Far From the Press’ Watchful Eye, Massacre of Iranian Dissidents Is Far From Over

While the Iranian anti-regime rebellion is widely reported to have died down after the massacre of tens of thousands protesters, the Tehran regime’s killing spree is far from over, according to reports from inside the country. The regime’s enforcers “are finding alternative ways, ones that wouldn’t attract too much media attention, ones that wouldn’t involve shooting people,” a reporter for the London-based Iran International, Negar Mojtahedi, tells the Sun. “They’re finding different ways to do it, so they don’t get in trouble with President Trump.”Ms. Mojtahedi is reporting about secret executions in regime prisons and denial of basic medical care to protesters who had been injured in earlier confrontations with regime enforcers. One particularly cruel method of killing involves prison officials who condition a release on detainees’ acceptance of a mysterious “vaccine.” In fact, it is an injection of an unknown substance that in a few days ends up killing the subject. “Instead of executing them and announcing it, which brings more outrage, what they do, they are killing them with injection,” a spokeswoman for the Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran, Shiva Mahbobi, told Iran International. “Unfortunately, because it’s not called execution or being shot on the street, there is no media attention, because it’s difficult to prove it.” In one case that Ms. Mahbobi cites, a 16-year-old girl who was recently released from prison fell into a coma after what a source said was an injection administered in custody. Medical tests later indicated signs of poisoning, though doctors have not determined the cause. Several other detainees, freed after their families paid heavily for their release, died under similar circumstances. Last month, Mr. Trump promised Iranian regime opponents that “help is on its way.” He then reportedly aborted a planned military strike on regime targets. On January 16, the president explained that the regime cancelled a mass hanging of 800 protesters, which “had a big impact” on his decision. The regime’s top prosecutor, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, said that Mr. Trump’s statement was “completely false” — no executions were “cancelled.”Yet, even as the president publicly indicated that “help” would be deferred, he approved the smuggling of 6,000 Starlink kits to Iran in January, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The satellite-based devices, clandestinely sent to Iran by the Department of State, are helping anti-regime rebels bypass restrictions on the use of the internet, cellular phones, and other forms of communication. While the exact number of Iranians who were murdered remains unknown, they are widely believed to be in the tens of thousands. According to some reports, more than 36,000 people were killed in just two days of mass protest, January 8 and 9. Since then the mere American threat of “help” has spooked the regime enough that it now resorts to less overt lethality.To change the narrative, meanwhile, certain foreign reporters are invited to Iran to parrot the party line from inside the country.“People coming out here in Tehran and in cities and towns across this country to show their support for the Islamic Republic and the revolution,” the BBC’s Lyse Doucet said in a broadcast Wednesday, when the regime celebrated its 47th year in power. “It feels like a family festival. Iranians waving their flags and chanting slogans in support.”In reality, many of the reported regime supporters were coerced to participate in the festivities. “The assets of a merchant whose worth is estimated at $500 million were confiscated,” a veteran Israeli Farsi-language broadcaster, Menashe Amir, tells the Sun. “He was told that the assets would be returned to him if he came out to celebrate the regime, and bring his many associates.”Credible reports document how regime agents are shooting injured detainees in prisons and hospitals across the country. Family members wishing to visit their loved ones are instead advised to search the morgues.Non-affiliated doctors and nurses are being replaced in hospitals by Revolutionary Guards and Basij enforcers. “They’ve literally kicked out everybody from the hospitals,” Ms. Mojtahedi says. As a result, patients suffering from cancer or other ailments are neglected, while protesters suffering from perfectly-treatable injuries are left to die. The morgues, meanwhile, are overwhelmed. Family members are reportedly forced to pay stiff fines for the privilege of sifting through piles of dead bodies in the hope of finding their loved ones.The Islamic Republic’s lethal repression is intensifying even as reporting on it is winding down. “What people don’t see on television is the most frightening part,” Ms. Mahbobi says.

Far From the Press’ Watchful Eye, Massacre of Iranian Dissidents Is Far From Over

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