Iranian professional soccer player Amir Nassr-Azadani, 26, was arrested in November and now sentenced to death for blasphemy related to the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini by the Basij militia for violating Iran’s strict dress code. Nassr-Azadani was accused of “waging war against God and will be hanged in public. “We stand in solidarity with Amir and call for the immediate removal of his punishment,” aid FIFPRO, the international soccer players union. “Shocked and sickened, FIBPRO condemned the crackdown on Iranian soccer players for participating in nationwide protests over Amin’s death. Iran’s mullah government, led by 83-year-old Supreme Learder Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been arrested protesters in droves, only recently hanging one for “waging war against God,” an egregious attempt by the mullah government to suppress unrest
Ayatollah Khamenei, and his 63-year-old President Ebrahim Raisi, responded forcefully to the nationwide street protests, amounting to the biggest threat to the mullah regime since in 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran’s bloody crackdown on street protesters has arrested hundreds and killed at least 50 since protest broke out after Amini’s beating death Sept. 16 by the Basij militia or “morality police.” Iran’s youthful population has never known reedoms enjoyed by ordinary citizens under the rule of Shan Reza Mohammed Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran before he was ousted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, the leader of the Islamic Revolution. Forty-three years of mullah rule has soured the nation, no longer willing to live in fear of arbitrary arrests and vaporizations by the cleric government. Nassr-Azadani played for the Persian Gulf Pro League since Tractor but has not played since November 2017.
More public executions, like the last one on a construction crane Dec. 12, intimidates the public into stopping the nationwide protests, now in their third month. Most Iranians know that if they run afoul with the government, there’s no justice, only arrest, prison and vaporizations. Nassr-Azadan is one out of 28 Iranians charged and arrested with violating “God’s law,” a crime against the mullah government. No one knows how far the mullah government is willing to go to crack down on street protesters currently unwilling to stop activism. Iran hung Mohsen Shekani on and industrial crane for his role in street protests. Shkani was accused of blocking s street an injuring a member of Iran’s Basij militia. Iran published a video confession of Shekan admitting he wounded a member of the “morality police,” letting protesters know that if they get caught, they’ll wind up the same way.
Oslo –based Iran Human Rights Group said that Shekani was tortured into a false confession before hung in public. European Union [EU] announced sanctions on senior Iranian clerics for its ongoing crackdown on street protests, and, more recently, supplying Russia with Kamikaze drones and ballistic missiles in Ukraine. Joining forces with Russia in Ukraine, Iran knows that the U.S. and EU consider itself a rogue regime, a state sponsor of terror. Former President Donald Trump cancelled former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iranian Nuke Deal May 8, 2018 because Iran sponsored war against U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. President Joe Biden, 80, hoped to reestablish the Iranian Nuke Deal with EU partners, only to realize how the mullah regime attacks its neighbors and own citizens. EU foreign ministers demanded that Iran stop the extra-judicial arrests and public executions around Iran.
Iran finds itself in a military alliance with Russia, much the way Axis powers in WW II joined Hitlers’s Nazi war machine. Iran 83-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei knows he’s in an existential battle for his survival. Joining the Russian war effort in Ukraine assures that if, push came to shove, Russia would rescue Khamenei the way he did in 2015 with 57-year-old Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Obama and his Vice President Joe Biden, spent eight years pouring billions into rebel groups seeking to topple al-Assad’s Damascus regime. Al-Assad survived with Russian military help, foiling Obama and Biden’s plans to topple the Damascus government. Biden thinks he can pour unlimited cash and weapons in Ukraine with the hope to toppling the Russian Federation. So far, Biden’s proxy war against the Kremlin has resulted in the destruction of Ukraine.
EU officials are taking action against Ayatollah Ali Khemenei’s mullah regime for supplying drones and ballistic missiles to Russia in Ukraine. Whether the EU’s sanctions of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards make any difference or not isn’t known. What’s known for sure is that the EU excluded itself in any effort to resuscitate the Iranian Nuke Deal now that Iran finds itself under siege from the U.S. and EU. When it comes to Iran joining forces with Russia, how does that differ from China and India ignoring U.S. and EU sanctions and buying Russian oil and natural gas? “Weapons provided by Iran are being used indiscriminately by Russia against Ukrainian civilian population and infrastructure causing horrendous destruction and human suffereing,” said the EU. If The EU wants the 10-month old bloody Ukraine War to end, the EU should get behind French President Emmanuel Macron’s peacemaking.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
