thus compiled that suits to our Indian masters who have kept in payroll of the RAW Spy agency.
Scores of my own profession junior colleagues toes the political line on international issues as “structured” by the Indian media.
We in the process not only distort the factual events but also commit a crime knowingly that suits to the core interests of the enemy regime-India.
As and when some Hindus and the Muslims in Nepal clash on certain “religious” events, the Indian media propagates the Nepali events as if the Muslims in Nepal have already captured the Nepali republic gifted by India.
Certainly, our brothers from the Hindu and Muslim families at times clash with each other, however, the event in a day or two subsides and the two warring religions come to an agreement and live in peace henceforth.
But the Indian media blows the Nepali event out of proportion and even claims that Muslim countries, like Pakistan and the Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and even Bangladesh pump money to some Muslim fanatics in order to bring in rifts and fissures in between the two religions who have a track record of living in harmony since the time of Unifier King Prithvi Narayan Shah.
In nut shell, Nepali media has already been corrupted by the RAW’s excessive pumping in of “under table envelope” money. India‘s envelop journalism has made deep inroads in Nepali journalism which is what has been helping India’s Nepal’s Sikkimisation drive faster.
The speed is in progress with the ruling political animals who are guaranteed India elevated ones.
Now Iranian events in details:
However, let’s change the topic for the better and dwell largely on the recent Iranian happenings, albeit sad ones, that have at least shaken the Muslim world across the globe and also exposed the incumbent Iranian government for its excessive “repression” on the women’s inside various parts of Iranian society.
Needless to say, the US which has worst of its ties with the Iranian regime on several counts more so on issues of “nuclear nonproliferation” must have enjoyed in observing its somewhat inimical regime engaged in unexpected and unprecedented protests across the country.
Needless to say, the USs strained relations with the Iranian regime is at best being capitalized by the Russian Federation.
Those who are in the forefront of such protests and anger against what they call as a rigid “repressive and dictatorial Iranian regime” controlled by some fanatic Mullahs and Moulvis.
It is all about the women of today across the globe demand and long from freedom” from a society that, they believe, has kept the entire women folks inside Iran in a very ignored associated with abundant hatred and above all the men who control the Muslim society more so inside Iran treat women folks as a commodity which could be well over used and when the job is done, need to be thrown to the mercy of Almighty.
They are subjected to several societal restrictions which we in our society can’t even imagine.
Some even say that the Iranian women are treated like inferior creatures and they even don’t have their personal identities.
The protests in Iran continues unabated even at time of writing this piece. (Wednesday).
Now back to the main story: A Kurdish women Mahsa Amini aka Jina Amini- a young girl at 22, was declared dead, September 15, 2022, after the notorious morality police first detained the Iranian Kurdish women last month, September, for allegedly breaching the Islamic Republic’s stringent dress code designed especially for the Iranian women.
Media reports claim that Ms. Amini died in a local hospital under mysterious circumstances.
Reports further add that the Guidance Patrol-the religious morality of the Iranian government earlier had arrested the young Kurdish girl for not wearing the HIJAB as per the Iranian custom of say strict societal obligations.
These obligations are however, being dismissed by the “global civilized society” over these years noticeably including Nepal.
Nepal believes in the full and honorific dignity of women folks across the globe and thus mourns the “mysterious” death of the young Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini.
The Guardian Daily (British media) dated 27 October writes that the Iranian security forces have violently clashed with the protesters who had gathered in their thousands in Mahsa Amini’s home town to mark 40 days since Amini’s mystifying death, with reports that shots were fired.
Amini was declared dead on September 16, as stated earlier.
“Security forces have shot teargas and opened fire on people in Zindan Square, Saqqez city,” Hengaw, a Norway-based group that monitors rights violations in Iran’s Kurdish regions, tweeted without specifying whether there were any dead or wounded. It said more than 50 civilians were injured by direct fire in cities across the region.
A 29 October news authored by Holly Johnston through the MENA (NATIONAL) media outlet reveals that the family of Mahsa Amini are being held under house arrest at their home in Iran, her cousin has confirmed to The National.
Amini’s parents and her brother have been “detained in their home” by authorities since couple of days, so said Erfan Mortazei speaking from the Kurdish region of Iraq.
The Iranian political unrest which took immediately a shape after the mysterious death of Ms. Mahasa Amini forced Iran to close its one of its key border crossing with neighboring Pakistan in the recent days amid the violent unrest in a nearby city inside Iran.
The NEWARAB dated 03 October claims that the Zahedan, a Sunni city in the Shia-majority Islamic Republic, saw at least 19 people killed on that particular day which frightened the countrymen.
In the meanwhile, the euronews, a Dubai based news agency says. 29/10/2022, that the already deteriorating security situation inside Iran has compelled the UN Human Rights office to voice its serious concern Iran’s treatment of detained protesters and said authorities were refusing to release some of the bodies of those killed, as demonstrators again called for the death of the country’s top leader.
This is the fresh demand which expects the top Iranian leader resigns at the earliest.
The UN office hints at the fact that after the death of Ms. Mahasa Amini, thousands of protesters across the Iranian were arrested by the brutal Iranian security forces.
Obviously, the rigid Islamic Republic has plunged into a sort of chaos and political uncertainty of high magnitude with the slogans being heard that “down with the dictator”, “change the rigid regime” and install a women friendly command.
International commentators claim that after the sudden death of the young girl at 22-a Kurdish woman “Mahsa Amini the ongoing unrest has posed one of the boldest challenges to Iran’s clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution.
