THIS PAGE WILL BE UPDATED WITH THE LATEST NEWS
UPDATE: 9:00 PM
Twenty Kurdish Freight Carriers Injured in Border Shooting Incident
On Saturday evening, February 24, at least 20 Kurdish kulbars [poor people who carry heavy loads for a living] were wounded due to gunfire by border guards along the border strip of Nowsud in Kermanshah province.
Local human rights organizations reported that these kulbars sustained injuries to their abdomen, back, head, arms, and legs, and were transferred to medical centers in the city of Paveh for treatment.
According to reports, the belongings of these victims, who hail from cities including Dalahoo, Sarvabad, Marivan, Paveh, Javanrood, and Salas-e Babajani, were confiscated by agents of the clerical regime’s security forces.
Among the wounded are identified individuals including Mohammad Moradi, Behnam Keshvari, Hossein Bahrami, Ahsan Hosseini, and Tofiq Bahrami from Javanrood, Mobin Karami, Milad Rostaei, Farzad Rostami, and Amir Rahmani from Dalahoo, Arman Rahmani, Mahmoud Karami, and Meysam Amini from Salas-e Babajani, Kaveh (family name undisclosed) and Mehdi (family name undisclosed) from Marivan, Foad Faizi from Sanandaj, Yahiya Nouri from Sarvabad, and Meysam Rostami from Paveh, totaling 17 injured kulbars whose identities have been verified so far.
Monday Protests in Iran
Today, protests over economic grievances persisted in various cities across Iran. Retirees of the Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI) gathered in Urmia, northwest Iran, demanding increased pensions and improved living conditions. This marked the fifty-third gathering of TCI retirees in the current year, as reported by state media.
The retirees’ protests have been ongoing since the beginning of the year, spanning different cities and occurring on various days of the week. In Tehran, retirees from the TCI rallied against mismanagement and the influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) over the company, chanting slogans condemning the appointment of military personnel in civilian positions.
February 26—Tehran, #Iran
Retirees of the Telecommunication Company of Iran resume their weekly protests to reiterate their demands for higher pensions and other basic needs.#IranProtestspic.twitter.com/fUPXKCDgmB— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) February 26, 2024
Also in Tehran, families of patients suffering from Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) staged a protest in front of the health ministry, highlighting the shortage of essential medication necessary for their treatment.
Simultaneously, nurses in Shiraz voiced their discontent over low wages, non-implementation of tariff laws, excessive workloads, and unfulfilled promises by authorities. They demanded better working conditions and fair compensation for their services.
Meanwhile, in Ahvaz, southwest Iran, workers of the Iran National Steel Industrial Group (INSIG) continued their strikes for the seventh consecutive day. They protested against the dismissal of their colleagues and the authorities’ neglect of their demands.
February 26—Urmia, northwest #Iran
Retirees of the Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI) resume protest rallies, demanding higher pensions and other basic needs.#IranProtestspic.twitter.com/EvtWfAiY22— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) February 26, 2024
The retirees of the Telecommunication Company of Iran also resumed their weekly protests in Tehran, emphasizing their calls for higher pensions and improved living standards.
The protests underscore the widespread discontent among various segments of Iranian society regarding economic hardships, lack of resources, and dissatisfaction with government policies. The demonstrations reflect the ongoing challenges facing the Iranian population amid economic pressures and social unrest.
UPDATE: 7:30 AM
PMOI Resistance Units: It’s Time For A Revolution
Ahead of the Iranian regime’s sham parliamentary elections, scheduled for next week, regime authorities are going to great lengths to plead with the people to vote and offer the regime a façade of legitimacy.
But the Resistance Units, the PMOI’s network of activists inside Iran, are reflecting the true voice of the Iranian people with their activities across the country. Their message: It isn’t time for elections, it is time for a revolution.
In Tehran, the Resistance Units hung a placard with the image of resistance leader Massoud Rajavi and the message: “The time for elections in this regime is over. It’s time for uprisings and revolutions.”
Iran’s Northern Forests Continue to Diminish Due to Government Mismanagement
Officials from Iran’s Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization, in an interview with the ILNA news agency on February 15, underscored that unless government financial support for the protection projects of the Hyrcanian forests in the north of the country increases by more than threefold from its current level, the area of these crucial forests is projected to diminish by about half within the next 50 years.
Concurrently, regime statistics from last summer also revealed that since 1979, 50% of the Hyrcanian forests have been decimated.
