Iran is probably cracking down: climber at the Asian Championships without a headscarf
Created: 2022-10-19 05:07
By: Linus Prien, Patrick Mayer
The protests in Iran continue after the violent death of student Mahsa Amini.
Now the world is looking with concern at an athlete who did not wear a headscarf in a competition.
The news ticker.
Iranian climber
without
headscarf
: Iranian embassy denies allegations of arrest.
Iranian athlete
faces
arrest
: she didn't wear a headscarf at the Asian championships
Baerbock
announces
tough sanctions
: Iran's "moral police" are affected
This
news ticker about the protests in Iran
is continuously updated.
Update from October 18, 3:44 p.m .:
According to media reports, the demand for VPN services in Iran has increased by 3000 percent.
This was reported by the Iranian news agency Ilna, citing a board member of a computer technology association.
The Internet is currently severely restricted in Iran due to the nationwide protests, and many foreign websites are blocked.
With the protected network connections (VPN), the blocking of websites and apps can be bypassed.
Although the apps are illegal, they are sold in computer bazaars everywhere.
Iran protests: Iranian embassy rejects allegations about climbing athlete
Update from October 18, 3:15 p.m .:
People around the world are worried about the Iranian climber Elnas Rekabi, who caused a stir by taking off her headscarf in the final of the Asian Championships in Seoul.
The 33-year-old is said to be on her way back from South Korea to her home country - but her whereabouts were initially unclear on Tuesday.
According to media reports, Rekabi's team left the hotel on Monday morning, but what happened to her is not known.
According to reports on social media, Rekabi's passport and mobile phone were confiscated, and there was also talk of an arrest.
The Iranian embassy in Seoul categorically denied these allegations.
Rekabi and her team would fly back to Tehran as planned on Tuesday, it said.
Iran protests: Iranian athlete faces arrest in her home country
Update from October 18, 1:25 p.m
.: The Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi is apparently threatened with arrest in Iran because she started at the Asian Championships in Seoul without the mandatory headscarf.
Several media report on this, including
Der Spiegel
.
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After her performance, the athlete probably had to leave South Korea early and return to her home country, it is said that she is threatened with exclusion from the national team.
According to information from the BBC, her passport and mobile phone are said to have been confiscated.
Rekabi's appearance without a headscarf was interpreted as solidarity with the protest movement in Iran that erupted after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was allegedly tortured to death for not wearing a headscarf.
In the meantime, the climber herself has taken a position on Instagram and explained that the action was not political, but an accident.
The Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi at a competition in 2019 - with a headscarf.
© IMAGO / AFLOSPORT
Iran protests: is Musk now helping with Starlink?
Update from October 18, 9:36 a.m .:
According to media reports, the first receiving systems for the Starlink satellite Internet service have appeared in Iran.
The online portal Tejaratnews
reported that the devices, which are illegal in Iran, are being traded on the black market for the equivalent of almost 2,000 euros
.
The recipients cost many times the original price and are allegedly smuggled into the Islamic Republic via neighboring Iraq.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk announced a few weeks ago that he would apply for a special permit in the USA in order to be able to offer the Starlink satellite network in Iran despite US sanctions.
The system establishes fast Internet connections directly via its own satellites.
It is being built by Musk's space company SpaceX.
After the recent nationwide protests broke out following the death of Mahsa Amini, the authorities severely restricted the country's internet.
Baerbock for another package of sanctions against Iran - for supplying Kamikaze drones to Russia
Update from October 18, 9:10 a.m .:
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has spoken out in favor of further sanctions against the Islamic Republic if Iran continues to supply drones to Russia in the Ukraine war.
She had already announced in the European Council on Monday that "with a view to this delivery of drones from Iran to Russia, another package of sanctions against the Iranian regime must follow," said the Green politician on Monday on ZDF's "heute journal".
When in doubt, sanctions cannot dissuade "authoritarian regimes" from their actions, said Baerbock.
“But it makes it clear that the world is not looking the other way.
And if we do that together, as a global community, then it also has an impact.”
Russia launched renewed attacks on Ukraine on Monday.
In addition to missiles, Moscow is increasingly using combat drones this time.
The United States - like Ukraine - accuses Iran of supplying Russia with such drones.
Iran has denied arms sales to Russia.
Baerbock announces tough sanctions against Iran's 'moral police'
Update from October 17, 4:55 p.m .:
The European Union (EU) has imposed sanctions on the Iranian moral police and more than a dozen other people and organizations from Iran.
This was announced by the representation of the member states this Monday on the sidelines of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
This is a reaction to the death of 22-year-old Iranian Mahsa Amini and the brutal suppression of protests, it said.
The Basij militias, the so-called law enforcement forces and the cyber defense command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are also affected.
According to the EU Official Journal, the moral police are accused of unlawful violence against women for not complying with Iranian laws on the wearing of the Islamic hijab, as well as sexual and gender-based violence.
The task force also allegedly carried out arbitrary arrests and detentions and used excessive force and torture.
As for Mahsa Amini's death, it is reported that the young woman was arbitrarily arrested on 13 September for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.
She was then taken to the vice squad headquarters for an "education and orientation course."