Notably, after the unceremonious ouster of former King Mohammad Reza Pehalvi, Iran has remained politically unstable over these decades.
Reza Pehalvi was very close to the US administration for the record.
Ayatollah Khomeini, then residing in France, engineered the Iranian revolution against the Shah of Iran and finally ousted Shah’s government once and for all.
The Japan times dated October 6, 2022, reports that the Iranian schoolgirls (students) too have come to the streets to express their deep anger over the death of the Kurdish woman, Mahasa Amini, and these school girls in the streets expressed their deep anger the hatred against the Iranian regime removing their hijabs and staging sporadic rallies in defiance of a lethal crackdown by the security forces.
The Japan Times further reports that the Schoolgirls in the streets have since taken up the baton around the country, removing their hijabs, shouting anti-regime slogans and defacing images of the clerical state’s leaders.
Indeed, this is a daring move and that too by girl students.
“Death to the dictator,” a group of bare-headed girls was heard chanting in reference to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as they force a man, reportedly the principal, out of a school in Karaj, west of Tehran, on Monday, in a video verified by AFP.
Another group of girls sang “Woman, Life, Freedom!” as they marched through the Karaj neighborhood of Gohardasht, adds the Japan Times.
Moved by the chaotic situation and the plight of the women folks in Iran, this last Wednesday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch decried internet shutdowns and said it had verified 16 protest videos that show “police and other security forces are using excessive lethal force against picketers” in Tehran and other cities.
The strong critic of the Iranian rigid regime-the regime in Tehran and Washington are clashing again, claims Maziar Matamedi for Al Jazeera dated 29 October, 2022, over weeks-long protests (it began in September in earnest after Mahasa Amini was declared dead) in Iran as, reports have it, the United States is soon convening an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) over the strife that erupted across Iran after 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini died in the custody of morality police last month-September.
Albania, yet another strong ally of the US and conversely a strong critic of the Iranian regime are all set to call jointly for a new UNSCs Session in the upcoming days.
This news has been backed by the Reuters and also has duly been confirmed by Iranian state media.
From the Indian media on Iran:
Ms. Lauren Frayer writes for the npr news dated October 29, 2022 quoting columnist Tavleen Sigh that “ever since 9/11, the first thing you see with the arrival of radical Islam is the attire,” Ms Singh, a Sikh herself said on a recent TV news program (Mumbai) further says that every time men decide what women should wear, it is wrong. The hijab… is meant to be a political weapon.”
She goes on to hit India’s Modi government by stating that “it’s a reflection of just how sensitive anything related to the hijab is in Hindu-majority India, especially under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Lawmakers from his Hindu nationalist party have been accused of inciting violence against India’s 200 million Muslims — the country’s largest minority.
In a sharp contrast, the Modi’s Hindu conservatives are championing female Muslim protesters in Iran”.
For the record, Ms. Tavleen used to be a supporter of PM Modi, however, for some reasons she talks now against PM Modi and his Islamophobic actions.
Our own regular columnist, Katrin Fidencio, from San Diego, USA, says the following in an article that has already been published by the Telegraph Nepal:
Katrin Fidencio touching upon the Iranian culture writes, “Iran has a culture that traces all the way back to old Persia and right up ’til now is among the most remarkable countries in the Center East. Not at all like a significant number of its neighbors where the greater part religion is Sunni Islam, Iran’s predominant religion is Shia Islam, an unmistakable order. In spite of the religious government implementing strict regulations on Iranian culture, Iran is really among the most evolved and cosmopolitan countries in the district and its kin keep a mind-boggling relationship with Western culture and impacts. All through the system’s set of experiences, the conflict of religious rule with common (non-strict) interests and a longing for change in the nation has prompted distress and political unrest. By the way, the religious government has figured out how to keep up with its control”.
In a rare article from Pakistan on Iran events, Ms. Rafia Zakaria for the DAWN newspaper, September 28, 2022, writes that, “Hungry for power highs, Islamophobic politicians from parties such as Marine le Pen’s National Rally in France and Narendra Modi’s BJP in India want to forbid the wearing of the headscarf and appeal to an ignorant and self-serving version of secularism or Hindutva supremacy.
Rafia then adds saying, “No state, whether it is the Iranian or the Saudi, the French or the Indian, has the right to tell women what to wear”.
“Mera Jism meri marzi” is at the center of Pakistan’s women’s movement, and is being reflected in Iran, opines Ms. Rafia.
In yet another stern warning from the US has come to light. Better late than never, the USs attention has been drawn on Iranian protests on hijab wearing.
The US Vice President Kamala Harris in a fresh statement says, November 2, 2022, that any nation which “systematically” abuses rights of women and girls, should not be allowed on such forums (from the UN Commission on the Status of Women) charged with protecting the same rights.
Similarly, in an interesting turn of events, Priyanka Chopra of Hindi Cinema and United Nations goodwill ambassador Priyanka Chopra is facing criticism for her condemnation of the custodial death of Mahsa Amini in Iran while maintaining silence on women’s issues back home.
Recently, the 40-year-old Bollywood star, who is now based in the Los Angeles, United States, posted her support for the protests in Muslim-Majority Iran, saying that she is in “awe” of the women fighting the government there for weeks, Al Jazeera reports.
Critics, however, have accused Chopra – who was appointed a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 2016 – of “selective outrage” and “double standards” by not speaking for India’s Muslim women, who have been facing ATTACKS FOR WEARING HIJAB, REPEORTS Al Jazeera dated October 12, 2022.
That’s all.