Iran worryingly recruits teenage children in its wars

It has been reported that children as young as fifteen are being recruited by the Iranian regime to participate in armed conflicts. This is a blatant disregard of international law and the UN Security Council has reminded Iran that the UN Charter on children’s rights is applicable.
The International Criminal Court sees the recruitment of anyone under eighteen years old for any activities related to armed combat as a war crime.
It is scandalous that this is happening with such frequency in Iran, yet it is facing no obstacles.
Children have not developed fully enough to participate in war and these children being recruited by the Iranian regime are at extreme risk for major physical and psychological consequences. It takes an extreme toll on the child, the family and society as a whole.
International laws are in place to protect children, but they can only be protected if they are enforced. It is major negligence that the international laws are failing to protect these minors.
Many of the children being recruited in Iran are from refugee families. They are sent to conflict zones, in particular Syria, where they will fight alongside Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad’s forces and allies.
The shocking reason behind such a high number of child recruits is that the Syrian and Iranian regimes are trying to lower the number of reported government casualties and deaths to minimise the loss of morale within the troops. The lives of the children are not valued and the Iranian regime treats them as expendable.
source:Iran worryingly recruits teenage children in its wars

Iran: Woman MP admits violence against women is pervasive

“Currently domestic violence against women is pervasive in the society but few people pay attention to it,” said Parvaneh Salahshouri, head of the women’s faction in the Iranian parliament on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

“Domestic violence is not clearly seen in society because unfortunately a woman who is subjected to such violence, rarely speaks out about it. This is why many women suffer from it,” she added.

The regime’s official went on without providing any statistics, “Clearly, we see many forms of violence against women in society. Sometimes, we see them but pay no attention but sometimes we are not even able to realize them which is much more agonizing.”

“The failure to deploy women’s force in the positions that they do deserve is itself a kind of violence against women,” she pointed out.

Shedding light on the injustice institutionalized in the regime’s penal code against women, she admitted, “If a woman makes a little mistake, it would cause great problems for her, subjecting her to violence. However, when a man makes a huge mistake there is no violence against them.”

She also acknowledged that the VAW bill widely advertised by the regime had not yet found its way to the mullahs’ parliament. (The state-run IRNA news agency – November 25, 2017)
source:Iran: Woman MP admits violence against women is pervasive

Time to establish a united front for change in Iran

At the request of Saudi Arabia, foreign ministers of the Arab League gathered on Sunday, November 19th for an emergency meeting in Cairo. This assembly came at a time when the Middle East and the world over can no longer tolerate Iran’s meddling and support for terrorism and fundamentalist.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) was designated as a terrorist entity by the U.S. Treasury Department, and many of its affiliated forces in the region have been targeted as a result. This has left the IRGC, considered the main entity for Tehran’s domestic crackdown and interfering in other countries, to become extremely weak.

Tehran is currently going the limits in hollow saber-rattling and behind-the-curtain talks in its attempt to return to the previous balance of power obtained after two decades of appeasement. Currently, however, there is no path left for Iran other than succumbing to the will of the international community and the Iranian people for a change.
source:Time to establish a united front for change in Iran

ANALYSIS: The ball is rolling in Syria, against Iran

Developments over Syria following recent collaborations between leaders of the United States and Russia have gained significant momentum. This also signals a decreasing Iranian role and a prelude to further setbacks for Tehran.

An hour long phone call last Tuesday between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin followed the latter’s meeting with Syrian regime leader Bashar al-Assad.

After allocating billions on its Levant campaign, Iran is witnessing its hegemony fading as measures aimed at bringing the Syria war to a close gain momentum.

Political flexibility

The leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed last week to facilitate a full-scale political process in Syria and to sponsor a conference in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi to end the war.

While some may consider this a victory for Iran, jumping to early conclusions blinds us from understanding how Tehran sought full hegemony in Syria. Today, circumstances account to major setbacks.

Putin’s hosting of talks on Syria inclines that Moscow calls the shots. This leaves Tehran deeply concerned, especially following its six-year long campaign to maintain Assad in power. The mere fact that Iran is sitting at the table with Russia, also in talks with the US over different issues, and Turkey, a Syrian opposition supporter, leaves no doubt Tehran will need to display political flexibility.
source:ANALYSIS: The ball is rolling in Syria, against Iran

Time for Reckoning a Long Hidden Massacre

This week, Tehran announced it would continue a missile development program that defense analysts say could allow Iran to launch nuclear weapons. It was a public threat that has understandably stirred strong response from the U.S. and the west: the risk of nuclear proliferation by a fanatical regime is indeed a threat to millions across the region. But there is another, potentially greater threat from within Iran, one made more insidious by the fact that no one outside of Iran seems to care but which nonetheless imperils the values and moral conscience of the civilized world. I am speaking of the massacre of some 30,000 Iranians—including my uncle— at the hands of the state in 1988. And the arbitrary killings and executions continue.

In 1981, during the early years of Iran’s so-called “Islamic Revolution” my uncle Mahmood ‘Masoud’ Hassani was 21 years old and in his second year studying Economics at Tehran University. On June 30, my uncle never returned home from school.

Nearly two traumatic months passed before Masoud called my family to say he had been in jail since his disappearance and had been sentenced to serve ten years in the notorious Evin Prison. Even in absence of any evidence, he was convicted of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘spreading corruption on Earth’ all because he had distributed pro-democratic pamphlets near his campus.
source:Time for Reckoning a Long Hidden Massacre

Experts: ‘Persian Spring Is Possible’ in Oppressed Iran

WASHINGTON, DC – Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman and retired General Charles Wall laid out their visions for the “the way forward” regarding the United States’ policy on Iran during a panel discussion at the National Press Club on Tuesday.

The event was the second in a series of discussions on the matter.

“We find ourselves in a time of great promise and of great peril,” Ivan Sheehan—an associate professor at School of Public and International Affairs, University of Baltimore, Maryland—who moderated the event, told those gathered.

He said “a Persian spring is possible” and noted that, while the formal designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization was “valuable,” there is a need for increased action to cripple the regime so it can no longer engage in its terrorist activities.

Lieberman, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 2013 and was the Vice Presidential nominee in the 2000 election, said he does not see the Middle East conflict as a Sunni versus Shiite battle as much as a face-off between extreme radical dictatorial terrorists versus modernizers who believe in the rule of law and human rights. “And throughout the Middle East now, we see a response growing to the Iranian support for terrorism … and the subjugation of the new democracy in Iraq by Tehran.”

He noted that this “is part of a clear desire, a plan by the government in Tehran, to attain hegemonic power over the region. To rise again and pose its own extremist version of Islam, its dictatorial governmental form on as many of the nations in the region as possible. … So much of the instability in the region is now being centered on Tehran,” he said, adding that the U.S. State Department has stated over and again that the Islamic Republic of Iran remains the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East and beyond.
source:Experts: ‘Persian Spring Is Possible’ in Oppressed Iran