Mohammad Kamrani was only 18 years old and studying to take an entrance exam last Friday at Tehran’s Free University medical college. He was the latest victim of the violence perpetrated by the Iranian regime’s suppressive forces against the Iranian people’s uprising. Wounded on July 9, the teenager was arrested and taken to prison. However, due to the severity of his wounds, he was transferred to the hospital and passed away a week later on July 16.
Recently, an Iranian doctor, who talked on condition of anonymity and was either unable or unwilling to recount the tragedies he had witnessed thus far, finally decided to reveal a small part of the unfortunate events he witnessed. He says, "I am a doctor. I was in an ambulance when I witnessed members of the [paramilitary] Bassij stationed on top of Lolagar Mosque in front of the Navab Metro station directly shoot at people using Kalashnikovs and G3 assault rifles. I saw a young man's brain splattered on the black steps in front of the metro station. … When I was at the Imam Khomeini hospital, I was standing behind the gate when I saw that (unlike the rest of the world where they at least fire tear gas into the air or diagonally) several feet away from me at Tohid Square a young man was directly targeted and hit by a large and hot tear gas canister. It struck his neck, blood gushed out, he fell on the ground and died on the spot. … At Jamalzadeh Street, I was in an ambulance when I saw how Bassijis on motorcycles struck boys and girls from behind with chains. A girl was severely and violently hit on her back with one of these chains; she let out a loud cry, and fell onto the ground face first. … A three-month-old pregnant woman was hit so hard in the head with an electric baton that she suffered a brain injury and after spending a month in coma she eventually died with her unborn child.”
The doctor adds that some assume Neda and several others whose deaths and injuries were captured on camera and broadcast on the internet and TV screens are the only victims of such crimes. But the reality is that the violence committed during the past weeks has been much larger in scope.
Such crimes committed over the past several weeks have added to the already deep river of blood separating the Iranian regime from the Iranian people. Even the mullahs’ Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has realized now that the situation will not revert back to the past. On July 20, he warned about the prospect of the regime’s downfall as he talked about the deepening rifts and crises within the ruling establishment. While implicitly pointing to former mullahs’ president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, he said, “Whoever, in whatever post or position, seeks to steer society into a hazardous path would be despised by the entire Iranian nation.”
“The elites are now faced with a momentous test. Failure in this test would not only set us back a year, it would bring our downfall,” he added unequivocally.
The reality is that the Iranian society is moving with incredible speed to overthrow a regime which has enchained it for the past 30 years. However, leaders and politicians in Western countries are not moving at the same pace as the Iranian people and are not opening their eyes to realities as much as they should. On July 18, Kayhan daily (affiliated with Khamenei), quoted with some satisfaction remarks by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US national security advisor, at a session with fellows at the RAND Corporation, as saying, “The US government’s actions aimed at removing the Iranian government are not justifiable and make negotiations with Iran more complicated.”
Apparently, Mr. Brzezinski has forgotten that the party which seeks to remove the Iranian dictatorial regime is not the US government but the people of Iran. So, in light of this, does Mr. Brzezinski still believe that the Iranian people's uprising is unjustifiable? It is true that the uprising will complicate Western negotiations with the Iranian regime. But who would expect the Iranian people not to fight for freedom or to tolerate such a dictatorial regime and its suppressive measures just because the US desires to negotiate with the current rulers?
The US Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, said on July 15 at the Council on Foreign Relations that, "We also understand the importance of offering to engage Iran and giving its leaders a clear choice: whether to join the international community as a responsible member or to continue down a path to further isolation.”
Such remarks ignore the fact that since June 12 Iran has entered a qualitatively different phase in which not the regime’s demands or actions but the uprising of the Iranian people is the determining factor for formulation of foreign policy on Iran. Until that time the West completely ignored in its Iran policy the role of the Iranian people and their views regarding the regime, which amounted to a huge blunder in the end. But if the West wants to step on a stable path, then it must take into account the Iranian people and their demands. Otherwise, it will certainly incur losses. The Iranian people are saying, “We do not at all want you to give this regime a chance to join the international community as a responsible member. We do not simply want you to negotiate with the regime or hold the least diplomatic and trade ties with it; we want you to completely chide the regime and impose sanctions against it, since the Iranian people have done so to the point of sacrificing their lives.”
Whoever that is willing to move away from sanctions and still hopes to continue relations with the ruling regime will be sanctioned by the Iranian people. The Nokia Siemens fiasco is a perfect example. The German-based Siemens is about to lose a $300 million contract with Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) for 100 train carts because it, along with the Finnish company Nokia, sold technology to the Iranian regime which the regime uses against the Iranian people’s protests and their communication channels. The criticisms against these companies have brought them shame in the eyes of the Iranian people and the world to the extent that Iranians are now refusing to buy Nokia phones and some politicians and human rights advocates in the US are demanding from Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority to avoid awarding the above-mentioned contract to Siemens as a punishment for its dealings with the clerical regime in Iran.