According to environmental experts, the neglect of environmental initiatives, deforestation for urban development, wildfires, the destruction of forest lands by government officials or farmers, villa construction, lack of regulation in natural recreation areas, population growth, escalation of wood smuggling due to poverty, as well as the establishment of oil and petrochemical industries, are among the foremost factors contributing to the degradation of the Hyrcanian forests over the past four decades.
IRGC’s Financial Gamesmanship: The Toll on Iran’s People Amidst FATF Blacklisting
The member countries comprising the special financial action group have rebuffed the Iranian regime’s assertion of undertaking effective measures to exit the FATF blacklist.
During the latest FATF member nations’ gathering, it was declared that Iran’s regime fails to meet the conditions for delisting from the organization’s blacklist, primarily due to its failure to ratify the Palermo and CFT conventions alongside unresolved crucial matters.
The acknowledgment of the lack of substantial progress in implementing the action plan by the regime constitutes a dismissal of claims by the central bank and economic authorities regarding FATF’s requested resolutions.
Iran’s Regime Manipulates Statistics to Suppress Dissent and Stifle Criticism
The Deputy Minister of Labor of the Iranian regime has highlighted significant statistical limitations concerning social harms, particularly within the workers’ sector. Mohammad Chakoshian, speaking to the regime’s ILNA news agency, acknowledged the Ministry’s data on social harms as “inaccurate.” He noted, “Our statistical surveys within the labor community are typically outdated, with limited new research in this area.”
Over recent decades, regime institutions have consistently obscured or classified key statistics relevant to evaluating political, economic, and social conditions, hindering access, especially for researchers.
On February 19, Vahid Shariat, head of the Scientific Association of Psychiatrists of Iran, expressed concern to the state news agency ‘IRNA’ about “high suicide statistics” among residents and medical professionals, urging the Ministry of Health to disclose accurate figures and criticizing their confidentiality.
Iran’s Rising Misery Index: A Look at Economic Hardship Across Provinces
State-controlled Iranian state media have reported a surge in the misery index across 25 provinces of Iran over the past year. The economic website ‘Eco Iran’ released a report indicating that by the fall of 2023, the country’s misery index had reached 52 units.
As per the ‘Eco Iran’ report, urban areas experienced a misery level of 3.52 units, while rural areas registered 51.7 units, reflecting a 0.6 unit higher misery level in cities compared to villages.
The report highlights Lorestan province’s cities as having the highest misery rate at 2.64 units, with Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Yazd, and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces also facing elevated levels of misery. Conversely, Tehran province’s cities exhibited the lowest misery level at 44.5 units.
The Winter of Higher Education in Iran
Mehdi Soleimanieh, a sociologist, believes that after the first Cultural Revolution in Iran, it gained more intensity during the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad era (the former regime’s president from 2005 to 2013), moving towards the “purification” of universities, and we have entered the “university winter.” (The Cultural Revolution in Iran refers to a series of events related to the culture of Iran, higher education in Iran, and education in the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially during the years 1980 to 1983. It is said to have taken place with the aim of purging professors and students who were considered by the Iranian regime to be influenced by the West during the specified years.)
According to the regime’s Khabar Online news website, Soleimanieh, speaking at the National Conference on Social and Cultural Research in Iranian Society, stated, “Those currently active within the university and those who have been expelled and are outside are not against each other but are both against the expelling institution.”
Iranian Nurses Quitting Due to Job Difficulty and Low Wages
Mohammad Taghi Jahanpour, the head of the Iranian Nursing Organization, stated that from March 21 to December 21, 2023, 216 nurses resigned due to the difficulty of the job and low wages.
Hussein Qana’ati, the president of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, also mentioned that neighboring Gulf and European countries are recruiting Iranian nurses, describing it as being as common as “drinking a glass of water.”
Jahanpour, on February 24, informed the state-run Mehr news agency that the majority of nurse resignations in the past nine months were concentrated in Tehran, where the highest number of the country’s hospitals is located.
Berkeley, California—February 23, 2024: MEK Supporters Held an Exhibition in Support of the Iranian Revolution
Berkeley, California—February 23, 2024: Members of the Iranian-American Community of Northern California organized an exhibition and info desk at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) to support the Iranian Revolution.
Freedom-loving Iranians in north California said: “Our dedicated volunteers are once again mobilizing at @UCBerkeley, passionately garnering support for the #FreeIran2024. cause. We strongly advocate for the inherent right of the #Iran’ian people to confront the ruling dictatorship and its IRGC.”
supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in Berkeley demanded the trial of the mullahs’ regime leaders, especially Ali Khamenei (Supreme leader of the mullahs’ regime) and the mass murderer Ebrahim Raisi for crimes against humanity, in an international court.