According to reliable reports and witnesses, she was brutally beaten and ill-treated, eventually leading to her death on 16 September.
The police deny this account.
Since the 22-year-old's death, there have been protests in Iran, with security forces repeatedly using massive amounts of violence against demonstrators.
The EU has accused the Basij militias of injuring and killing several demonstrators.
The sanctions provide for entry bans to be imposed.
In addition, the assets of those affected are frozen in the EU.
Natalie Amiri sees a "new dimension": ARD expert assesses protests in Iran
Update from October 17, 2:55 p.m .:
The well-known German-Iranian ARD journalist Natalie Amiri (including “Weltspiegel”) sees a “new dimension” in the protests in Iran.
In her view, not only women, but a cross-section of society as a whole take to the streets.
Since mid-September, the country has been experiencing mass demonstrations unprecedented in the Near East following the allegedly violent death of student Mahsa Amini (22 years old).
“This is exactly the new dimension that the protests have reached.
There have already been countless protests in recent years," says Amiri in an interview with Deutschlandfunk (DLF) and gives a comparison: "In 2009, the big green movement was against Ahmadinejad's re-election (
ex-president, ed
.).
We saw the biggest protests since the Islamic Republic was founded.”
But what is the case now, "is that a cross-section of society is on the streets.
That means people are now cross-gender and cross-generational on the streets.
Religious and ethnic minorities are included, especially the Kurds.
Mahsa Amini was Kurdish,” says 44-year-old Amiri, who was born in Munich and is the daughter of a German father and an Iranian father, in the radio interview.
Iran expert and ARD journalist: Natalie Amiri.
© IMAGO/Christoph Hardt
“All of these come onto the streets for their own reasons.
The protests are led by the women.
That's not surprising either, given how I got to know the women in Iran.
Their headscarves are now flying through the air and being burned.
The women cut their hair in protest, they applaud, there is also really frenetic applause from men," says Amiri and explains: "These are not women's protests, but protests by society as a whole.
And these are not headscarf protests, but protests against the regime.
They demand: We no longer want this Islamic Republic.”
Protests in Iran in the news ticker: demonstrations after the death of Mahsa Amini increasingly violent
First report from October 17th:
Munich/Tehran – After the violent death of the 22-year-old student Mahsa Amini, the protests in Tehran and several other cities in Iran continue.
Many men have long since joined the protest movement for more women's rights, demonstrating against the repression by the mullahs' regime and its so-called "moral police".
The clashes are apparently becoming increasingly violent.
In flames: the notorious Ewin prison in Iran's capital, Tehran.
© Aline MANOUKIAN / UGC / AFP
After a major fire in Ewin prison: the death toll in Tehran is rising
Preliminary sad climax: The major fire in the notorious Ewin prison in the capital Tehran, in which critics of the regime and opponents of the government are said to be imprisoned.
As Iran's judiciary announced after the fire, the death toll rose by four more prisoners to eight prisoners.
They died in the hospital, the Iranian news agency Tasnim reported on Monday, citing the judiciary.
Dozens of other detainees were injured.
Observers fear an even higher number of victims.
In the video: Annalena Baerbock talks about EU sanctions against Iran
The prison in northern Tehran is considered nationwide as the place for ill-treatment and torture of political prisoners in particular.
Demonstrators are also being held there because of their participation in the system-critical protests of the past four weeks, as are dual nationals who have another citizenship in addition to Iranian citizenship.
The US sanctioned the prison and its management in May 2018 for “serious human rights violations”.
Ewin prison in Tehran: Iran holds suspected political prisoners there
Several explosions could be heard in the detention center on Saturday, according to eyewitnesses and media from Tehran.
A fire also broke out after a conflict.
According to the official Iranian account, it is said to be an internal conflict in the prison.
This information cannot be independently verified.
Videos shared thousands of times on social media showed chaotic images surrounding the prison.
Many relatives of the detainees rushed to the scene of the incident out of concern for relatives.
Destroyed: Parts of the Ewin prison in Tehran, where dissidents and opponents of the government are imprisoned.
© Koosha Mahshid Falahi/Mizan News Agency/AP/dpa
Annalena Baerbock calls for EU sanctions: German Foreign Minister attacks Iran's "moral police".
Annalena Baerbock (Greens) has now clearly condemned the behavior of the mullah regime.
Specifically: Because of the violence against demonstrators in Iran, the foreign ministers of the European Union want to impose new sanctions on the country with its around 84 million inhabitants.
"This affects those involved in the so-called moral police, but it also affects other people responsible in this area," said the Federal Foreign Minister on Monday (October 17) on the sidelines of a meeting with her EU colleagues in Luxembourg.
For example, entry bans are to be imposed and their assets in the European Union (EU) will be frozen.
According to AFP information, eleven Iranian officials and four organizations, including the moral police, are on the extended list of sanctions.
The name is a "nonsense (...) when you see what crimes are being committed," said Baerbock: "If this regime continues to hit its people like this, then there will be further sanctions for those responsible."
There have been protests in Iran for weeks.
The trigger was the allegedly violent death of the young Amini, who according to the "moral police" did not wear her headscarf according to the regulations.
(pm)
